Yursa

Name - Yusra Madradini

Lived - Damascus Syria 

Once upon a time in Damascus Syria there was a swimmer called Yusra. Yusra hadn’t always been a strong swimmer, when she was little she was scared of the pool. While the other kids swam,  she’d stand at the edge of the of the deep end of the pool staring at the water she could barely see the bottom. And when she thought about plunging in headfirst her heartbeat a little faster. But, the pool didn’t just scare her, it exited her too! So little by little she braved the water, she dipped her toes, tried staying afloat and plunged her head under water, for just a second. And eventually she was swimming, not just swimming but swimming competitively. Her Dad trained her and her older sister, she was winning competitions left and right. She could barely remember what it felt like to be scared of the water, now the pool was her favourite place because swimming made Yusra feel that she had been transported to a different world. When she dove in, all the noise around her disappeared. And as she swam pushing herself to go faster, always faster all she could hear was her heartbeat and the water, swimming made her problems disappear. But, when she was thirteen Yusra had problems the swimming couldn’t solve. Her country was at war. Many Syrians wanted wanted the government to be a democracy, but the countries president Assad didn’t. So there were huge protests people gathered in the streets to speak their minds and the government shot them. Brave people protested more and the violence got worse by the time Yusra was thirteen the conflict between the protesters and the government had turned into a full blown civil war. Rebel groups formed around the country and battled the government for control of cities. Yusra and her family, her Mum, Dad, and two sisters heard more bad news everyday people were dying, not just rebel fighters or government soldiers but regular people too. For the first year they were safe in the suburbs of Damascus, the capital of Syria, but eventually the fighting reached the outskirts of the city Yusra and her neighbors could hear machine guns and explosives in the distance. After just a view more months the war had reached the middle of Damascus. One day Yusra and her father were walking to the gym so that she could train in the pool there when they reached the building they could she that the roof had huge gaping holes in it. Rebel and dust had fallen in her pool. Yusra’s training centre had been bombed she had no place to swim any more and soon there were few safe neighborhoods in the city. Bullets and Shrapnel shells blew threw the streets of all hours of the day and massive military tanks rolled through residential neighborhoods. Yusra and her family lived in constant fear. At fourteen Yusra saw just one way out they had to leave it was dangerous but so was staying and what kind of life did they have here as they watched their city be destroyed. Yusra begged her parents to make the trip to europe but they told her no, it was too dangerous for all 5 of them to go with their little sister Jahan who is just a toddler. It was too risky, they would have to wait. Then the bombing reached their neighborhood and they house was destroyed, no one was home when it happened so everyone was safe but they had lost everything. Yusra’s mother came to her with a plan, tears rolled down her cheeks as she spoke, two of Yusra’s cousins were planning to take the long dangerous trip to europe and they had offered to take Yusra and her older sister with them. It was unclear when her parents and the rest of her family would join her but for now the girls would get out. The journey was dangerous but, staying in Damascus was even more terrifying. The plan was to go to Berlin, Germany where many other Syrian residents had fled, maybe they could find a welcoming community there and Yusra hoped that maybe she could swim again, she’d heard that they had good swimmers in Germany. The day she left Yusra hugged her parents and younger sister goodbye choking back tears. She left Damascus with almost nothing a cellphone, some clothes and cash to pay the smugglers that would help her and Sarah sneak across borders because in many of the neighboring countries Syrian refugees were not welcome. They set off with their cousins and a group of other refugees first they flew to Beirut, Lebanon then to Istanbul, Turkey. Every step of the way they were terrified of being caught by police who would surely send them back to Syria. From Istanbul they made there way south to a part of Turkish coast, closest to Greek Island called Lesbos, there they meet up with the smugglers that had agreed to help them, in exchange for money. They were about to embark on the most dangerous leg of their journey - white boat. Yusra and Sarah hid with the group in the woods by the beach, they were waiting for the right moment when the smugglers thought it was safe to make a move they needed calm waters and to avoid the turkish coast guards. Finally it was time, the smugglers loaded them onto a tiny boat at the dock and pushed them out to sea the little motor whirring but, almost just as they had set off they were spotted by turkish coast guards who forced them back to