“Every house not a home, but dare do I roam, there’s a light on the porch here for someone. Once upon a time in a border town, the war was over, the guns laid down, the women, the men, the children say, that it’s hard to remember it any other way. When the law acts as though, there’s nothing to show, there’s compassion and depth in a neighbor.”

– Neighbor, Band of Horses

One year ago today I woke up at 3:00 A.M. to the crack of gunfire outside my window. I ripped out of my mosquito net, not having time to get dressed, I joined my colleagues rushing to the most secure room in our house wearing only my boxers. The following days were a nightmarish haze punctuated by intense periods of gunfire and explosions. Rohingya colleagues called to update us as they started to flee their homes, and neighboring Rohingya women and children took shelter in our house as the campaign of violence continued.

After three days, we left our Rohingya colleagues in Maungdaw, driving out in a caravan as villages burned, and military helicopters hovered above the rice paddies. There aren’t words to express what the Rohingya have endured at the hands of the Tatmadaw (army), the Rakhine people, the NLD-led civilian government, and ARSA, but the superlatives are hanging in the air: ethnic cleansing, genocide, crimes against humanity, the fastest outflow of refugees since Rwanda now comprising the largest refugee camp in the world. These headlines fall dramatically short of understanding the impact on the individual lives of the Rohingya people of Myanmar; they fall short of expressing the grit and true strength the Rohingya have mustered to continue to survive it all.

When I was working in Rakhine, last year, I was obsessed with the song ‘Neighbor’ by Band of Horses; a resonance with those lyrics in that border town context, fueled a compulsion to listen to it repeatedly. One year on, the optimistic vision of a future where guns are laid down and bonds of compassion and depth grow between Rakhine and Rohingya neighbors, has never seemed further out of reach. One year on, I’m again listening to Neighbor on repeat.