Ahed

By karim Aboul-Dahab

“Ahed” follows the story of little girl who immigrated to a Turkish camp with her mother and grand-dad, in order to escape the war in Syria. In the beginning of the story, the little family tried hard to adapt to the camping conditions like little food or resources to spare , moreover the challenges associated with the cultural adaptation especially for a little girl that want to continue her education in turkey , Indeed , the consequences of the civil war apparently affected the behavior of the little girl “Ahed “ that recalls the war dark memories especially during her dreams , another challenge the family faced was to reunion back in turkey as "Aheds" father was arrested in a protest during the Syrian revolution and her elder sister became widowed few months after getting married to one of the fighters against the Syrian regime .

• Language: English
• Publisher: karim Aboul-Dahab
• Release date: Dec 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005040833

karim Aboul-Dahab

Karim has completed his Doctorate degree in Business Administration (DBA) on march 2021 at the graduate school of business at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport, Karim DBA dissertation addressed the efficiency of the Logistics Performance Index (LPI) Weighting System produced by the World Bank, this is his first novel.

Book preview

Ahed

by

Karim Aboul-Dahab

Copyright © 2013 Karim Aboul-Dahab

Published by Karim Aboul-Dhab at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Chapter One the Way Forward

Chapter Two the Way Out

Chapter Three the Way Backwards

About Karim Aboul-Dahab

Connect with Karim Aboul-Dahab

Acknowledgements

To my Mum who taught me manners

To my Dad who tolerated me at my worst

My two brothers and sisters who I truly love

To My wife and lovely kid yahia

To all Syrians and to whom it may concern, I dedicate this novel

Prologue

With the Syrian crisis approaching its tenth year, the Syrian people all over the world are still suffering from a tremendous tragedy, as Syrians now constitute the largest group of refugees around the world. Firstly I decided to name my book Syrian thoughts or insights, However, due to the excessive use of these terms by Syrian food restaurants in Egypt, I then decided to create a unique name for a novel instead, so I decided to name my novel Ahed, which is the name of the child around whom the events of the novel revolve, Ahed عهد is an Arabic name that means loyalty, guarantee, oath, affection, the characters mentioned in the novel are fictional, any similarity between the events of the story and reality is real. As I gathered my information mainly form the articles published in Syrian my website, especially the ones published via https://www.enabbaladi.net/ and https://syriauntold.com/ar/ .The novel did not address all the problems and crises that faced the Syrian brothers during the past ten years or the black decade in the modern history of Syria, so this novel is nothing but an attempt to convey the suffering of Syrian refugees in the camps.

Chapter One

The Way Forward

1

The thirtieth of December 2014, Ahed sits next to her grandfather while staring at the sky that burns with fireworks to celebrate a new year, bidding farewell to the past year with all the joys, sorrows, successes and wars that brought with it. As a five years old girl, she hardly knows the meaning of the word opposition, especially in politics. Her main fault was that her place of birth Aleppo had become under the control of the opposition.

This festive scene made her shiver. She no longer tolerated this kind of joke. She put both hands on her ears, so that she would not hear the sound of missiles, or perhaps she wanted to forget this sound effect, that simply reminds her of the devastation that she left in Syria, the grandfather looked at her and understood what was going on her mind, The grandfather could not contain himself from laughing, then he smiled at her, saying: Do not be afraid, my daughter.

These missiles are only for celebration. They will not cause us harm. She slipped her hand from her ears and said: Why do they use the missiles in the celebration? Aren't the same missiles that expelled us from our town, The grandfather nodded and said: These missiles do make noise but do not cause destruction. Ahed stared at him and the innocence of the children in her eyes. Then she asked him: Why didn’t they use in Syria?

The grandfather replied: Simply, because they wanted to destroy it. Ahed thought a little bit, then she asked: are they feel happy cause we have left our homes and became homeless?

The grandfather stared at the sky again and then said: My daughter, do not be tempted by the appearance of the clean contemporary civilization, which moves on the clock, and which criminalizes picking flowers or branches from public gardens, or to scratch the hair of a dog Or a cat, This civilization itself is ready to exterminate specific ethnic groups if they conflict with their interests, she couldn’t get his words, as if he was speaking to her in a different language, so she asked for clarification: Why did they demolish our house?, The grandfather then replied: They did not mean us specifically, they were looking for the key to the Levant, and our destiny was to be born in the Levant, then added: The problem is that the world today deals with humans as a census, something like inanimate objects, so they deal with the Syrian war as it will end with reconstruction And they will forget any human tragedy, Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by a screaming sound from Lisaa(ليساء), Aheds mother, a middle age female searching for a more meaning in her life, The grandfather looked behind him and then said: It seems that it’s your mother looking for us. Ahed looks to the right to find her mother, Lisaa promptly said. Why you are sitting away from the camp at this late hour, the grandfather looks at the sky and prays to the Almighty God to give him the courage to begin again and to overlook the difficulties in the new year, Lissa then sit next to her daughter and asked: Have you heard the latest news? The grandfather pretends not to care and looks in front of him in the empty space, so she continues her talk, the Syrian army fired Scud ballistic missiles at the rebel positions in Syria, and...., the grandfather interrupts her speech by saying: Why haven’t left the war and the destruction to talk about it, for God's sake, would you talk about something else.

2

Staying on Refugee camp doesn’t exactly looks like a district in a partly human life style ,on a land site of around ten acres a dark white tents scattered on a snowy ground, the tents couldn’t be distinguished by the printed numbers or the image of a mother and child, a globe, olive branches that represents the UNICEF logo, the only way to discriminate between the residents tents is the clothesline connecting the tents that strengthen the belongingness and solidarity among the camp residents, they now belong to the same tribe that struggles for life.

The grandfather woke up that morning after hearing a loud noise coming from every corner of the tent, all of a sudden he realized that his soul has been transferred from the fictitious life to the real one, then he rubbed his eyes to start his daily suffering.

Perhaps the trade-off between defecating or having breakfast, was all what matters after waking up in the morning, as the waiting time for any of them is too long, standing in line for an hour or more to urinate tells everything about their suffering, during the morning rush hour it might be better for an aging person to stay home at his tent instead, all of a sudden Lissa screamed at her daughter to catch up with the breakfast queue, the grandfather grumbles about the toughness and rigid way in dealing with her daughter, then he interrupted her with his soft voice: Good morning, Lissa, What's your problem?, she responded: nothing ,she must wake-up now to wait for our turn in the breakfast queue ,as we couldn't leave her alone in the tent.

The Grandpa gave Ahed a look of pity while her mother trying to wake her up from her floor sleeping bed, then he said: leave her asleep and do not wake her, I will sit with her until you finishes the morning queue, Lisa set out to catch her share of bread and thyme before they run out, life in the camp, has a fixed schedule for eating and drinking similar to staying at an hotel, but the only difference is the quantities of food, one of the main objectives of the camp is to avoid overeating and to maintain a healthy lifestyle ,something a five stars hotel have probably never thought about, If this could tell you just one thing is, healthy lifestyle comes first at the camp.

In a Parallel World Amalأمل lissas elder daughter carries her three-month-old baby, she contemplates the burial of her martyred husband, no one would recognize her after hiding her face ,through the Eyes of Sadness, drenched in grief after the farewell, Amal adieu her knight with mixed feelings.

In the beginning, perhaps her mother she was gloated today for her misfortune. The impact of her words of advice hadn’t change her decision to marry her Chechen husband, the Knight of Dreams turned to a nightmare, the fighter who came to protect her village from the forces of darkness has passed away few weeks after her mother left the battlefield in Aleppo, she left her to face her fate by