CROSSING TO EUROPE
128 | July• 2019
was across the sea to one of the Greek
islands. On the map it didn’t look too
hard.
My parents said they were too old
to make the trip, so they stayed in
Gaziantep. My brother Mustafa also
stayed behind, to earn money to pay
for our trip. So from our immediate
family, it was just Nasrine and I who
were going, along with my uncle and
some cousins.
In August 2015, Mustafa arranged
for Nasrine and me to take the two-
hour flight across Turkey to Izmir,
on the Aegean coast. We stayed with
cousins in a hotel around the corner
from Basmane Square, which seemed
like an open-air travel agency. Every-
one was on the phone haggling with
smugglers and their agents, negotiat-
ing passage to Greece and beyond.
While Uncle Ahmed arranged the
boat, we went to buy life jackets as
well as the balloons for our phones.
Finally, on our tenth day in Izmir,
Uncle Ahmed found a boat that would
take us to Lesbos. It was time to go.
ROUGH SEAS
There were four boats on the pebbly
beach that day. The motors were at-
tached, and the dinghies were pushed
into the water. Then everyone waded
through the shallows to clamber in.
Suddenly, I realised I was the only one
left on shore. In her anxiety to go, even
Nasrine had climbed on board. “What
about me?” I yelled.
Some Moroccans, still waiting for
their boat, carried me out to the din-
ghy in my chair. They lifted me in.
Then Uncle Ahmed started the engine.
From the sea, the island lookedmuch farther away. Our dark grey
dinghy was very small. The other boats
had 50 or so people crammed in. We
had paid extra, just to be 38 of us. Even
so, it felt very squashed, especially
with my wheelchair, since the tag on
the boat said ‘15 Max’.
We were all tired and a little dazed
from two days with little sleep, and
then being in the hot sun with nothing
to eat or drink. My relatives were sad
and quiet; many had closed their eyes
and were praying.
Uncle Ahmed was all fur-
row-browed trying to drive the boat.
He’d spent the last two days in Izmir
studying YouTube videos on how to
do it. At the start he gunned the en-
gine too much and we shot forwards.
The sea was rougher than it had
been earlier in the day, and when weI THOUGHT OF MYSELF LIKE POSEIDON, GOD OF THE
SEA, IN HIS CHARIOT."HOW BEAUTIFUL IT IS,"
I CRIED AS WE WERE TOSSED UP AND DOWN