The earthquake destroyed Rawan’s homes
‘I need to be there, not at a lecture’
It’s Monday, the sixth of February, nine o’clock in the morning. It’s the first day of the second semester and I have readings to go through, a class to attend and tasks to achieve in the coming three months. I look at the white sky and I feel optimistic.
I take my phone and see it has exploded with Whatsapp messages. There’s over sixty messages in the group with my parents and uncles and aunts, nieces and nephews. They are still living in Damascus, the city I fled seven years ago. It must be another bombing, I think. Bombings are still happening all the time in Syria.
When I start reading them, I realise that it is not a bombing at all. They felt an earthquake and a strong one at that. A group chat of friends from Gaziantep, the Turkish city I have lived in ever since I fled Syria, is speaking of it too. I was there only three weeks ago to sell my things and hand over my apartment to a new tenant. And still I think all is normal. Earthquakes happen often enough.
Familiar image
But then I open Facebook and realise this is not a regular earthquake. I’ve felt one two years ago with a magnitude of 5.9 and it was already terrible. I was on the sixth floor, the whole building was shaking and there was nowhere to go and nothing to do but seek shelter under the table and pray. But this one was 7.7 and hit both Northern Syria and South-Eastern Turkey.
Both of my homes.
This is my street, my house, the place I left only weeks ago
And then I jump out of bed. Because there, on my screen is a familiar image. I see a collapsed building and snow, and suddenly realise I know this street. This is my street, my house, the place I left only weeks ago. And now it has changed forever.
My heart sinks.
It’s indescribable what happens to you in a moment like that. You don’t want to believe what is happening, you want to deny it, throw your phone away so you can go on believing that everything is still as you left it. When I left Damasus, I already lost a place I loved so much. It can’t have happened again. It just can’t.
Desperately searching
I frantically start sending messages to everyone I know. Some reply immediately and tell me they are still alive, but standing outside their homes in snow-covered parks, or that they went to mosques or municipal facilities seeking warmth and safety. Others don’t answer, sending me on a desperate search for information. I try to contact friends of friends, family. And all the time photos of destroyed buildings and people trapped under the rubble keep pouring in.
I feel utterly useless. I want to be there, helping and searching, doing something. But I have lectures, seminars and readings, that feel utterly unimportant now. My mind and heart are under rubble somewhere between Kahramanmaras and Damascus. People are dying. I need to be where the earthquake was, not where the lecture is.
I want to be there, helping and searching, doing something
But here in Groningen everyone is just going about their business. Sure, it’s on the news, people have heard about it, some text me to say they’re sorry, or I should stay strong. Yet at the same time they have no idea what I’m going through, or my fellow students from Turkey and Syria.
I’m looking for initiatives to join, support groups, fundraising campaigns, but I can’t find them. I’m looking at the website of the university, expecting to see at least a statement of the uni, saying they stand by us and feel for us, but there is nothing. I contact some people who work for the university asking if they know anything. But they cannot help either. ‘We’re trying to put something together’, they tell me. ‘We will be in touch if anything happens.’
Nothing to offer
And all the time people are dying under the rubble and freezing in the snow. Even worse is the realisation that while in Turkey the government is responding swiftly, in Syria people have nothing and no one is saving them. The Syrian government has nothing to offer and I don’t think they care. It feels like a favour to the government that an earthquake killed so many of the people who are still left.
I go to class. Not because I care, but because the news is eating me alive. I try my best to be present, but I can’t focus.
People here don’t really seem affected by this disaster
I decide not to go to the second one. There is no point in being present when the words that fill the space don’t find a way to enter my brain.
The days after, things only get worse. Every hour new names pop into my head of people I still don’t know are safe. Every hour the magnitude of the disaster sinks in a little deeper. I miss more seminars – mandatory, but my Groningen agenda just doesn’t fit into my head. I send an apology and explanation to my teacher. I don’t get any response.
Reached out
It feels like here in Groningen, you need to go on, do your job, attend your classes, whatever you feel. Luckily, I have friends, who have my back and helped me out. But it would have made such a difference if a teacher had reached out and just told me: don’t worry. It’s okay.
I’m thinking of the moment Queen Elizabeth died. It seemed like the world stopped for a moment. Her picture was everywhere, everyone seemed to empathise with her family. But even though this disaster is on the news, people don’t seem affected. Not really.
Twelve years of war made sadness a small word to describe what Syrian people are going through. Life can be even harder than it was already. Things we thought we adapted to are still inside us and with this earthquake are happening again and again. After we have regained our balance, the grief will stay for a long period. Syrian and Turkish people will remember this black day with tears and fear. And I will always feel that I couldn’t be there, at the moment my countries needed me the most.