Packing the car, Flying and meeting D

We had fifteen suitcases packed and ready to go in the car. Were they all going to fit ?! No they weren't !

Right at the last minute my mum had to unpack some cases in the garden and re arrange the car. How we drove all the way to London the way we did I will never know. Dad was the only one who had space to breath at all ! Mum had a suitcase on her lap, I had a tiny space to squeeze into with suitcases piled up beside me.

We made it to the air port safely and then had to do 5 trips back and forth to the car with trollies to get all our bags to check in. We had a fantastic man who checked us in. All our bags were overweight but he didn't bat an eyelid.  Our flight was delayed two hours so we sat around waiting for ages until we were finally allowed to fly. I love flying and was so excited to get back to Istanbul, this city I love, and start helping improve peoples life's.

I had just come out of hospital where I had been complaining of heart problems. The cardiologist said I was completely fine and I was allowed to fly. Little did he know...

The flight was going fine until about two hours in. I suddenly couldn't breath and had a lot of pain in my chest. I ended up on emergency oxygen for the rest of the flight, it was no fun at all. The best part was that when we arrived in Istanbul we had wheelchair assistance so I didn't have to walk the long corridors all around the airport. Bonus :) We had a porter to get all of our bags for us. When he asked us how many bags we had in Turkish, we replied 15. He thought we had got confused with our numbers, but he soon found out we definitely did have 15 very heavy suitcases which he would stack up on a trolley for us !  Luckily we went through customs with no problems because the porter was pushing the trolley, im sure if we were pushing it we would have been stopped and asked to un pack every bag.

D met us on the other side and we loaded up the big van and all squeezed into the front and headed towards the hotel. We checked in and stuffed our room from floor to ceiling with all the suitcases before heading out to get some roast chicken dinner.


It was nearly 3 am by the time we got into bed and I wasn't too impressed with the yappy dog that kept me from sleeping !

This picture below shows what our hotel room looked like for the majority of the trip

Photos speak more than words.

Photos speak more than words right? This photo says it all. I was busy this day, but Rose and Ahmad went out on the streets and handed out warm winter clothes to children.

Anika too this photo. This photo just shows how heart breaking the work we do is. Especially for the Syrians. The little boy they are giving a warm coat here is one of them, hes from their country, hes syrian, and hes living on the street. All they can do to help is give him warm clothes and some food.

I know we would love love love to home all these children, but right now its just not possible.

Thanks Rose, Ahmad and Anika.

Khaled Faour's interview.

Q. Who are you ?

A. My name is Khaled Faour , I am 20 years old and im from Aleppo city, Syria.

Q. Why do you live in Istanbul ? And if your from Syria, How did you travel to Istanbul, was it difficult to get into Turkey and leave Syria ? 

A. I left Syria because I have to do the military service because I'm 20 years and I would of had to join and fight next to the Assad forces. I don't want to be part of The war at all. It wasn't difficult to travel to Istanbul at the time I left, things were a lot easier back then, so there were not too many check points. I live in Istanbul because I dont have the choice to go anywhere else. I am Syrian, no other country will accept me.

Q. what do you think of Istanbul ? What do you want to do in Istanbul ?

A. I like Istanbul but I don't like the Turkish people, there life here is so hard they ask me to work over 12 hours a day or more sometimes. I don't think I will continue my life here because I don't think there's future for me here. I would really love to continue my education and here I can't work and be in school at the same time, its just impossible.

I'm waiting any chance to go to any country that give me money to live and continue my education and save my rights like human

Q Can you share with me some things you witnessed during the war ?

A. I witnessed alot of terrible things. Like explosions every day, Dead people in the street, people being killed constantly. Buildings falling down around me in the streets because of Assad's bombs.

Some of my friends died. One of my friends went to the Mosque to pray. He never returned home. His parents looked for him for days and eventually they found his body, barely recognizable, in the street among other bodies.

Q What was Syria like before the war? What was your life like ? Your childhood like ? What was your family home like? 

