Roy

Growing up, I was close with my brothers and sister, but I never got close with my step-mom. I don’t talk to my family much anymore. My dad is in Turkey now and only my grandmother is still in Syria. As a child, I did gymnastics and I liked to go to the swimming pool. I would play football and everyday after lunch, I would go to gymnastics. In Syria, I learned how to make sweets. I loved cooking. I was a chef and I had a job making sweets. My favorite thing to make were cakes. I don’t really have a favorite memory from Syria because I don’t remember that time fondly. I liked whenever I traveled to Turkey because it would be very hot, which is my favorite kind of weather. Traveling was one of my favorite memories and I would visit Turkey a lot.

My family decided to leave Syria because of the war. I was 17 years old when we left. It was hard to leave but we could not do anything. It was not our decision. Now it will be a just memory forever. They were my hard days. It was especially hard because we had to choose to die or to have a new life. When we left, we ended up going to the border of Turkey and then to Istanbul.
We didn’t really have to do anything once we got there because my brother was in Turkey, so we went to his house. The very next day, I went to work to save money to go to Europe. I wanted to find anything, I wanted to work. Turkish is not my language, I do not speak Turkish so whatever job there was, I wanted to do. When I finally came to Greece, I felt like I learned everything. Greece was like a school for me. Yeah living here is hard, it can be a lot. Sometimes, I would feel alone when I first came to Europe. Greece was nice but there are very difficult moments. You are young, you live with a lot of international people in the camp. You have to be strong or people will fight with you, they might steal your stuff. But I am young and strong.
Right now I am living in Greece, teaching Arabic while working with OCC. I like teaching.

Sometimes, when we have events, I will cook sweets for my students because I am a chef. While living with many international people, I made a lot of friends. I have friends from everywhere, all the nationalities. I do not think I will ever go back to Syria, I do not wish to return. In the future, I hope to have my own business. I want to have my own sweet shop and
sell cakes. I’d also like to be famous one day. That would be nice.