I was born in Baghdad to Kurdish parents. My family fled Saddam’s genocide of the Kurds in the early 90s, and for the next five years we were refugees. We travelled across Europe, through Turkey, Azerbaijan, Russia and many other countries in search of safety. Eventually, aged six, I ended up in the UK, but it was another four years until I would be reunited with my father.
In 2019, aged 29, I took a two-month sabbatical to retrace the steps my family and I took all those many years ago. The shadow of this story had followed me, and after reading Michelle Obama’s Becoming, I realised that I needed to own the story and not to allow the story to own me any more.
I recorded my parents recollections of that time, and then started the journey back to Kurdistan, Iraq. From there I took the same steps through Turkey, Azerbaijan, Russia, the Netherlands. I listened to those stories in the places where they took place. It was a deeply uncomfortable but important healing experience for me.
When I was in the Netherlands, I was struck by a memory that was my own. I remember a kind man who was an aid worker at the refugee camp we were staying at. He gifted me a bike when I was five. We didn’t have toys, we barely had food, and this was such a big gift that I had to reimagine my own self worth! I remember how that moment made me feel, it made me feel loved, and cared for, and seen. And I realised that I had been carrying that feeling with me ever since thanks to this moment. It made me realise that even in our darkest times, there will always be shining acts of kindness.
So I spent the Netherlands portion of my journey trying to find him to say thank you all these many years later. The story made headlines around the world, it was even featured in the New York Times.
In May 2024 it was published by HarperCollins as a children’s book.
Mevan Babakar 