A.Syria was so beautiful it's my love , but from the inside it was so bad because the Assad and the government

The political situation was so bad ,but we lived a beautiful life in a beautiful country. The people were so friendly and so welcoming.

My home was so lovely , my family was not rich and not poor we was in the middle.

My childhood was like any normal little boys life, I played outside with my friends, I watched cartoons on tv, I went to school and I played video games. I had a very normal happy childhood.

Q. How did you find the ‘help the syrians page in istanbul’ and what did you think of two women, Anastasia and Rachel, coming from england to help ?

Well,my opinion on you and your page, I'm so thankful. I have been following your page from the start and its really impressive. You're doing such a humanly thing and I want to tell you thanks from the bottom of my heart.

Q What was your first impression of Anastasia, via the internet, or in real life ?

When I liked your page I thought it was a page of Syrian people, then I was shocked because you're from England and I've seen you're so interested about the Syrians and your so keen to help us and do as much as you can, even though your English, and this has nothing to do with you.

I've seen that Anastasia is doing her best and she's a really great lady because she makes alot of people aware and know what the Syrian are going through right now.

She's trying so hard to get some money and give it to the poor people.

If I want to describe Anastasia I will say she's one in million.

Q. What has been your saddest and happiest moment since leaving Syria and moving to Istanbul?

A. This week I was a little bit upset. It snowed in Aleppo which is very rare. All my friends and family were so happy, they were able to forget about the war for a moment and enjoy the snow. I was so sad because I was not able to enjoy that special moment with them while they played in the snow.

Q Whats your hopes and dreams for the future, for yourself, and for Syria ?

My dreams for the future is that Syria gets better and the war ends and we go back there and build it with our hands and make it better because what happened and the war will be a lesson for us so we know the fault of Syria

My dream for my self is I can someday continue my education maybe and build my future. I want to be an architect.

Q. Can you tell me an example of racism that you have experienced since living in Turkey ?

A.In Turkey we, as Syrians, receive some racism.

Some times people get annoyed when the know I'm syrian I don't know why.

Some people said the Syrians are every where. Its not our fault we are every where. We have no where else to go.

Some people when they see me working the get annoyed too maybe the think we are taking there' jobs.

Q. Anything else you wish to say, about syria, your life, you, Anastasia ?

I want to say I wish the best for Syria and the best for Anastasia and when ever she needs any thing she will find all the Syrians next to her, willing to help her, as she has helped us so much. Thank you, Anastasia.

Beyazit, DAY 1

On our first day in Istanbul we met Boy A with his Mum and Baby brother sitting just outside the tram stop in cemberlitas.

It was about 9 am. Myself and Mum approached the lady and asked her if she would still be there later so we could give her clothes for the two children. Through pigeon Turkish and Arabic we managed to persuade her to stay there for a few hours while we had our meeting and then we would go back to her.

After our meeting and lunch the lady was still there so I approached her with Y.     Y asked her if she had a home so we could buy her food like pasta, rice, beans, etc.

She said no she didn't have a home but she would show us where she sleeps with the children. Y and A carried her big suitcase and we walked towards fatih mosque.

While walking the little boy, lets call him boy a, held Y's hand and was chatting away with him like they were best friends. Soon enough we were round the back of Fatih mosque under a little bit of shelter surrounded by scaffolding. This is where she sleeps. It wasn't just her either, it was another lady along with nine over children. They all lived on this little patch of concrete amongst the building work. The living conditions were terrible, the area smelt of urine and was extremely dirty. They had about four blankets between them all.

A and Ya asked the ladies what they needed and jotted down all the sizes for the children and ladies and headed back to the hotel with my mum to collect a suitcase full of clothes for the children and the mums.

Myself, R, F , K, Z and S stayed with the family and played with the children.

The girls loved mine and R's bright colored nail varnishes and our warm hands and kept using our hands to warm up their faces. The children were real characters and loved playing with us.

Boy A was just a trooper. He lives on the street, has no home, and no where warm, yet he smiled the whole time and had us all laughing so much.

