Every piece of advice I give is a reminder to myself first and foremost.
It was a beautiful day when we arrived to the venue in Toronto. The field, somewhere near the University of Toronto, was filled with hundreds of people seated on the cloth laid out neatly on the grass. A couple of meters behind, students were bustling near the stationed tables to register for the tournament. Our team, numbering around a hundred or so, had just arrived from New York, and it seemed like everyone else had just made their way into the country too.
This wasn’t just any tournament; for most of us, this was the highlight of our entire year. Students from all across the United States, most who competed and won the regionals tournament, traveled to Canada in hopes of competing in the annual nationals competition called the Muslim Interscholastic Tournament (MIST). It was hard to feel competitive, though, when you were too excited meeting people who came from different places. Competitors were chatting and laughing, teams were taking hilarious group pictures, and people from different regions began embracing each other. There were people from California, Tennessee, Detroit, DC, Houston, etc. The interesting thing was, although we were very far, I couldn’t help but feel at home being surrounded by such a large community of the same faith. It felt less like a tournament and more like a very large family reunion. The air was filled with so much delight and excitement you could almost see everyone glowing. I think the über boring bus ride had something to do with it, but in MIST, everything is always exciting.
The first day of the tournament was on a Friday, the special prayer day for Muslims. Like the usual Friday before the special prayer, a scholarly person, know as the imam, gives a lecture while everyone else sits down and listens. After our team was done taking a group picture, we headed to the prayer, and I went to the front, where I sat down in a spot close to the imam, not noticing the little boy sitting to my right.
After the lecture was finished and we had all prayed the mandatory prayer together, I turned to my sides to give my Salaam (generally, a Muslim’s way of greeting another Muslim by saying, “Peace and blessings be upon you!”, which is usually said in Arabic). When I turned to greet to my right, I was facing a small, light-skinned boy who couldn’t have been older than the age of six. He had a round head with small ears and soft hazelnut eyes that looked somewhat fearful for some reason. Intrigued, I gave him my Salaam, and he responded to the Arabic greeting so fluently it sounded natural coming from the young boy. Now initially, I believed he was the son of parents who came as guests to the tournament, and because of his scared look, I asked him softly, “Hey, where are you from?” I expected him to say Irvine, or Boston, or any of the fifteen MIST regions that were here for the competition. But the child responded in a solemn voice, “Syria.”
I was taken aback at first, it wasn’t a response I had assumed at all. Fearful of asking him something wrong, but still curious, I asked him, “How long have you been here?” He thought about it for a second, then turned to his older brother (who only looked about three years older) and asked him, to which his brother replied, “Ten.”
“Ten days? Ten weeks?”
“Days.”
Only ten days. I was talking to refugees who had just gotten into Canada, and I had completely forgotten that Canada had been accepting Syrian refugees into the country and didn't even expect to meet one in the first place. Yet, here I was right in front of them, and I had no words. I didn’t know what to say because I feared what they were feeling, that if I asked too much I would hurt them. So I looked at the little kid to whom I gave Salaam and asked him, "Can I give you a hug?" Without any sense of shyness or hesitation, he gave me a beautiful, warm smile and embraced me tightly before I even had the chance to open my arms wide. For those few seconds, I felt so sad that I couldn't do more to help these two brothers. And at the same time, I felt a world full of joy that I was able to put a smile on the child's face, and give him a hug to let him know that even if we didn't know each other, those few seconds made me love him as a brother who shared the same faith. In those few seconds, I felt his struggles and frustration, and at the same time, his happiness and relief at being able to find someone to share that hug with.
The reason why I share this story is because it reminds me of how people are like books, each with their own story to tell. Learning what people have been through can bring us closer as a society and open us to perspectives and feelings we didn’t have before. It’s one thing to know what’s going on in Syria, and another to actually meet someone who has been there and struggled to leave his/her country. As a student living in New York City, sometimes it’s really hard to get the chance to value people’s stories, and take the time to get to know people and what kind of lives they've lived. But every once in awhile, I’ve learned not to mind being stopped by that generous old person who shares his/her childhood stories. I now know that sometimes, it doesn’t hurt to get to know that random stranger on the train who's complaining about the MTA service, or that really friendly uncle who goes to the prayer place often and loves to give religious reminders.
Every day, we miss out on the chance to learn hundreds of people’s stories just by walking past them. However, if we take the time to open the covers to the stories of people, it may end up in a hug we’ll never regret embracing.
