Eagle Eye

Hello Everyone, my name is Mehmet* and I am 13 years old. Like some other children, I ended up wearing glasses three years ago. We have been through so much together. 

They are the first thing I search for as soon as I open my eyes in the morning. Without them, my world is foggy and scary. They are my comfort and clarity. However, to be honest,  I have a love-hate relationship with my glasses. I need them to function but I hate how they look on me and how they make me feel. 

One incident was enough to make me thankful for them.

The Türkiye earthquake

My glasses, the item I hated the most was my only friend during the earthquake. While my mother and father were frantically trying to gather our identification cards, I put my hands on my glasses trying to understand what was happening. Everything was happening too fast to wrap my head around anything. One second I was in bed putting my glasses on and the next, we were all running outside, father was clenching our IDs, mother was dragging us outside and I was holding onto my glasses. 

After we went outside, it only took less than a second for our building to collapse. I was speechless, the way it crumbled like a piece of paper, as if it didn’t take months to build nor it had any steel to enforce. Then a huge pile of dust filled the air. At that moment, my father knew that we are homeless.

At least I have my glasses, right?

While my parents were looking for a place to stay, my sense of attachment to my glasses grew more and more each day. I found it weird because I knew I hated them, I even remembered how my friends in school used to tease me, calling me names for the way they made me look and I even did want to go back to school. I was angry about the failed eye surgery after which I had to wear glasses. Other children at school didn’t spare me and I didn’t want to spend another second inside its walls. But my mother did not allow that, she insisted I go and continue my education. I guess she knew better. 

Yes, My emotions were Puzzziling.

During all of this I thought, I saved my glasses but who will save us? Where will we go? We have no home and all of our items are under piles of rubble. My father thought to himself and told us that we will try our luck in Istanbul but it soon ran out and so did our money. After that, my father decided we would go to Syria until we figured everything out, he said we would stay with a relative but not for long.

I mean the situation is very difficult in Syria, we felt unsafe and the prices are very high. So we stayed for only six months and went back to Türkiye. We applied to a shelter unit in one of Gaziantep’s displacement camps. Thank God we were accepted, we had nowhere to go. To be honest, living there was not easy, we had to share one common toilet, and it was not the cleanest but at least we had a home.

But I have my glasses with me.

However, they were getting older, maybe they were as tired of I was of the earthquake and displacement and all of this began affecting them too. I am not sure I am only guessing. But they are not okay. I don’t know what to do. My father barely puts food on our table after being trapped under rubble during the earthquake. He is doing better after the physical therapy but sometimes, I think to myself, maybe if he had my glasses, would he be okay today? I still wonder.

I will take care of my glasses and if they break I will repair them.

One day, I was wiping the lenses when I saw blue vests walking about the displacement camp. They kept heading towards our shelter unit. I thought to myself, Mehmet, they must be heading the next one. Either way, I put on my glasses only to realise they were heading towards me. They were kind and said hi. Mother invited them inside and they began talking. 

I heard they were talking about me, that I wasn’t going to school. I thought, I would love to go to school, my glasses and I would learn so much! Mother said that my glasses have gone old, probably they need to be replaced and new frame even that is why I am not going to school. I mean, I cannot see the board very clearly and sometimes the teacher writes small letters and when I keep squinting it makes my head hurt, so I don’t go anymore.

They said they would resolve these issues but I wondered how.

The people in the Blue Vests came in the following day talked to my mother then introduced themselves to me saying they were from an organisation called Mavi Hilal Vakfı-IBC International Blue Crescent Relief. I immediately thought that’s why they were wearing blue vests! Because they are MAVI which means blue in Turkish!

MAVI said we have a surprise for you and drove me to a shop. It had big windows and a lot of shelves. When I went inside I realised I was in an Optical Shop. They said, choose whatever frame you like so we can get the new measurements and you can see clearly in school. I was very happy! There were so many colours, shapes and sizes. But I chose black because it goes with everything. I was fitted and got my new glasses. I thought to myself, I have a new friend now. I can't wait to show my family.

The Blue Vest team also introduced me to a world of nice people who also loved my glasses. It was a psychological support centre where we learned how to communicate and build relationships and friendships while I was also working on my education. I feel more comfortable now, with these glasses and my grades are getting higher! I look forward to the future. 

Such services can be provided thanks to funding from New Zealand Foreign Affairs and Trade and World Vision Syria Response, Mehmet received glasses and 1869 others received psychological support.

By Mehmet*, 13 year old boy who survived the earthquake in Türkiye, participant of the PSS and education sessions. 

*Name is changed to protect identity.