Memoar – Sajjad (EN)

Hello, my name is Sajjad I’m from Afghanistan.

At the end of 2014, we had to leave. For the first time, we went to Malaysia but everything pushed us to move to Indonesia. So from 2015, we are in Indonesia until now. This is from a kid that had never left his city for another place. This kid now had to leave his country and live in Indonesia with his family. The father is not with them and this kid had the responsibility for their family. 

It’s very, very difficult and challenging for the person because, from my background, I knew a little English. Some very basic English for communicating. It helped me a lot for a short time in Malaysia. But I have never known that in Indonesia from ten people maybe one or two can speak very basic English. It’s very difficult for you to communicate in a country with a population of almost three hundred million. 

When I came to Indonesia with my family, I was seventeen. The life challenge is not only financial problems. When you are in Indonesia and you have nothing about Indonesian background, nothing about the language, you just don’t know. When you live here, how if you are going to a clinic if you’re sick? How do you survive? And it’s not only you, you have the responsibility for all of your family members: your two brothers, aunties, and your mother. Maybe you know that many people have many difficulties in their life, but from a person that is still a kid and has the responsibility for his family, you should think differently. Not like other teenagers the same your age. So I had to become friends with an adult and become friends with those who have responsibility for their families. 

Maybe the biggest challenge was being responsible for your family. Many times when my friends that are the same age as me, wanted to do something, they wanted to go somewhere, for a picnic or something, I couldn’t join them. Because I have a responsibility, still I have a responsibility. For example, if a normal person wants to buy something, go to the grocery, buy tomatoes, or anything, I should think differently. I should compare the prices, even 2000 Rupiah cheaper. Which place has less price? Which place is cheaper? So I was always thinking differently about the people who are the same as my age. 

But you know you can always pray. I used to pray and asked the best thing from God, but you should remember when you ask for the best things, if you’re asking for a very good place, you should get ready for the tough situation in life. If you see a team, a football team, and they have a coach, the coach will give you some training. Maybe tell you to run really fast for 30 minutes then running with a ball, shooting, passing, everything. And maybe you get very sad and angry with the coach. But the coach is with you, on the same side as you. The coach is training you. And then later when you go to a real match, it will be easy for you to win the match. If the coach never trains you and said ‘ok no problem no need to train just do everything that you want’, when you go to the real match you will easily lose the game. 

So if we see life, God is the coach that is training you, telling you to do this, putting you in a hard situation, and giving you some challenges so you are going to face a very good match later. So, when you go to the match, when you go to the game– the real game of life, it will be easy for you to win the game, because you’ve already passed the difficulty, you already passed the training. The training that will help you in the future life. 

I want to say that hug all of your challenges. Be friend with all of the challenges that you face in your life. This is something that trains you for a better life in the future. Don’t always complain to God. If you really trust God, just accept all of these. Because rule number one of getting success is accepting. If you accept then you will go find a solution. If you always complain, so you will not fix a problem. This is something that I think everybody should learn, not just learn but understand from the inside. God is not our enemy, if you face problems, it means that you need to learn them, so later on you won’t have problems. 

Maybe not everybody knows but I’m happy that I’m in Indonesia, that I learned these things. The things that can make me a better person in the future.