Interview by Rex Evans ’25 and Karianna Klassen ’25.
Kinda is a Syrian refugee currently living in Amman, the capital of Jordan. Before moving to Jordan, Kinda grew up in a large household with nine siblings and studied Economics at Damascus University. Her family stayed in Syria for a few years, hoping to wait out the conflict and remain in their home country. They were eventually forced to leave after their house was seriously damaged in a battle between official Syrian troops and the opposition. Kinda’s family initially fled to Jordan, but now they are spread out with her parents in Saudi Arabia, her brother in Egypt, and one of her sisters in Europe. Leaving behind her home was initially very difficult for Kinda, but she has since found a strong, diverse friend group in Jordan with whom she loves exercising, eating, and traveling. Kinda took classes on human rights, mental health, and psychosocial support to earn a certificate at the German Jordanian University, and now she works with nongovernmental organizations to help others. She still communicates with her remaining family in Syria, and while she is pessimistic about the prospects for peace and stability, Kinda maintains hope that she will be able to return home one day.
Listen to her story, below:
Transcript:
The first thing I remember if I want to say anything regarding Syria, it was the revolution in 2011. The first demonstration broke out was in Daraa city. I came from Daraa city. I was there. It was Friday 18th, 2011. It was the first demonstration in all Syria. Do you know why I remember that day, because it was the first day of my sister’s wedding. So this is why I always didn’t care. “Oh, my God, what happened on your wedding day?” [laughs] So each year when we want, it’s like, to, to say happy anniversary of your wedding, it’s like, that event stuck in my mind. I say, “Okay! And also you remember what happened on your wedding day?” So I was getting ready for my sister’s wedding and that demonstration was happening on the streets.
It was shocking, exciting. We didn’t know how that happened. When I first heard there is demonstration, I was like, “Really? What? No, it’s not real. No, this is… I don’t think this is real.” That demonstration got bigger and bigger and bigger. I saw, I didn’t hear, I saw, the security forces when they came under my house. I could see them from the balcony of my house. The security forces started to shoot people directly. Started to shoot them directly. There was, it’s like, so many killing and injured people. I didn’t understand. That day, on Friday, it’s stuck in my mind. This was maybe ten years ago but it’s stuck on my mind.
My brothers were going to demonstrations. I really wanted to go, but to be honest with you my parents didn’t allow me to go. [laughs] They were very afraid. “No, you’re not going to go, you will be kidnapped, you will be killed! No, we’re…” So yeah, of course I wanted, and… but I couldn’t. [laughs] The curfew started after the demonstrations. The government, maybe they were trying to control the situation on the ground. It didn’t work at all, and then after that everything has changed because the peaceful demonstrations shifted. There was, like, kind of, arms and guns. There were, there were armed opposition.
There was like a kind of fear and insecurity spread all over the city. I remember at the time, we didn’t have the thought that we wanted, it’s like, to leave our country. We just wanted to stay there. But there was, it’s like, a battle between the Syrian soldiers and the opposition soldiers. We woke up in the morning at six AM hearing something very strange. There was like an army, the official army, coming to our neighborhood. So we stuck at home for three days. We could hear the tanks close to our home. We could hear the air jets at low altitude. It was, it’s like, very scary and terrifying just to, to hear the air jets shelling randomly. The tank caused, it’s like, a very high pressure, so that caused the damage for my house. I remember everything was broken around me, the glasses, the windows, the doors. I didn’t know what’s happened. We knew that it was the time, just to, to leave everything. We had been forced to leave our country. It wasn’t optional. This is something very important to other people just to understand. We didn’t have the choice to stay in our home. It’s like we had to leave. We had to run for our lives.
