www.mihub.eu Page | 6 The voice of the miHUB Team From Another Planet! by Myria Pareklisiotou Social Worker My little friend is nine years old. They call him Omar. I don’t know if that’s his real name, but I call him that too. He speaks differently from me. Even though he now lives in the house across the street, I truly believe he came from another planet... You see, at Christmas, when the whole world was celebrating in their brightly lit homes and everyone had gathered on their balconies to watch the fireworks, Omar was crying. He was terrified of the fireworks. He didn’t like them at all. But they were so beautiful—bursting in the sky with rhythm and sparkle, full of color and sound... Omar was shaking with fear, crying non-stop, covering his ears tightly, curling up in his mother’s skirt... He must be from another planet. And yet—Omar is from another planet. On his planet, when those sounds reached his ears, they meant death. He had to hide under the table, under the bed, inside a closet... Each of those sounds stole pieces of his childhood. Omar had to find a way to survive. His mother and father couldn’t protect him—they too were broken, just like everything around them. But Omar made it. He crossed skies and seas and arrived on our planet... Here, everything is different. Strange places. People walk freely, laugh, sing, dance, and play... All of it so unfamiliar to Omar. Now, each of those sounds means joy, not terror. Omar is finally a child again. He plays with the neighbourhood kids—kids he doesn’t even understand, and yet, in some magical way, they manage to communicate, playing together for hours on end! Now, at last, Omar is a child. He has found his place on this planet.
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