Kawree (57)

I’ve had an amazing life. Our family was huge, just like our farming business. I worked on the farm from an early age. My friend Buhar was the same age as me. When we didn’t have to work, we would build tiny houses from mud and dig out little swimming pools around them.

I was 15 when I learned about sorrow. My brother died in the war between Iraq and Iran. When I heard the news, I went crazy. I lost control. He was young, he was supposed to go out into the world.

Buhar came to my house and together we cried. But we moved on with our lives. Buhar married my brother. I got married and had children. The houses and gold that my parents owned became our inheritance.

Three years ago terrorists ransacked our village. I fled with Buhar and our families, deeper into Iraq. I left everything behind. Remember those houses we used to build out of mud? That’s what we live in now. And my kids work on someone else’s land in order to make a living.

I am devastated and I don’t have faith that I will find happiness again. It will only happen if it is God’s will. I can’t give you a single example of something that gives me joy anymore. Not even Buhar. How can I be happy when everything that gave value to life has been taken away? And yet I get out of bed every morning. I’m in the kitchen, I take care of my family. That’s what I can still do and I will continue to do it.’