At one point he told me to use my scarf to cover my hair because he didn't like my hair and the girls told me if I grew my hair I would be much prettier. Dont you just kids honesty hey ?

We played simple games like Pat a Cake and round and round the garden and all the children loved playing the games and repeated them on me. Boy A showed me a few games of his own, it was a simple hand game which meant if I didnt move quick enough he was allowed to slap my hand, personally I think he just wanted to slap me :)

Boy A took a real shine to R and told her all sorts of stories. He has amazing hopes and dreams for his future which really made us both smile. He wants to be an actor when hes older, but not just any actor, hes going to be a famous Karate star and hes going to be in big movies. He was so excited about this dream of his and was so pleased to tell us he even went on to show us how good he was at Karate and what moves he had. As I said already, he was just so funny. When I handed all the children toys he accepted the toy car gratefully but then he said to me

 ' Hey, whats this ? Whats wrong with giving me a Ben 10 toy or a spider man toy ? I haven't always lived on the streets you know, I used to watch all the good cartoons back in Syria on TV'

Hearing him say that really made me laugh but it also made me very sad. He must of enjoyed his life so much before the war, watching cartoons like a normal little boy, and now what ? He lies down to sleep on cold concrete every night, no bed time stories, no tv, no warm cosy bed.

The baby boy above was 6 months old and was just starting to crawl. He loved cuddles from us all and never once whined about being passed from stranger to stranger.

All the children loved the attention they had from us and all wanted their photos taken and to have a cuddle.

Soon enough the rest of the team came back with 2 suitcases full of shoes and clothes for all ages along with food from the supermarket for the families to eat. We showed them the clothes and they were extremely grateful and couldn't thank us enough. Each person tried on the shoes to see what fits best, if they fitted, they kept them.

We bough hot toasted sandwiches from across the road for everyone so they could have a hot meal that night, who knows when the next hot meal would be.

We stayed with the family a while longer showing them all the clothes and playing with the children but darkness was soon approaching so we left them to get on with their night. At least now every child had a warm pair of winter shoes, a warm jumper and winter coat and they had all been fed.

I never saw this family again. I kept on looking for them so I could give them more clothes, more food, more nappies etc for the baby but despite looking every day I never saw them. When I was waiting with them that day the police kept on coming along giving them hassle telling them they had slept there four nights so now they must move. I have no idea where they moved to or what would of happend to them. They had no money.

I hope this family are safe and have found some kind of shelter and are able to protect themselves and their innocent children from this bad world we live in.

My 2nd day, september 2013

My second day was quite similar to my first day, I just met more families. 

I took the tram to Beyazit again. I went to the T shop outside the tram stop and bought 5 packs of nappies, about 50 toothbrushes and toothbrushes. The cashier wanted to know what I was doing so I explained. She said it was very nice and wished me a good day. I walked all through the markets. I stopped at the shops I had been to the day before and bought all the same items.

Just three times as much :)

By the time I reached Eminuno I was weighed down with bags and bags and bags. My hands felt like they were gonna fall off !

I separated everything again into mini packets. I found one lady stood right outside the spice bazaar. She wasn't begging. She was just letting her children play. I gave the children some toy cars and moved onto some families who were sat around.

I found so many families in need. They all had children and a lot of them had young babies under a year. I handed out the milk and nappies to the families with children under 2 years old. 

Parents pushed their children forward to take the bags off me. The children were poorly dressed. Winter was approaching and most of them just had too small t shirts on and thin trousers. Their skin was filthy. The skin on their feet was cracked and dry from wearing no shoes. 

I gave all the children a bag each filled with bread, water, cheese, tooth brushes, toy cars, tooth paste, hats, gloves, vests and wet wipes. 

All the parents thanked me. I carried on doing the rounds and giving more bags out. Every single family was extremely grateful. They accepted the bags with gratitude and couldn't thank me enough.

One family invited me to sit with them. They said I could play with their two daughters. Both under 3 I assume. I asked the father if he would use my camera and take photos of me playing with the children and he was happy to do so. The children and the parents loved looking through the photos afterwards.

