Malek Zeyad: A Syrian Man’s Search for Hope and Financial Freedom

Not ready for combat.

This is a true story about a Syrian man seeking a better life for himself in Lebanon. In order to protect his identity – as requested – I have changed his name. To make this interview happen, we were helped by a translator who will remain nameless.

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Photo credit: Ahmed Akacha

Malek asks to see the interview questions ahead of time. I don’t normally prepare questions when interviewing someone for The Misfit  because I like to trust my gut and go with the flow. However, I sense he may be nervous. So, I oblige and prepare the questions knowing very well I’ll likely deviate.

Malek was early for our call; waiting for me like a consummate professional. While it’s been a long time since I myself lived in Syria, I instantly feel a connection to this Syrian man. Syrian-bond aside, I was floored by his humility. When he’d speak, he’d look down at the floor. I could tell down was a place he knew all too well. Down was familiar, it was home. 

If I’m honest, meeting Malek and writing his story has been the hardest one to tell. Partly because I can’t find a way to make sense of his life and partly because I almost can’t cope with the helplessness he feels (and therefore I feel). It’s been difficult for me to find the words to describe his broken spirit, which is why this piece has taken me longer than usual to write. But I will try my best to share Malek with you… 

Here is the story of a noble Syrian young man in search of financial freedom and a better life. 

A Beautiful Life in Syria

Life started well for Malek in Homs, Syria.

If you’re not familiar with the area, Homs is a city in Western Syria, located on the Orontes River, and close to the border of Lebanon. It was a city with an exquisite culture and cuisine. A city filled with historic mosques and churches and home to the Krak des Chevaliers castle (considered to be one of the most important preserved medieval castles in the world).

Malek was surrounded by rich history and stunning architecture, but more importantly, he was surrounded by love.

His dad was a humble man with no interest in politics; a man who did not support any political party; a man who preferred to focus on working hard at an electrical equipment store and care for his family. His mom was a humble housewife who loved to take walks in nature; a woman who enjoyed staying up late talking to her relatives and giving every ounce of herself to her four children (of whom Malek was the youngest).

Humble was a word Malek used often to describe his family, which explained his own, super-sized humility.  

When he wasn’t spending time with his family, Malek loved to play music. He taught himself to play the piano and the Arab Oud (a pear-shaped guitar with 11 strings). He was generous enough to show me a video of himself playing the Oud which was like listening to the Arab version of the Gypsy Kings – that’s how talented he was!

When he wasn’t jamming out to music, he loved swimming in the river and in the Mediterranean sea, riding horses and bicycles, eating out at restaurants and touring his own home country. In many ways, he was a normal teenage boy with a love for family, music and exploration. 

Syria had everything he could possibly need and Malek had everything to hope and to wish for. But soon, his life would be turned upside down…

Civil War in Syria

In 2012, when Malek was 14 years old, the Syrian civil war broke out. Malek’s dad thought the smartest move would be relocating the family to the countryside. There they could go undetected. They could be safe and their children could go to school. 

One day while sitting in class, Malek’s school was bombed. In an instant, his school was turned from a bustling classroom of curious minds into a dark, smoke-filled room with terrified children. As the ashes fell and the smoke settled, his teachers jammed open the doors to let the students rush out for air, life, and safety.

Malek wasn’t hurt, but that didn’t spare him from the trauma of watching his classmates get injured, burned and deformed. 

With limited resources, time and construction workers in war-torn Syria, renovations for the school began little by little. However, the success wouldn’t last long.

Soon after, his school was bombed again, and so again, renovations for the school began. By the third time the school was bombed, there was no money or energy or anything left to repair. The bombers had succeeded at taking away Malek’s opportunity for an education. They’d stolen his innocence and ripped away his last chance at being a normal teenage boy. 

I have to ask: “What does seeing your school explode and your classmates deformed do to you?”

His answer is short and to the point. It’s blatantly obvious he does not want to go there. All he will say is that it consumes you in fear. But if you live in fear long enough, it becomes your new normal

How can that be normal? In another part of the world, a teenage boy is falling in love. He’s playing sports. He’s being reckless with his friends. He’s discovering the limits of his bravery and stupidity. He’s starting to prepare for the next era of his life – which will be filled with adventure and opportunities, failures and successes, heartbreak and love.

He isn’t watching his friends burn and his school get bombed. THAT is not normal.

The Downward Spiral Continues

With no school, Malek began looking for jobs to help his family earn a little bit more money. Working at a farm was just about the only job he could find during wartime. There, he cared for and maintained the land and livestock alongside any random requests the farmer made. Sure, he didn’t earn much money, but at least it was something to help his struggling family. 

With time, Malek’s trauma would catch up to him and he’d fall into depression. How could he not? Between war, explosions, no school or friends, hard work for little pay, a struggling family, a collapsing country – it was a lot to bear for a young psyche.

Like asking someone to swallow the whole earth… unimaginable and impossible. 

Sadly, he wasn’t the only one to suffer because his mom; the humble mom of four children who loved to walk in nature and stay up late talking to her family and listen to her son play the Oud, also fell into deep sadness as a result of the war. She got a stroke, fell into a coma for several months before eventually passing away. 

