‘I have been enrolled at the local school here in Jordan for a month. I am very excited that I am finally able to go to school after two years of war. They have started special shifts in the afternoon for us, the Syrian refugee children. They even gave me a special backpack, but I prefer not to stand out. As soon as the war is over I want to go back to home to Syria. I don’t always like the way we are treated here and they have even hit me in school. I miss my family and friends a lot. In the evening I have to do homework but sometimes we don’t have a lot of light because there are frequent power cuts. My father has arranged that we get our electricity from the neighbor’s, we have to pay them 35 dollars. That is a lot of money as we don’t have any income and we are not allowed to work here. We receive vouchers that we can exchange for food and water.
Esseline van de Sande