First she is only 12. Second she has been living in the mud and filth of Idomeni now for one whole week while her family wait to see what happens. Third her favorite colours are pink and red. She was wearing pink. It was a muddy pink but it was pink. And she has a beautiful smile. 

Her name is Zeyneb. Her mother and brother are already in Holland. Zeyneb doesn’t like it at Idomeni and who could blame her. The day and night before it rained and rained and in the morning it was still raining.  

“It was cold,” she said, “freezing. And the tent filled with water. The blankets were so wet.”  

She learned to speak English in Aleppo and then, when her family fled that city, in Lebanon. They have been out of Syria for 2 years. When they get to Holland she would like to go to school and “study very well.” She wants to be – her words – “a very important person.” She will be “very proud of herself.” And then, I asked her how she spent her days in Idomeni. Her father said something to her, joking, and she responded with a small cry I initially took for a laugh, and then she rushed into his arms and started to cry. Sob. And then he started to cry. It was the most heartbreaking thing to see these two people, father and daughter, wrapped in this embrace. They stayed like that, Zeyneb in her father’s arms for a good few minutes, her crying, him in tears. Then they walked away.  

We asked a friend why she was crying and he said, she feels like she is the responsible one, that she has to take care of everyone in the family. “It’s all on her,” the friend said. We stayed there for a few minutes and watched as she and her father set to work trying to fix a zip on the tent they were living in, this small young, gorgeous girl, trying to be brave, trying to distract herself from the misery of the life that surrounds them right now.  

And then, she walked back up to me. Clear-eyed, sweet smile on her face.  

“I’m ready to continue the interview,” she said. “I promise I won’t cry again. Ask me anything you want."  

And that of course about broke my heart.  

March 2016