“She died of heartbreak,” Malek tells me.

I imagine his mom, in her coma before passing on, wishing to speak but unable to do so. Wishing so bad that this wasn’t the way their story ends. Wishing she had one more chance to say the words:

“I love you, my son.”  

My heart breaks as I think about Malek entering his young adult years without a mother.

I remember losing my own father – the love of my life – to heart-attack as a teenage girl. My mom was a stay-at-home mom, who did not speak English and never finished high school. She suffered her own traumas, and often felt that she didn’t have much more to offer to her educated, English-speaking little girl. Not me - I thought she had the world to offer, but she didn’t always see it that way. That’s why often I felt alone in my upbringing.

So, I know first-hand the incredible resilience it takes to put one step in front of the other without a parent by your side. It’s worse for people like Malek, who also had their childhood cut-off at their feet. Whose every tear was a waterfall. Who grew up too fast but stayed child-like forever. Who understand that life can take anything and everything it wants and never return it.

Called to Combat

As if losing his mom, his school and his friends wasn’t enough, now something else would be taken away from Malek: his freedom. 

Malek was lucky not to have been drafted to the army at 18 years old like many other young men (thanks to his dad’s savvy move to relocate to the countryside). However, when Malek turned 20 years old, he got called to combat by the Syrian government. With few young, urban men left to join the army, they were expanding the periphery of their search – to the remote countryside.

The problem was Malek couldn’t fight a war he didn’t believe in. Especially one that took his mother’s life. Determined not to fight, he packed his backpack, his Arab Oud and got on a bus to Lebanon. 

Seeking a Better Life in Lebanon 

Lebanon was supposed to be a safe haven where Malek’s life would improve. Unfortunately, Lebanon would prove to have its own problems. With hyperinflation, a currency collapse and the COVID-19 pandemic, life in Lebanon seemed like a cruel joke. 

Despite living amidst economic turmoil, Malek managed to find (illegal) work at a bakery shop where he also made a few Syrian friends. At work, his responsibilities now range from preparing the dough, baking, packaging the baked goods and cleaning the shop.

On average, he works 12 hours a day with few vacation days to swim in the sea, visit his new friends or read a book.

“In fact, I do not do [anything] for fun. When the movement is strong in the market we work a lot and sometimes take one day only [of time-off]. And when the market is calming we take three or four days a month.”

Working at the bakery shop is tough. It means standing up all day. His feet are sore, his knees hurt, and his back pain is so bad that sometimes the agonizing discomfort prevents him from sleeping – which is terrible because his sleep is already messed up.

If he’s lucky, he sleeps around four to six hours a night. That’s if the dark side doesn’t come for him. If the demons don’t come out to play. If his mother’s absence doesn’t torment him. If he doesn’t pace like a ghost… If, if, if. 

And it’s not like his wage pays off for the physical pain and lack of sleep he must endure. He earns about $80 per month with the following as his monthly expenses:

• $4 for mobile 

• $4 for the internet (which only works about 2 hours a day)

• $60 for groceries (only eats one meal per day)

• $10 for transportation

• Total expenses = $78. 

You may have noticed, rent is not included as an expense. That’s because he lives at the baker's house for free, which also houses other Syrian refugees working at the bakery. The baker’s house has a total of four bedrooms with 12 men living in them.

All 12 Syrian men get tormented by the baker, who takes advantage of their illegal status and vulnerable state. Who knew bakers could be such bullies? Aren’t they supposed to love warm, fluffy things?

Sometimes the abuse is so bad that a few of the men returned to Syria. How messed up is that – that life would be easier in war-torn Syria than in Lebanon? Bullying aside, Malek is glad not to pay rent because he simply couldn’t afford it.

“My salary is almost not enough for my monthly expenses. I can't save money now. I kept a good sum before the crisis started here. But I spent a part of it and sent an amount to my father to help him…”

He goes on:

“I really don't know, but I haven't been able to save anything from my salary for more than a year. But if this helps, I will lighten some things and save $10 or $15.”

I wonder: how can he make his expenses even lighter? He’s already spending all his income. He’s already eating one meal per day (while working 12-hour shifts) to make his money stretch.

If by some miracle he manages to have spare money at the end of the month, then he’ll seek medical attention or buy a new t-shirt – but these are rare occasions.

No Way to Protect Money

Even if he did have spare money, it’s not like he could have a safe place to store it. The fact he's a refugee (and illegal) means he can’t open a bank account in Lebanon. The only savings he had a while back was a bit of cash he brought over from Syria, which he kept in a bag secured with a lock. 

A bag with cash protected with a lock makes me wonder how many other creative ways people are coming up with to protect the little bits of hard-earned cash they have.

How many different ways are the unbanked, without status, attempting to store their cash? Are they hiding money under their mattress? Stitching it in their clothing? Tucking it in their socks? Hiding it in baked bread? Burying it underground? How far do people go to protect what’s left of their savings before theft, inflation and war steal it from them?

