‘It’s constant upheaval’: what it’s like to be a displaced Syrian refugee

In the powerful new documentary Simple As Water, the lives of families escaping war to be stranded across the globe are shared

I was a refugee as a child, towed along by family as we escaped war in Sri Lanka. My memory of the whole ordeal is vague. There were stops that lasted weeks and months, as we were left in limbo in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Vancouver, before finding home in Toronto.

You meet a lot of people throughout such journeys, fellow migrants you live with for a time at refugee camps or shared apartments. They come in and out, leaving behind disjointed and scattered stories, memories of transit without a beginning or end. Simple As Water, a mosaic-like HBO documentary about Syrian refugees, affectively evokes that sensation.