I tried to teach the little girl a simple clapping game. I played this simple game with her over and over again and she was just so happy. I will always remember how happy she looked while we played that silly little game. Her young sister, about 18 months, took my lip salve out of my hands. That was that gone. She gave it to her mum and her mum showed her how to use it.

I moved on to more families.

I found one family that consisted of one man, two women and about 10 children. I gave them the rest of my bags. They had a young baby girl who was not dressed suitably at all. They asked me if I had anything warm for the baby with long sleeves.

I didnt but I offered to walk with the babies mum to the markets and buy her a few warm baby grows. I bought 5 warm baby grows for 15 lira. Absolutely nothing to me.

I stayed with the family a little longer and played with the children before heading to sultan ahmet to meet my friends.

My first day, september 2013

So many people are asking me how I did this, why I did this and how I started everything...Enjoy the read :)

I woke up early and set off on the tram towards beyazit. My idea was to walk behind the grand bazaar in the big markets and end up in Eminonu.

So off I walked :) I stopped in various shops along the way and started buying the necessities.

I bought many pairs of socks, gloves, vests, wet wipes and nappies.

I asked one of the shop men for extra bags so I could make up little packages to give to each child . I stopped at a bread man , his cart was half full. I told him I wanted every single loaf of bread he had. He thought I was an absolute nutter but bagged them all up for me and gave me free cheese.

Next stop, water. I bought about 15 small bottles of water.

Can you imagine how heavy this all is now ?! haha !

I stopped in an alley way and sat down, bagged everything up with two pairs of socks in each bag, two wet wipes in each bag, two loathes of bread, 2 bottle of water, one pair of gloves and two vests.

I had about 20 of these little mini packets.

So I had this wonderful idea to help all these people and give them the things I bought... But then I was having second thoughts. I suddenly started questioning myself.

'what if they think im being rude?'

'what if they dont accept it?'

'what if I offend them?'

'what if they attack me?'

With these questions going around in my head I decided to take some time out and just sit down and suss out the situation. I went down by the fish stalls. I sat down, next to a man with a nice camera. I wanted him to be my friend, he had a lovely camera ;)

I introduced myself and asked him to show me his photos. His name was Sedat. 

Sedat had been photographing some Syrian children who loved the camera. Sedat started speaking to the children and asking them to come play with us. They were a bit sceptical at first but soon approached us.

These kids had coats, clothes and shoes. They didn't fit, but they still had protection. I pointed to their feet and asked them to show me their feet. They thought I was crazy. Why is this crazy foreign lady touching my feet. I saw they didn't have socks on so I asked the boys to sit down and I took off their shoes and put fresh socks on them. 

They still had total looks of confusion on their faces. Who knows if they had ever worn socks before. Their feet were black with dirt and cracked with dry skin and sores. I then handed over the bags to the children, there were 5 in that family. So they all had socks, vests, water, bread, cheese and gloves.

We carried on playing with the children and their father approached us. I wasnt sure if he was happy with me giving his children clothes or not. He shook our hands. He thanked me for feeding his children and giving them socks. He showed us his Syrian passport and told us he and his family had escaped the refugee camps and had come to Istanbul as it was safer than the refugee camps.

I then went around the rest of Eminonu and found many more families in need. I handed bags to them and they accepted greatfully. Some families let me play with their children and photograph them other families just accepted the gifts and thanked me.

I didnt expect anyone to let me play with their children or photograph them. Just because I was giving them something didnt mean they had to interact with me.

I met two young boys eating corn on some stairs. I asked them if I could take their photos and their faces lit up. They really played up to the camera and vied for my attention.

They were so sweet , I spent a good hour with them, taking their photos and seeing who could jump higher off the bench. I gave them a bag each. they asked me to buy them another corn. I did. 

I handed out more bags and headed home.

I felt guilty going home to my warm house with my big thick duvet and comfortable sofa to sleep on with a fridge full of food.