“We'd created a small, simple life from scraps. We had connected with each other, with guards, and with the world beyond our cells through the simple act of opening ourselves up and expressing ourselves. If that was so threatening, nothing would change their minds. But it didn't matter what they say in us. We had regained ourselves, something they couldn't take away from ourselves ever again. And we were determined to fight for it.” LifeArtAmericaHumanityCommunityWar CrimesGuantánamoGuantánamo Bay Book:Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo Source: Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo
“Sitting around talking together without vacuums and fans or guards harassing us really changed our lives. We had been friends and brothers for years--since the very beginning. We had forged deep bonds fighting and resisting the camp admin and interrogators. But we had still experienced the worst of Guantánamo alone, in our cages or in interrogations. In these casual conversations, where we sat around drinking coffee, we processed what we had been through, and that somehow made us feel like we hadn't been alone. We remembered together our experiences: First being brought to Guantánamo, the first time we saw an iguana or banana rat. The fights we had. The bad guards--those who'd broken my ankle, those who'd taken Omar's prosthetic leg--and the good, like the one who'd given Khalid a slice of bread when he was on food punishment. The worst interrogators and the kind nurses who treated us humanely. We remembered the brothers we lost: Yassir, Mana'a, Ali, Waddah, al-Amri, Hajji Nassim (Inayatullah), and Awal Gul. And our remembering together made our losses and those solitary experiences real and a part of all our memories. It validated them and reminded us that, even though we were in solitary confinement or isolation or thousands of miles from the ones we loved, we had never been completely alone. It reminded us how we had grown older together and how we had become our own kind of family. A family with cats.” CommunityMemoriesFamilyValidationProcessingGuantánamoGuantánamo Bay Book:Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo Source: Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo