Listen to Hamida reading her story called Nora and The War. Hamida won a college creative writing competition for this story. Before Hamida reads her story, she talks about how winning the competition made her feel.
Nora was born in a nice country with a beautiful big house and a beautiful garden. She loved the garden because there were beautiful red flowers. She liked to stay in the garden and draw.
The area where she was living was so beautiful and there were a lot of gardens and the people were kind and friendly. They were like a family: working together and helping each other, but not all the people had money, just Nora’s family were rich. Nora didn’t like to leave this area because all her life had always been this area since she was born and their life was simple. All her cousins were living there and they were in school and happy. They were playing together and going out together. Nora also had a lot of friends. She was so happy and she wasn't worried about anything. She was a sensitive child and she loved to study and to draw and paint: she was always creating amazing pictures.
On one day, everything changed. When She woke up. She opened her eyes and heard the bombs. She ran to her window and saw the people were running. She ran downstairs to see her family. She didn’t believe what she saw when her cousin died. She was shocked! Her family took her and left the area. Nora thought of her cousin and cried. Her dad said to her, “We have to go or we will die, Nora.” Mum said, “Get into this car come on!” When Nora was in the car she watched the people in the streets: how they were running and crying. They left the area and the beautiful house and happiness.
They went to the countryside. When they arrived in the countryside the people said to them “Don’t worry: that will not take a long time before you are back home again.” All people thought that but it took months and they lived with their cousin in the same house. It wasn't easy for them because their life had changed so much. They didn’t live in their house and couldn't do what they wanted because in the countryside they had to get up early and wake up early at 5am and they should use their washing machine to clean their own clothes and buy food for all the people There were a lot of families and they spent all their money on this Nora was only young (12 years old) she wasn’t happy anymore because she didn’t have friends or a beautiful house and she couldn’t draw or see her red flowers in her garden. Nora asked her father, “When will they go back, Dad?” and she was sad. He hugged her and said, “Don’t be sad: we will go back tomorrow.”
After that, they went to sleep. On this night Nora couldn’t sleep because she was so happy: she was thinking about tomorrow how she wanted to go back to her beautiful house.
In the morning, they went to their area by car. Nora was smiling and thinking about how she would see her friends and her beautiful garden and her father bought some food for them because the journey would take two hours.
When they arrived they didn’t see the beautiful area because most of the houses were destroyed and Nora's friends weren’t there. She didn’t see her beautiful red flowers. Her mother held her hand and took her to the house as Nora started to cry.
The war stole everything beautiful in her life.
