Al Azraq

Note: I have struggled whether or not to share these posts at all. My concern is that the posts will be taken out of context, and might seem like a self-promotional campaign, even flat-out virtue signaling/glory-hounding. The truth is my university sent me on their dime to spend a few hours in the refugee camps.  There are other players that have made much more significant contributions.  Nick Sabato and the entire Education for Humanities team, including Perryhan Ahmed and Joanna Zimmerman, created this partnership, and they are moving quickly to help refugee camps throughout the world.  Alissa Nostas, Vincent Lauter, Ashley Garrigan, and Lydia Shatkin created the English course that we are putting in the hands of the Syrian students and teachers.  And finally, the spotlight truly falls to the students, teachers, and the NRC administrators who work within the camp each day to elevate the opportunities available to each person within the camp. The reason I am posting this as a preface is because I want to make it clear that this blog, although personal, is not intended to help anyone come to any conclusions about me, rather I am trying to help the camps come to life in the mind’s eye. 

Al Azraq

Dima and Ghaida told us that we would feel the differences between the Za’atari and Azraq camps almost immediately, and that proves true.  While Za’atari had movement and life, Azraq feels subdued if not clinical.  There are 6 villages separated by about a half mile, and even from far off you can get a sense of the strict community planning.    

You see, each village in Al Azraq was constructed before refugees ever arrived, and so there is an evenness, a sterile quality to the caravans.  They are in rows very much like you would expect if farmers were planting wheat.  Compared with Za’atari, fewer caravans are painted, but there is the occasional spot of color.  While Za’atari is bursting with refugee families, Al Azraq has unoccupied caravans, and in fact, one village is completely unoccupied.  Za’atari boasts over 80,000 refugees. Al Azraq is about half that size, with room for 120,000.   

When we first arrive, we wait outside the gates yet again and see the camp villages from a distance. An official comes from inside the camp to approve our entry.  The visit is cordial, and he welcomes us in, with the stipulation that under no circumstances are we to visit Village 5.  This immediately piques my curiosity, of course.  Why can’t we enter Village 5? I want to ask.  But prudence prevails, and I say nothing.    

A driver picks us up in an NRC vehicle and we are taken to the school. As we move along the paved road, with speed bumps every 80 meters, the contrast between the two camps is even more obvious.  I see the occasional child running about, but there isn’t the huge bustling of people. Instead of teenagers on bicycles, we see school buses that help traffic students from one village to another. The white caravans are so neatly aligned that Nick states that they look like what he imagines a settlement on Mars might look like. 

The reason for the differences between the camps is largely historical.  Al Azraq, built after Za’atari, was created in response to the mistakes made in the first camp.  The first camp, with its general lawlessness and sprawling organic nature, is difficult to maintain and manage.  Al Azraq, on the other hand, is a planned operation, and in that sense, is supposedly the new and improved version.  But I am told that the lack of life, the strict regulations, and the more military quality, puts all of that into question.  I have been curious to see if I will agree.

We arrive to the school, and it is refreshingly colorful.  However, the marks of Al Azraq efficiency are also here. For example, the main building, a row of classes, is all interconnected into a u-shape, with a single administrative building detached and positioned in the center of the u. Each classroom along the u is adorned by colors, and mural artwork and large lettering identify the differing classrooms: computers, hair styling, tailoring, culinary skills, electricity, and so forth.  Solar panels cover the roof of the main u shape to provide additional electricity, and there are several buildings just behind: a workshop for welding on one side, a soccer field on the other. 

We meet the teachers, Ali and Mohanad.  They are both anxious to share their views on the course, and you can see that they, like the Za’atari teachers, feel privileged to teach.  We also meet Almontaser, who serves as an administrative point of contact.  Like most of the Jordanians we have met, he is constantly smiling, good humored, and willing to share personal details.  After just a few minutes we know that his wife is from England, and that she has a CELTA certificate.  When I mention the TESOL certificates that we may be able to offer, he takes careful notes. 

