We Refugees Archive

I didn’t like to receive any help from NGOs or governmental organs. After the three years we stayed here, we got our ID cards, and after we got the ID cards, I registered at the Red Crescent to get the financial support. The financial support only lasts for 3 months. After 3 months, the kids became over 18 so they stopped the support. Other than that, we have school support for our younger son. He is getting 100 liras for every two months. I work with my husband in a mini market, that we are the owners. One of my sons works, he give his salary to family so we live with the income of the shop and his salary.

It’s a Syrian market, we have a lot of Syrian goods in that small shop. The Syrian sellers, they come with cars and give us stuff, we buy from them and put it in the shop and sell it to Syrian people because we have lots of Syrian people in that neighborhood. So they come to buy Syrian bread, other Syrian goods, even Turkish people come and buy some goods from our shop. Yes, we know a lot of people around here. Our living condition is good, not super. The shop is providing the family but it’s condition is not that super. We help people, we tend to help people whenever somebody needs help. […]

We have a Turkish woman here, like she was giving some work for the twins. She was giving them some dresses and she came to us for work and after that she was coming as a friend to our home. She asked us to go her home, we went a couple of times to sit. She sees me as her friend. She sees me as a friend, as equal. Whenever we need some translation in hospital or anywhere, before the children learned Turkish, she was going with me to the hospital without taking any money. She was supporting me, she was a good friend. She has my number, we connect via messages. She sends me messages and I send her messages. My kids translate for me. We are in the same age. She asked to me read some Quran for her, if she’s sick or something like that. When we‘ll go to Mecca, she will get blessing from me. She speaks Turkish and I understand her. We try to communicate in Turkish, she doesn’t speak Arabic. And otherwise, my daughters speak Turkish. She communicates with me in simple sentences and I understand. It has been a long time, for 5-6 six months we didn’t visit each other. But, for Ramadan we send Dua 11In Islam, Dua is a petitionary prayer. or Quran to each other via Whatsapp. Last year, we went together to mosque for the Tarawih pray. 22The Tarawih pray is a special pray involving reading long portions of the Qur’an. Sunni Muslims especially practice it during the holy month of Ramadan after the night prayer. But this year there is no Tarawih due to Covid, so…

Footnotes

• 1In Islam, Dua is a petitionary prayer.
• 2The Tarawih pray is a special pray involving reading long portions of the Qur’an. Sunni Muslims especially practice it during the holy month of Ramadan after the night prayer.

Ummuahmed fled the war in Syria in 2012, together with her family. Since then they live in Istanbul and run a small shop there. In this interview passage, she talks about the different support structures that helped her and her family building a new life in Istanbul.

This interview was conducted in English and Arabic by Elif Yenigün for the We Refugees Archive in 2021.