The Christian Science Monitor

Syrian students find an unlikely home, and hope, in Mexico

Claudia Mora stands inside her family’s pharmacy in the central Mexican state of Aguasclaientes on May 9, 2018. She’s the self-proclaimed “Mexican mother” of the Syrian students who pass through Aguascalientes as part of the Habesha Project.

Renas Farid Alahmed is poking around his rundown, shared kitchen on a recent afternoon, trying to plan the first lunch he’s ever cooked for guests.  

“The kitchen is the one room in my family’s home in Damascus I can’t even picture anymore,” says Mr. Alahmed, who fled Syria seven years ago, as the war between President Bashar al-Assad and rebel groups was heating up. He’d just graduated from high school, and his family was concerned he could be in danger after participating in anti-government protests.

“It’s not only me. It’s very strange to find a man doing anything in the kitchen in Syria,” he says.

Learning to lend a hand in the kitchen is one of many

Language breaks down wallsSaving wasted potential ‘I tell them to call me their Mexican mother’‘Mexico has opened my mind’

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