I Just Want To Apologize For The Textposts I Made When I Was Younger. That Was An Hour Ago, And In That

There is literally nothing in nature that blooms all year long, so do not expect yourself to do so.

I wanna go to a movie with you and do inappropriate things in the back row 

Adult: Teenagers never discuss anything of importance

Teenager: *discusses politics, race, body positivity, equality, etc.*

Adult: oh shut up you're a teenager, what do you know?

I actually freaked out because I didn't think it was the fake knife at first

Ineffective “guard dog”

*hits reblog button at the speed of light*

josh dun laughing and his eyes doing the squinchy thing

reblog if you agree

👼💀

I couldn’t of said it better myself

i wish i didnt get my feelings hurt so easily

This is Aida, a 10-year-old Syrian refugee. Rosianna and I met her at the Azraq camp in northern Jordan, where she and her family had just arrived after more than four months at the Syrian border.

The situation at the border is a catastrophe–Aida told us she’d watched some of the friends she made at the border die at the border of exposure and thirst. She thought she would die, too. (One of her sisters was killed in the war.)

Aida is bright and funny and constantly cuddled by her younger brothers. When I asked her what she wanted most now that she was finally at Azraq, she said, “I want to go to school.” She’d never been in school–the war started when she was 5. She wanted to know when school started in the camp. “Can I go today?” she asked me through the translator.

The UN Refugee agency is critically underfunded, and the quality of schools suffers as a result. Kids go to school only for half a day, and classes are huge–sometimes as many as 100 kids per room. Dropout rates are extremely high, because kids are needed for chores and work.

Aida will be safe at Azraq. But because of funding shortfalls, she will not receive enough food assistance or the quality of education she deserves.

In the coming days and weeks, Rosianna and I will share more stories of the refugees we met in Jordan. As one mother told me when I asked how Americans can help, “Listening helps. Knowing you are listening helps.” Of course, donating also helps, as does voting against leaders who demonize refugees.

In the U.S. right now, our political discourse is driven by the lionizing of some vague Us and the villainizing and dehumanizing of a supposed Other. But when we talk about decreasing aid to assist refugees, or not allowing refugees to resettle in the United States, we are not talking about some distant and menacing Other. We are talking about Aida.