A 20-year old boy walks up to our medical cabin. We have not seen his face before. He is here for a friend, who needs to see the doctor but doesn’t speak any English. He does speak English and wants to translate. He introduces himself as Fridoon and after the visit to the doctor he asks us if there is any psychological help available. As much as I as a psychologist wish to say yes to his request, we can’t since we are not allowed to provide any psychological care at this camp site. When I ask him if he is interested in translating for us for Afghani patients who only speak Farsi, he responds with enthusiasm. The next day he shows up right away. He appears to be an excellent help for us and all Farsi speakers that visit our doctors. We get to know him better and better over the week. He tells us about his trip to Europe that has taken him 6 months time. About the jobs he has done during his trip so he could stay alive but where he never got paid for. About the money he has lost on smugglers that made false promises about a crossing. About the severe physical torturing by smugglers as soon as he and others would speak their own language. And about the nerve-wrecking crossing two weeks ago and about the 4 people who fell overboard and drowned. These are all stories we hear more often here. But Fridoon also tells me something that I haven’t heard before. “My journey was horrible, so much inequality, discrimination, conflicts. But at that moment that we stepped on board of that boat with 40 people, we were one, despite our different nationalities, cultures and religion. We all had the same goal, getting to the other side alive. I felt warm, warmer than I had felt at any time during my journey before. We did it together, as one big family. It gave me hope for the future of this world.” And this is how the horrible stories can teach us something and give us hope too. There are so many refugees like Fridoon. Their stories are worse than we can actually take in from our safe harbors in the west. Let’s try to solve this together too. We ARE one.