We were not trying to run or away from home or rather JAPA. We simply wanted a family vacation to Cyprus but made a huge blunder. We assumed that we could go using our American visas because it was accepted before but the rule had changed. You could only get in with Cypriot visas. What was meant to be a short stopover quietly turned into exclusion. We slept on airport benches for three days and survived on chicken nuggets cause the airport hotels would have made us broke in a place where google translate became our most used app. We were stranded by a system that did not recognize us as people, only as documents.
We eventually got the visas and were salvaged but this experience taught me that immigration is not only about permanent relocation. It is also about moments of temporary displacement. How easily dignity can be suspended by policies and paperwork.
Another reminder that movement is not just about where you want to go, but about what your passport and documentation allows you to do. I left that airport with a deeper awareness of the invisible hierarchies of mobility.
If a short journey could be interrupted so completely, I can only imagine the weight carried by those who live this reality every day especially those in countries with a totally different primary language. That understanding stays with me, shaping how I see migration, community, and belonging.
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