How I Lost My Scarf

Photo: Liviu Bocaniala 
in the middle between Mateja and Marko Stupar.

Author: Liviu Bocaniala

I am no hero.

I am just a poet, a bare foot one, most of times.

The words are my very best friends, and in some instances, my worst enemies.  This is one of those instances – how and where do you start to describe, or explain, or make one blind observer of the whole situation understand what is really going on? 

And what is really going on?

So I thought to myself to simply describe how I met my new friends from Syria.

I do not know how to recognize a terrorist (unless it is bloody obvious!).  So I am not really sure if there were any amongst the people we met.  All I could tell you is that when we reached the border between Serbia and Hungary on our first day there, we saw simple people of flesh and blood and sweat and tears; and dreams and hopes.  In the middle of those piles of litter the miracle of a smile made more sense than ever.  The smile of a child running around careless, the smile of a mother exercising her role with holy cadences, the smile of a dusty dark men…  the more one would smile at us, the more tears I could feel filling up my chest. 

They soon started rolling down my cheeks, while I offered a bag with some food and some water to a woman holding a three months old baby in her arms.  What a way to enter the world!  It didn’t make any sense.  “What an incredible mess!”, I turned around and told Tihomir and then I run and hid behind the van ashamed of my tears.

Out of that crowd, two young men approached us; again, smiling; and we started talking to them.  They were both studying English literature back in Syria.  They told us their story of the last two months’ trip until the Hungarian border.  They didn’t want any food, or water.  “There are others who need it more”, they told us, and they actually helped us deliver some packages.

As we were talking, they asked me, “Do you have any coffee?  We didn’t have any coffee for the last twenty days…”.  Knowing my addiction to excellent coffee, I did understand them.  And while we were preparing to leave, hugging and taking pictures with them, I went to a tent where I’ve noticed that a charity from Romania was offering tea and asked them if they had any coffee in their supplies.  After a minute, one of the Romanians came out and handed me the only jar of soluble coffee that somehow was hiding in their luggage.  I asked my friends to hold the van for a minute and run towards the actual border where I saw our new friends walking after we said our goodbyes.  I spotted them in the middle of a large group, sitting quietly on the ground, surrounded by groups of journalists, just in front of the barriers – their way of protesting to the whole messy situation.  I handed them the jar of cheap coffee, apologising for God knows what, as if their lack of coffee was my fault.  And run back to the van.

Syrian refugees stuck at the Hungarian border

Two days after this, and about a thousand and more people later, to whom we offered water and some supplies to help them continue the trip, in the middle of a field of corn just around the corner from the Serbian/Croatian border, two large surprised smiles of our two new friends greeted us from the crowd.  We welcomed them as if they were old friends.  It was a short encounter this time.  They were rushing towards the Croatian border.  We said goodbye, again, setting our hopes higher this time and promising each other to have coffee together in a free world, in a pub in Norway.  We gave them more coffee and I wrapped my scarf around the neck of one of them…

I thank God for this story of newborn friendship in the middle of all that panic and terror and hopelessness.  I do not know if I will ever meet those two Syrians ever again.  I do not know where they are.  I do not know if they were saints or something else? I still know next to nothing about them.

But I do know that, if I will ever find myself walking the streets of any free city in any free country, anywhere in a free world, and I will recognize my friends, it will be my honour to treat them to a cup of excellent coffee.  And take time and listen to their story again.

And don’t worry, I will know them by the scarf…

Author: Liviu Bocaniala