shore. Yusra got a nervous feeling in her stomach like butterflies, but not the good kind, this was going to be harder than they thought. They decided to try again just as the sun had gone down, now with the cover of darkness they might just have a shot. The drone of the engine forced them all into silence and slowly the coast behind started to shrink, the trees they had hidden in for days got shorter and shorter as they speed away out into the medateraineun sea. But, then 20 minutes after they’d left the coast the engine shifted a bit higher like it was working hard and then it spluttered going slower and slower until it stopped the motor was broken and while they tried to fix it water was slowly creeping into the boat. See, the tiny dingy was only supposed to hold 6 people but the smugglers had cramped in 20 and most of them didn’t know how to swim, frantic they started splashing water out of the boat and doing everything they could to make it lighter they threw there bags and any belongings they had brought with them from Syria into the water trying desperately to stop the boat from sinking. But none of it helped, the water was at Yusra’s ankles and she knew she had to do something she thought to herself it would be a shame for us to drown here when I am a strong swimmer. She looked at Sarah and they both knew what they had to do. They jumped into the cold water with two other people. Out of the 20 on the boat only 4 could swim. Yusra went in front of the boat so she could pull it with a rope she used her other hand and her feet to swim, five minutes passed and then twenty. Yusra’s eyes burned from the salty water. The boat was heavy with 16 people on board and only 4 of them pulling and swimming the struggle was immense. They’d been swimming for a full hour inching towards the Greek Island of Lebos so slowly it was hard to tell if they we getting closer or not. Yusra’s legs were tired but she knew she couldn’t stop kicking. Her flip flops slipped off her feet and floated away, any concern for her clothes, all she had now was gone. Her soul focus was getting everyone to shore alive. She wrapped her hand tighter around the rope and kept swimming they pushed and pulled and pulled and pushed, Yushra was so tired she didn’t know if she could keep going. Would they die here would they ever see their parents and little sister again. Yusra wanted to cry but couldn’t because when she looked up at the boat, she saw that one of the boys in the crew was watching her swim. He was just 6 years old not much older than Yusra’s little sister so, Yusra forced a smile and she tried to make him laugh she didn’t want him to think that we were going to die here even if they might. Now her hand was raw from holding the rope, her feet were numb from the cold water, her eyes still burned and her eyes and her mouth attacked from the by the salt, but she keep swimming. Then Yusra was sure she wasn’t imagneing it this time the shore was getting closer, they were going to make it! Yusra, Sarah and the other 2 swimmers dragged the boat onto the shore and collapsed onto the ground they’d swam for 3 and a ½ hours. They’d saved themselves and 16 other refugees they’d made it, now they just had to get to Berlin. They travelled North from country to country, crossing borders however they could. After tracking threw Serbia they hid for hours in a corn field waiting for the right moment to sneak to Hungary. Finally in the middle of the night they made a run for it not long after they crossed the border, the Hungarian police caught them and took them to a nearby refugee camp on the way Yusra and Sarah looked at each other and they started laughing. When the police demanded to know what was so funny they laughed harder. Yusra thought to herself we were going to die in the sea and now you should be scared of you. Of course, once they got to the refugee camp they ran away the first chance they got, these girls were not to be stopped they hadn’t yet reached their final destination. After a month long trip across 9 countries Yusra was in Berlin. Things were far from perfect, she slept on the ground at a refugee camp for months after she got there, but she was safe and she’d heard about a swimming club. Yusra decided to try out for the team it had been 2 years since she had been in training so she was out of shape. The coach could tell she was good. She had great technique but more important than that he could see that she loved swimming. Yusra started getting herself back into training, she’d wake up at 6:00 so she could swim before school, then head straight back to the pool after class. Yusra’s times were improving fast and people were starting to notice her. Her coach hoped that she would compete in the olympics in 2020 but she would become an Olympian much sooner than that. In 2016 the olympics created the first refugee olympic team she was one of 10 athletes from around the world that would compete at the Olympics as refugees. She competed in the 100m butterfly, she didn’t medal at the 2016 olympics but she has her eye of gold for the 2020 Olympics. She still lives in Berlin where her parents and little sister now live too!

image attribution - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yusra_Mardini.jpg