After our meeting at the school, we hop into a truck and Almontaser accompanies us on a tour of the entire camp. Again, we see the marvel of organization throughout.  For example, there are drop zones for supply trucks, registration zones for new arrivals, and a surprisingly large supermarket (completely unlike the open market street we saw in Za’atari).

Our tour takes us mostly around the villages rather than through them, although to cut back to our original starting point, we drive near (not in) Village 5. Again, my interest is piqued, and I am hoping to learn something about this forbidden area.    

Almontaser, delightful and hilarious throughout, is somber as he describes it.  Village 5 is the starting point for any Al Azraq refugee.  It is a holding area, a detention center, a place where Syrians are screened for possible ISIS ties.  Many Al Azraq refugees come from ISIS-controlled areas, meaning that the possibility of ISIS infiltration into the camp is an overwhelming concern.  A screening takes place to uncover any family affiliations with ISIS.  The screening is costly and tedious, and often takes weeks if not longer.  Adults are more thoroughly examined than children, which unhappily results in the separation of children from parents. 

“When I first came here, I cried for days,” Almontaser explained. “It was such a shock to see.”

The shock he is referring to is what I witness next.  There is a chain-linked fence with chicken wire lining the top. Along the bottom of this fence I see patches of people sitting and kneeling.  A closer look reveals that children are on the outside of the fence, and mothers on the inside.  We slow down enough in the truck that I am afforded the chance to see one mother reach through the links to touch fingers with her young daughter. It is a tender scene, the kind that seems to slow down as you see it. The mother’s head is turned so perfectly to one side that it feels like a photograph.  

For a moment the scene rattles me, and I need to look away.  Something about the tenderness of such little contact between mother and daughter strikes me, and upsets me. Perhaps Almontaser notices, because he changes topics and becomes his jovial self once again.  He starts telling another story as the truck rumbles away from the scene, and the combination of the bumpy road and Almontaser’s contagious laughter allows the image to fade.  Once back at the school, we are first treated to a meal, and then we wait for Raed to finish his responsibilities so that we can return home. 

We are offered one more interesting moment while we wait.  Mohanad, perhaps the most articulate of our four teachers, approaches us and begins again to share his excitement.  His desire to hang out with us makes me feel he wishes to share more of his own personal story, so I ask a series of probing questions.  I learn that he and his family arrived at the Al Azraq camp at a time when the camp had no electricity and poor access to water.  His two girls immediately fell sick, and he worried.  In fact, worried enough that he planned an escape.  After just a single week in the camp, he was lucky enough to secure a temporary work permit, one that allowed the entire family to go with him.  They left, and when the time to return came, they disappeared into Jordan instead.  He found a job within a Jordanian city and began to build a new life with his family there.  He tells us that life there was good, but difficult, and he worked a job that provided them some amount of stability, although a far cry from the kind of job worthy of a university-educated professional.

Two years later, the Jordanian police caught up with him, and he was told his family had to return to the camp.  Shockingly, Mohanad says this without resentment.  In fact, he adds that the Jordanian police were very kind, and that he understood why he had to return.  With added optimism he says that the camp has seen vast improvements, and that by getting hired as the English teacher he feels he has the best job in all the camp.  The fact that he feels lucky is an instructive example of gratitude, and I shake his hands with newfound admiration before Nick and I board one last vehicle to return to the gate.  Once at the gate, we hop into Raed’s car, and head back to Amman.

As we take the one-hour journey to the hotel, Nick and I consider the differences between the two camps.  We are surprised to admit that, if we were to choose which camp to live in, we would likely choose Al Azraq.  Nick is a father of two young girls, and I am a father of four.  As we mentally place our families in each camp, the choice of energy versus security becomes a no-brainer.  We would choose the safety of the second camp, sterile as it is. 

On the ride back to Amman I get sleepy. Still feeling the effects of jet lag, I begin to go in and out of sleep.  As I start to fade, I continue reflecting on the mother and daughter, touching fingers, speaking to each other from opposite sides of a fence.  A Paul Simon song, Mother and Child Reunion, plays inside my mind.   

