My name is Daleen Walid Al-masalmeh. I’m 17 years old and from the city of Daraa, Syria. In first grade I started at school in Khansa, but only went to school for one semester and didn’t finish it due to the war.

My country, Syria, was one of the most beautiful Arab countries. It was a country with a lot of good things. Lots of people are kind, it has many historical monuments and beautiful places. As a family, we often would go to the beautiful and wonderful parks. Suddenly our country turned into destruction, blood, and death. Emigration and displacement began in search of safety and stability. The Syrian people began to look for safety, even if they had to live in tents.

We then moved to another neighborhood and l attended school there. I went up to third grade in my beloved homeland. We did not see the faith in others, so our life became extremely difficult in my afflicted homeland.

Soon the explosives, bombs, and rockets started falling in our land and around us. We became in the world of death, destruction and fear. We then decided to go to the neighboring country which is Jordan. We found safety and stability in Jordan with its beautiful, generous and loving people. We lived in a city called Irbid with a population of 1.5 million. 

 I began at a school called Qadisiya consisting of 3 stone floors. There were 300 students, each class had 13 students. But, learning in Jordan was difficult. The teachers were good, and I had many friends. l loved sports, science, Arabic, and professionalism.

Everyday, each student brought their own lunch from home; there were only snacks in the school. There were many activities, including dabke (traditional Arabic dance)  and trips to archaeological sites.Each student remains in their class with the same age group and the teacher moves around the school rather than the students to each assigned class .

Then, we decided to move to America because it is the country of ambition and fulfillment of wishes. America is much better in terms of education, work and living. America is a very beautiful country and the people are very kind. The U.S. has a system that is fair and respectful. The schools are beautiful and great to study at.

I hope to become a pharmacist in America and hopefully it will help me create a well-known name for myself. So then, I can make my family happy, because we all deserve success and joy. We love good for the whole world, and we don’t want injustice or evil for anyone. We are always happy.

I hope that my beloved country, Syria, will be as it was. That injustice and death will depart from it as soon as possible, because the Syrian people deserve better than they have now. I also hope that all the rest of the world will remain fine and not see what we have seen in our country.