If only there was a way that Malek could store his money electronically, that couldn’t be found as easily as a bag with a lock, that could cross borders between Syria and Lebanon with the utmost freedom, that only he could have access to at any time of day and that didn’t need to be stored in a bank account. My mind wanders: could bitcoin act as a savings account when the banks have turned their backs on him – precisely at the most important time in his life?

For a moment, my curiosity draws me away from the planned questions. I ask if he’s heard of bitcoin, to which he (hesitantly) replies: 

“Yes, but it is very dangerous. I cannot lose money.”

My heart sinks once again. Because the reality is, bitcoin is still viewed in this way by many people across the globe. As much as we say “people in the developing world are quick to adopt bitcoin,” I am acutely aware that is also not entirely true.

Without a doubt the concept of money is changing, and [I believe] bitcoin to be the money of the future, but for now there still remains countless challenges to overcome. From connectivity and user interface, to education and mistrust, to gender gaps and fear; these are some of the challenges that the bitcoin community are working to solve.

Perhaps today isn’t the day for a bitcoin lecture, however I can’t help but think how someone like Malek should benefit from a technology like Bitcoin in the future. In the meantime, I am prepared to help him learn as much as possible about it.

A Glimmer of Hope?

I finish the conversation by asking how Malek is coping right now. The translator does not reply from Malek’s point of view anymore. Instead, he replies in his own words: 

“He’s feeling down in the dumps. He’s feeling that he’s not making any headway with his life because he works for long hours. He doesn’t have any chance to work on some skills to get a better job. He actually wants to learn English because he thinks it's very important for him, for his career. He also wants to work on – how to say that –  he wants to get too much deeper into electronics/computer software. To understand it. But he cannot. This guy is disappointed and sick of everything. This is what he said literally.” 

Malek’s life has been filled with struggle, sorrow and fear.

None of this difficult life was ever his choosing or doing. It was the ripple effects of the decisions made – gradually and abruptly – by the leaders (and its allies) who suffer nothing attacking its own people. Who lose nothing. Who pass on the burden of war and political misdemeanour onto the innocent among them - teenage boys, like Malek – who should be playing, loving, jamming to music, swimming in the sea and making memories with their families.

I will never understand why some people are lucky enough to have the life I have and to follow the hummingbird path I have chosen for myself. And why across the world, there is a young man, like Malek, with the same love for family, the same abilities, curiosity and work ethic as me, who could’ve made a bigger impact in the world but who had to endure all this hardship.

I suppose it’s not on me to understand it, but to act upon it. 

I have a responsibility to do the best I can. So I sit here, writing Malek’s story, bringing it to light, because it’s the best way I know how to honour him. Although I tell him I think he’s playing the shitty cards he’s been dealt with grace and bravery, I also know that not even the kings of this world could put him back together again – that’s what mothers are for. 

In her absence, I have committed myself to being in his life - to being his friend, but possibly more than that, to being like an older sister, his guide whenever he should need one.

I wish I could show Malek that all is not lost. Life is long. It can be made right. There is hope. There is always hope… but we can’t get there by ourselves. Each of us needs a community of healers, savers, and hope-bearers. 

I believe the world doesn’t need perfect people doing things perfectly, it needs imperfect people doing what they can, with the talents they have to make this world just a little more fair – and that includes you, dear reader.  

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***UPDATE: After a few conversations surrounding bitcoin, Malek has opened a bitcoin wallet! If you would like to donate bitcoin/sats to him, you can do so at the following BTC/LN wallets:

Bitcoin wallet:

bc1q4qhct0dhghxswvt0tjqhtky8qkzdw5c3xn09m6undnwarud9ssvsxjr7p9

Lightning Network wallet:

lnbc1p32hx0jpp5ghs7r922wvmmuwwnjc9zw059xz89zpq78nwmju2q8px336d82ymqdqqcqzzgxqyz5vqrzjqwnvuc0u4txn35cafc7w94gxvq5p3cu9dd95f7hlrh0fvs46wpvhdxej2xgm2ys0xuqqqqryqqqqthqqpyrzjqw8c7yfutqqy3kz8662fxutjvef7q2ujsxtt45csu0k688lkzu3ldxej2xgm2ys0xuqqqqryqqqqthqqpysp56v52ng8txsvmffqkf67ag4pcweatz78fnxpxc9s8w4vlwzmdy58q9qypqsqnnlj0vj5763ku4pvu8yw395qtgwpl0sccsvlsttwpqpvsx9vjt9xtxj5dwyf6k6pdn4fkg4h8q5gut5q4f3ks8ev3c42gmampug700qqn6jg7s

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Will you please leave a comment for Malek (down in the comments section or by replying to this email)? It can be a message of encouragement, a connection to someone in the Middle East, or anything that speaks to your heart. If you’re a bitcoiner, could you please share your experience with bitcoin, a lesson about it or advice for Malek? I would love to collect all these messages and show him there is a community of real people – and bitcoiners – rooting for him.

Also, if you’d like to send him a little bit of money to help him get by, you could send it via Western Union to Malekram66@gmail.com (until he explores bitcoin, should he wish to). Thank you for reading this far!

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