With my eyes closed, I catch images of my own kids the day before coming to Jordan. I see each image clearly.  My 3-year old boy wrestles me in the middle of the family room, convinced that this time, this time, he has the strength to push me over. The 12-year old boy grabs a pillow and joins in.  On the couch closest to this scene of masculine exuberance, my 11-year old girl is laying down on her back reading a book held above her in the air. On the other couch, the 14-year old girl casually plays with my wife’s hair and asks to watch a Christmas movie.  I see each image so clearly, and find them comforting me, nearly lulling me to sleep. But each time I am at the point of drifting off, my mind returns to the scene of the mother reaching for her daughter’s fingers, and Paul Simon rattles me awake.

Well, I would not give you false hope/

On this strange and mournful day/

But the mother and child reunion/

Is only a motion away.

like rows of wheat

like rows of wheat 2

me, Mohanad, Ali, and Nick

classrooms and solar panels

soccer field

welding facility

Za'atari Camp

Each country has its own rhythm, its own set of internal rules.  In Jordan, for example, a car moving at a slower speed will move over about half a lane to let you pass.  I found this a charming show of courtesy.  More surprising still is that, in Jordan, this courtesy is extended to you by the oncoming car as well.  That is, if you happen to not pass in time with your car barreling down a road at 65 miles per hour, don’t fret, you can be assured that the other car--the one moving toward you at 65 miles an hour--will also scoot over, just enough so that you can drive right down the middle of the road, flanked by cars on either side. That’s right: Two lane highway, meet 3 cars passing each other. When it happened the first time I found I had stopped breathing for a second, but it didn’t seem to faze our driver, Raed.  He simply trusted that the car on the right would move over his half lane, and the car bearing down on us would move over the other half.  And they did.  It was a disconcerting game of chicken, and one that was only possible because the driver in question believed that those around him were naturally hospitable and worthy of trust. 

And that is Jordan in a nutshell.  Hospitable and trusting.

Raed is an example of this. He is one of the managers of the youth program at the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), and he has a natural wit.  He tells outrageous stories with a wry smile--the kind of smile that has you excited for a punchline even before it comes.  He tells us about a trip to Bali he is planning on taking.  My ASU traveling companion, Nick, mentions that he has friends in Bali that could give him some objective information about the city.  Raed cuts Nick off.

“I don’t need objective,” Raed says, “I’ve already bought the tickets.”

He laughs and then we laugh.  The trip has been like this—everyone we meet seems to be willing to joke with us in the kind of familiar way you don’t expect unless among friends.  And maybe that is another one of the cultural rules here in Jordan.  Strangers ARE friends.

Once at the Za’atari camp, Raed has to convince the security guards that we possess the proper documents. Afterward, we enter a city-sized expanse filled with thousands of colorful, hastily-constructed concrete structures, not much larger than tents. These constructions, called caravans, are where each family lives.  Some are a drab white, but many are painted.  Spongebob Squarepants has been painted on the entire side of one caravan, and an Arabic phrase has been gracefully painted on another.  This kind of incongruity I see throughout the camp.  Two women are dressed in traditional full-length hijabs, for example, but the man behind them is wearing a Golden State Warriors t-shirt.  A man in a robe encourages a donkey to pull a cart, yet right past him are young boys with smartphones huddled near a fence looking for better cell reception.   A little further down the road and on my right I see a shoeless kid laughing and rolling a tire, but on my left, I spot a vast number of solar-powered panels. We learn that while most of the roads are dirt, the camp has been electric for the last nine months.

This constant juxtaposition is jarring and yet beautiful, and I am taken back by the energy of the place.  The market, which we see later in the day, is a perfect example of that energy.  It is a tightly-packed street of stores selling fruits, clothes, and housewares. Bikes, pedestrians, and donkeys weave in and out, as vendors stand passively by their storefronts smoking cigarettes.  We are told that the market is illegal, but the kind of illegal that has officials looking the other way.    

