Meeting Lamira's family

The autumn two years ago I meet Lamira for the first time. We were both accepted to study at the United World College of the Adriatic, located in Duino, an idyllic sea side town in the Northern part of Italy. When Lamira told me that she is from Western-Sahara, I must admit that I had never heard about this country before. “I have never been to my home country”, she told another time. “I am born in a refugee camp in Algeria”. I didn´t really understand the meaning of these words before I sat down with Lamira one time into the second term in the college and she told about her life as a refugee in the desert in Algeria. But still I wasn´t able to imagine and understand what it meant… Then as time passed, our daily chats were more about our struggle with Biology, history essays and other things that bother you in an UWC and I stopped asking her about her life back home... In April I was accepted to go the refugee camps, where Lamira grew up, to do Voluntary work for three months. When people asked me why I decided to apply I always said – I meet this amazing Saharawi girl in my high School in Italy. She made me interested in the conflict and the situation of the refugees. My local newspaper even published a picture of Lamira when they wrote about me going to the camps. One of my missions during my time here in the camps was to meet her family. Many times I have wished Lamira was in the camp with me. After being in the refugee camps for the two months I finally got the possibility to meet Lamira´s family in Daklha. We left El Laayone before sun rise and as we continued driving the landscape changed and it got more and more mountainous. Finally, after four hours of driving we approached Dakhla. I got the same feelings as the day I arrived to the refugee camp for the first time. Again I was amazed that people can live in the middle of the desert, so isolated. I asked myself – why did they decide to build a camp here, so far away from everything else. It is two-three hours from Rabony. Later on, we were told that Daklha is where it is because of the water.

Lamira´s house was in outskirt of the camp, in an idyllic location with sand dunes and palms right behind their house. It was a big moment when I greeted Lamira´s grandmother wearing a black Melhefa outside her tent. It wasn´t before that moment I realized what Lamira had told me over our cup of tea sitting in her room in Duino two years ago. “I am a refugee”, she said that time. The girl I have shared chats and fun with during my two years in Duino, was really born and raised in a simple sand house, in the middle of the Algerian desert. After finishing the Hassania greetings with Lamiras grandmother: Jeklebes, lebes, jekl al her, skif ek, mesh allah and so on, I meet the rest of Lamira´s family: her aunts, uncles and cousins. We were taken into their house and served traditional Saharawi tea and cookies. I gave the family a photo album with pictures from Lamira´s life in Duino. It was incredible to see Lamira’s grandmother smile and kiss the photos of Lamira one by one saying “My granddaughter” in Arabic. Then we tried to speak with the family using the few Arabic phrases we know. Luckily, one of Lamira’s aunts knows some Spanish, so we managed to communicate. The family showed us photos of Lamira as a child. I hardly recognise her. In the night, I meet one of Lamira’s friends. She spoke perfect English and she told me more about herself during two hours than anyone else I have met before. Then, the whole family, Lamira’s friend and I desperately tried to call Lamira using the internet in the centre of the camp, 15 minutes away from the house with a car. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage. The next day we walked in the sand dunes with Lamira’s cousins. One of them, a three years old girl laughed every time I smiled to her. She was incredible trustful” and started to follow me everywhere I went.

During our days in Daklha, we also visited the camp, the sand dunes, the centre, the women’s centre and the garden. Daklha is completely different from the other camps in the sense that is more quiet and astonishing beautiful with the sand dunes. People in Daklha are supposed to friendlier than in the other camps and I think that is true. Life in Dakhla is also simpler than in the other camps. Many of the families do now have a toilet, it is isolated and there is no mobile phone reception. It seems closer to the nomadic life the Saharawis used to live.
Unfortunately, we were only able to stay with Lamira’s family for a night. We really felt how friendly and hospitable they were… It was sad to say goodbye to the family. In the car back home we all agreed that it was one of the most special families we have meet while we have been here. When you meet the family of your friends from UWC you realize what the two years in UWC meant to you and how it changed you. The last weeks in the college Lamira, Dora from Hungary and I made an agreement: Whatever happens in our lives, we will meet in 2020. I cross my fingers, for that we will meet in a free and independent Western Sahara