Khalid, Bassem, and Doaa returned to the hotel, and Khalid insisted that they go directly to the police station to report the incident. “If you don’t say anything, they could come back and do worse,” he warned. While Khalid tried to convince them to file a report, the young man who had grabbed Doaa and his father appeared in the hotel. The father was apologizing profusely. He acknowledged that his son was deeply troubled and told them, “If he ever does that again, you have every right to report him.” Then he turned angrily to his son and ordered, “Get down and kiss Doaa’s and Bassem’s feet.” But his son refused and started to cry. Doaa and Bassem felt pity for the crying troubled boy and decided not to report the incident. They just wanted to move on and stay under the radar of the authorities.
As she lay awake that night, Doaa replayed the scene in her head and realized how close she had again come to being kidnapped. She was grateful to Bassem and Khalid for fending off the men, but she no longer felt safe in Egypt, even with Bassem at her side. The stress of the unpleasant encounter also strained her relationship with Bassem.
One day, after a particularly bitter fight with him, Doaa announced that she wanted to break up, leaving him in shock. The next day Bassem showed up at the house looking ill. His tone serious, he told her, “Doaa, we need to talk. I have decided to go back to Syria. I stayed here for you, and I’ve accepted a lot of humiliation and hardship in Egypt because of you. And if you don’t want to be with me, then there’s no reason for me to stay here. I’ve decided that if you don’t want to come with me, then you are free. We can end our engagement.”
Hearing this, Doaa cried out, “You can’t go! You’ll be killed!” But Bassem remained firm. Distraught, Doaa ran out of the apartment, realizing the mistake she had made in breaking up with him. She would be complicit in his death if he left and went back to Syria. Doaa knew that Bassem was struggling with the sadness of recently losing his brother, who had died fighting for the FSA, and that Bassem was plagued with guilt for not having been by his side. Doaa didn’t really want Bassem to leave her or to break off their engagement. She’d just been worn down by the stress and hardship of her life in Egypt and had snapped during their fight. Bassem followed her outside and found her sobbing. She begged him to change his mind. He studied her face and shook his head, taking out a tissue to gently wipe away her tears. “I didn’t mean it!” she sobbed. “I don’t want to break up.” Seeing Doaa’s distress and realizing that she meant what she said, Bassem took her in his arms and promised never to leave her. He vowed that they would only return to Syria together, when the war ended. From then on, Doaa prayed every night that they would always be together.
That fall, Saja, Nawara, and Hamudi started attending school, while Doaa went back to work. Saja’s secondary school was in another part of town and she had to walk a good distance on her own to get there. Almost daily, young men would stand outside the school gates taunting her with insults as she entered.
One day as Saja walked home from school, she noticed a tuk-tuk following her. Two rough-looking local men, with tattoos covering their arms, were inside. “Stop, Syrian girl!” they called out to her. “We like Syrian women and we want to see if you like us as well.” Saja kept her head down and continued walking to the primary-school gates where Nawara and Hamudi would be waiting. Upon arriving, she immediately took her siblings with her to the administration office to call her parents to pick them up. Hanaa was in tears when she arrived with two Syrian neighbors for protection. Later that day when Shokri heard about the encounter, he was frantic at the thought that his girls might now be in danger in Egypt.
Hamudi was having a hard time as well. While he loved studying and was a good student, once the Morsi government was ousted and the atmosphere changed, the Egyptian kids who used to be Hamudi’s friends started to bully him.
Then one day Hamudi’s school announced that they would no longer admit Syrian children. Their parents protested, reminding the school officials that the war in Syria had driven them here and that all they wanted was an education for their kids. They also argued that it went against state policy to deny refugee children an education, and that the teachers had no right to decide this policy. A compromise was reached and the school allowed Syrian students to continue to attend the school, but they were no longer allowed to sit at desks and had to sit on the floor.