When we reach the school, we are greeted by a brightly colored multifarious construction.  There are a number of classroom buildings, each painted brightly, wherein classes are conducted for tailoring, a/c repair, hair cutting, plumbing, and electricity.  Our classroom, the one for learning English, has two rows of computers, and when we walk in, we are met with broad smiles.  Some students recognize me from the online videos and speak in hushed whispers. Later I am afforded a translation of their comments.  The students have decided I am more handsome in person than online.  I admit I am pleased.

A set of meetings with teachers, students, and administrators follow.  Mohammed and Khaled, the two teachers, tell us that students are excited and willing to learn.  Later, students tell us that they are grateful for the privilege to take classes online.  With administrators (Raed, Dima, and Ghaida) we discuss ways to expand our relationship and better meet the needs of the students.  After these meetings we go to lunch at a small restaurant inside the camp.  Ghaida pays for our lunch, and I notice she does it with her own money. 

As we sit down waiting for our food (chicken shwarama and fries for me), Dima and Ghaida, tell us about the camp.  Dima, a former badminton player for the Jordanian national team, has an economical style of speaking, and freely shares what feels like insider information. She tells of how a certain sense of entitlement has come over some camp members, a result she believes can be traced back to the job opportunities inside the camp.  Employment offers for full-time work, she explains, are often turned down because part-time work inside the camp is easier, giving the young refugees the free time and disposable income they want.  Ghaida gives us even bigger secrets.  She asserts that sex trafficking was once common in the camp, as certain parents were willing to rent out their daughters to unsavory men.  That practice has since been stopped, but Ghaida mentions matter-of-factly that problems with girls have continued.  One of her primary goals, as she sees it, is to give these girls more choices, choices that will help them feel less pressure to marry young (often at 15 or 16 years old). 

Overall, the life and movement of the camp is vibrant.  Teenage girls walk together conspiratorially, heads covered, but mouths moving.  Za’atari children explore, finding toys among rubbish, and toddlers pop out of caravan doors as busy mothers grab them back inside.   There are 12 districts, which strikes me as reminiscent of the book The Hunger Games, but the analogy doesn’t extend much beyond that.  In The Hunger Games, districts were divided and distinct, whereas the districts we see here are interconnected, and blend together harmoniously, albeit with a touch of unevenness.

That stated, the uneven touches I find give each district originality and identity.  For example, our school, located in District 10, displays two broken down cars right outside one of the main buildings.  The cars themselves would not be of much interest, except that residents have decided to re-purpose them. The cars are painted in wild colors, and have pots, pans, mufflers, oscillating fans, and other random scraps glued to them.  A set of drum sticks placed in one of the pots makes the re-purposing clear.  The cars now serve as a giant refugee camp drum set, and anyone who wishes to beat on this scrapheap musical instrument is invited to pound away at his or her heart’s content. 

This giant drum set, a result of unlikely circumstances, strikes me as the perfect symbol of the refugees themselves. 

Let me explain.  When thinking of these refugees, I am reminded of a particular phrase in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” Speech.  King Jr., speaking in that pulsing preacher style that is so affecting, directs this sentence to victims of violence when he declares, “You have been the veterans of creative suffering.”  That phrase, creative suffering, always gives me pause. What did King Jr., mean by creative suffering? The phrase has long been ambiguous and confusing to me.  To start with, who is creative anyway…the victimizers or the victims?  If it is the victimizers, then perhaps the phrase means that victimizers are innovative, creative providers of suffering, or put slightly differently, victimizers bring about unique and creative ways to make others suffer.  I consider this possible meaning, and I see it in this camp.  Not only have victims lost homes, they have lost family, jobs, and dignity.  I am told that a man with a PhD in engineering is now fixing air conditioning units. Man.  This isn’t just suffering, it is creative suffering.

But I am not satisfied completely with this interpretation.  So I consider the second.  What if the phrase “creative suffering” refers to the victims themselves?  In other words, victimizers aren’t the ones that are creative, but rather, the victims are.  In this case, suffering has somehow turned the victims into agents of creation.  I look around the camp one more time and see the murals painted on buildings, the children playing with plastic lids instead of Frisbees, and timing belts instead of hula hoops.  And here I see yet another truth as I examine the phrase creative suffering.  While peering around the camp I see creativity rising everywhere. 

