The Same Van. A Different Story

Every Eid, a van drove through our refugee camp and threw toys out the back.

We chased it through the dust and the mud while the soldiers laughed.

That was how they gave gifts to children.

They could have parked it. Walked over. Put a toy in a kid's hands and looked us in the eye.

They chose not to.

They made us run for it.

Made a game out of watching us scramble for something that should have just been handed to us.

I didn't have the word for it back then.

I do now.

It was dehumanizing.

I carried that feeling for years. The vans, the dust, the laughing.

I've learned a lot about my self and that memory over time.

You don't get to erase it. You only get to decide what it becomes.

So years later, I got that same van. A VW Bus.

The exact thing that once meant humiliation.

And I changed what it stood for.

First I turned it into a moving t-shirt shop, a brand called Refutees, and used it to give back to my own community.

Then I rebuilt it into a podcast studio, where authors climb in and share their stories, their work, the things they were once too afraid to say out loud.

Same van with much more meaning.

They used it to take something from us.

I use it to give something back.

You don't always get to choose what happens to you.

But you always get to decide what you do with it.