In the summer of 2012, I met a group of people who were not like any other group I had ever met in my entire life. Young men and women from a diversity of religions and backgrounds. However, they did not care about those differences. In fact, these differences from society prevented them from “belonging” to a lager extent and affected the group dynamic and how they behaved, depending on who was around at the time. We played basketball even though most of them did not know the proper rules of basketball, but that did not matter. It was being together which was the most important thing. 

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This group was unique, they did not conform to the Syrian norms. They were different from regular society, separate from the war. Even the check points were surprised when they saw us walking together. This group accepted all of us without expecting anything in return.

The group gave me a gift before I left which is the mug in the picture.  They wrote messages of good wishes and their feelings. This mug is the only thing that I chose to bring with me on my journey.