Our first stop was right outside the Zaatari refugee camp, near the Syrian border. Our guide today was a woman, Dima, who worked with Syrian refugees in Jordan. We didn't go inside the camp, it was heavily guarded, but we could see the camp, and its vast expanse of white tents. What we did see was a wall painted with a mural. Close up on the mural there were sentences painted by refugee children.
A view of the refugee camp on the horizon. It's really not a great picture, but it shows that the surrounding area is sparse baadia. There's trash lying around, and there were refugee children wandering around, begging for money. They walked around and through are group, asking individuals for money. What struck me was how dirty they were, with dozens of flies around them. They can't shower on a regular basis. Even the access to water is limited for the refugees in and around the camp.
Half of the mural. It reads "mustaqbalnaa beina aidiina", "our future is within our hands". Sitting by the mural is one of the children mentioned before.
The accompanying picture to the phrase.
Just some of the many things written on the wall. "Damascus (Ash-Sham) is our Damascus", "I hope to become a doctor", "I want to become a hero", "I am a pilot/flyer", "I have a nation and I will return to it". There also were many drawings of people, families, homes, and tanks.
However, this hopefulness expressed here is a stark contrast to the despair that we found when speaking to some refugees. More on that later.
Lunch, biryani and chicken. Biryani seems to be popular here
Afterwards we went to a farm, where the owner has allowed 150 refugees to live and work on the farm. The refugees also have access to water and electricity. This is especially significant because Syrian refugees are legally not allowed to work in Jordan. Any work they do has to be informal arrangements. Apparently, international organizations like the UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) has given some support, or at least some oversight, on the operation, especially judging by the UNHCR branded tents. We were told not to take pictures unless explicitly given permission here, and I ended up not taking very many pictures.
A small boy driving a station wagon with packages of food gifts for the refugees
One of my first views of the camp. It's mostly tents.
We first went up a tower on the farm with a great view of not only the farm, but a Syrian village. The owner of the farm told us about the farm, about his experience, and, in typical Arab fashion, shared with us some of the delicious apricots grown there. Afterwards, we went to the area where the refugees lived, which looks a lot like the above picture. We were led to a family to discuss with them, and entered their tent. It was a very modest living space, and quite dark, with the only light source at the time being the opening. We dropped off some gifts for the families, including toys for the children, and were led to a community center, which was basically the mother of all tents (that I've seen at least). It was a very large tent that covered a lot of ground, and featured different rooms for different purposes. We came into a room that, on one have, had dozens of children sitting and talking. Many adults were also in the room. Basically it was really crowded but also full of life. Also about 500 degrees Kelvin.
We spent time with the children, playing games with soccer balls that we brought for them, and face painting. And at these times, they seemed like normal children. They laughed and played and occasionally fought like kids do on any playground, yet these kids have endured hardship and loss that I can't even imagine. One reason we saw the Zaatari camp, and the children wandering outside, is to be able to compare the situations of different Syrian refugees in Jordan, even ones that aren't very far apart from each other. The children outside Zaatari were very dirty and unkempt, surrounded by flies and begging for money. The children at the farm had enough food, water, constant electricity, and looked clean and healthy. As a result of different proposed solutions to the Syrian refugee crisis in Jordan, refugees have ended up in very diverse situations, each with different merits and problems. Not only are there the two we saw today, there are those in the "7-Star" Emirati camp, the Azraq camp meant to address the problems of Zaatari, urban refugees in Amman and other cities, etc.
A group of us was gathered, along with a translator, to go talk to a group of men amongst the refugee families on the farm, all from Aleppo. They had varied jobs, including taxi drivers, construction workers, a sheikh, and office workers. Most of them fled Aleppo in 2013, and decided to head to Jordan instead of nearby Turkey. They knew that if they went to Jordan, they would be accepted and treated better than with the Turks. Many of the men actually had an opportunity to be sent to the United States, and they all turned it down. In the US, they would have no safety net, with no connections, little language skills, and would be alienated and feared. They chose to stay in Jordan.
Our translator also emphasized this point. Before the past century, the Levant was united as an Ottoman province, the Bilaad Ash-Sham, country of Damascus. The Jordan-Syrian border didn't exist, and the people in the region all had a shared Levantine/Shaami identity and culture. Our Jordanian translator said that Jordanians want to treat Syrian refugees well, the way they'd want to be treated if Jordan descended into civil war, and 100,000s of Jordanians fled to Syria. The refugees knew this, and that's why they crossed war zones and endured violence to reach Jordan. One man said the ordeal was indescribable.
Many of them have had communication with friends and family in Syria. However, access is spotty. Some weeks, they are able to communicate. Some weeks, they can't. They also follow the news in Syria. They know that Aleppo is destroyed, and don't have much hope to return anytime soon. Even if they do return, they know it won't be the home they left. When we asked about their hopes for their children's future, they said bluntly that their children didn't have a future.
Interestingly, they did have much to say about politics, and the role of the United States. They've seen the power of the US in the Middle East to achieve its goals when it wants to, like in Iraq. They ask why the US isn't doing anything in Syria to stop the fighting. Many Americans, including myself, can come up with various reasons why we wouldn't want to intervene. But the men had an ability to cut through the crap. The US has the raw power to stop the fighting, or at least alleviate much of the suffering. But we aren't. And the refugees are justifiably frustrated at their situation.
When we asked them what they'd like Americans to know, they said that the US and Iran are allies. In the Middle East they act like allies. Also, the US created Daesh/ISIS. Although it's hard for Americans to see how Iran and the US are allies, they say, ask anyone in the Middle East and they will agree (our translator agreed). What the men wanted us to do, or us Americans to do, is to get our politics and our government to do something that helps the Syrian people, rather than cause more violence in the Middle East and work with Iran. They didn't want money or charity from us. All they wanted from us was for us to listen to them, take them seriously, and tell others.
Afterwards, we said our goodbyes to the refugees, and took the bus home.
Afterwards, we said our goodbyes to the refugees, and took the bus home.
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