Khawla Bsikri

I never once imagined that I would abandon my childhood home, but evacuation orders had another say. My mother asked me to be prepared to leave. Despite everything, at first, I was firmly against it. However, my father convinced me of the plan to escape. Little did we know that the suitcase we packed for three days turned into three years.

My name is Khawla Bsikri, I’m a visual artist.

Following our evacuation, we went to my aunt's house in “Al Hadaik” far from the war zone. We were safe, but we were worried and anxious about my father, who was stuck at our house. At that time, I felt as if life had stopped. I was hopeless, helpless, depressed, and with nothing to do but wait. After two months, thankfully, my father made it out of the house safely. Afterwards, we rented a house together and have lived in peace.

In the face of everything, I have tried my best to relieve the stress and make the best out of the challenging displacement experience. I started volunteering and teaching at “Al Amaal Al Kabeer” school, preparing the kids for school before it started. I taught 5th graders in both maths and English. For the first time, I saw kids happy and even excited for school to start.

Being displaced is a heavily emotional experience. And as a form of expressing my sadness and despair, I started painting. And did not stop there; my friends and I formed our fine art and painting club, and we organised many activities and courses in art for ourselves and other children.

In January 2017, we decided to move back home; after the military sweep team had cleared the area from explosives. But what once was called my home had become a terrifying scene of a rubble, and most of the neighbours’ houses had become unrecognisable wreckage. The neighbourhood had become a ghost town, dead and deserted.

I still wake up to scenes of wrecked buildings to this day. However, I’m hopeful that one day we will recover from this war and its deeply rooted wounds. Homes will be retrieved, and neighbours will return. We will eventually rebuild and restore our town to its magnificent historical glory.