And it is in this second interpretation of creative suffering that I realize that the two cars are the perfect symbol of the refugees themselves.  Two Skittle colored cars loom out against the beige backdrop of the desert landscape, reminding me how refugees, in the midst of their suffering, transform misfortune into music, and drab despair into brilliant color.   

A Mural

Khaled, Me, Nick, and Mohammad

Donkey Power

Mural Up Close

Drum Set

Finding Refuge

In January, while writing down New Year's resolutions to determine what I wanted to do for the upcoming year, a picture floated into my head of Syrian refugees traversing across oceans, struggling to make it to safer shores.

Now, my brain often gets squirrelly like this, so I pushed the image out.  Surely what I really wanted to do this year WAS NOT traverse across treacherous oceans with Syrian refugees.  So I wrote down other things, like lose weight.  Now THAT's a goal I can write down in January and neglect by February.

But the image returned.  And with it came the belief that I should help out refugees. That's right, my brain told me that I should make it a goal and write it down.  Seriously.  And so I did what I generally do when my brain proposes ridiculous ideas.  I disagreed with it.

Oh silly brain!  How inconstant and unfaithful you are. How willing you are to go off topic and get me in trouble. Now let's talk financial goals.

But the brain persisted, and at this moment the heart chipped in as well, telling me not to judge my brain so quickly.  My heart's role in disputes like this is to support brain's most outlandish ideas. It tries to remind me of times past when it was precisely the crazy idea that ended up being fruitful.  Like when I was 32 and single and my brain told me to ignore the attention of several hot girls, so that God and the universe could provide me the girl I really wanted to meet.  Ignore attention from girls?  That was not my modus operandi at all.  How ridiculous.  But the brain teamed up with my heart and won out.  I followed the advice, and I met my future wife the very next week.

Good point, Heart! That's a great story.  But you'll also remember that in 2010, Brain told me to sell copiers for a living.  See how well THAT year of life worked out for me?

Heart stopped.  I mean, metaphorically, that'd be bad news if it were literal.  So I went back to listing out more boring, practical resolutions.  I wrote down a few, but I was bothered with the silent treatment my companions were giving me. In frustration, I finally put down my pen, and announced a compromise.

Alright, if I am going to help Syrian refugees in any way, than I am going to need opportunities to do so.  So life is going to have to send it my way.

That's a compromise I use a lot.  I call it, "send it out to the universe."  If I am uncertain how to proceed with life, but I would like something to happen, I often do what I can, as much as I can, and then see how the universe responds.  It isn't fatalistic, which in my view, means just sitting on your hands and letting the world pass you by. It is different from that.  It means that I do everything I can and simply see what doors open.

I wrote down the resolution.  It looked silly on the paper.  But that's one way of sending it out to the universe, isn't it?  And then I looked for chances.

The first came a few months later when my boss asked me to create a test for a pilot program for 10 students in Beirut, Lebanon.  They were refugees.  Syrian refugees.  Whoa.  What were the chances of that happening?

And then came another request.  Would I be interested in helping pilot an English course in Jordan?  The details were hazy, but apparently there are these large refugee camps on the border of Jordan and Syria, and for whatever crazy reason, Arizona State University led a coalition to see what kind of online educational offerings we might provide them.  When they returned, there was one clear request: Syrian refugees wanted English.

English, for many of the refugees, is access.  Access to information, access to education, and even access to other countries.  If their English is good enough, the thinking goes, they will be more able to get jobs in European or other host countries that might accept them.  English is a ticket.

Oh, I teach English.  I can do that.  In fact, I am quite qualified for the task. Wait a second, am I helping Syrian refugees?  I can't believe it.  I sent it out to the universe, and the universe responded.

I leave for Jordan this Sunday and couldn't be more excited and more at peace with my decision, except for maybe one thing.

Brain and Heart haven't stopped gloating.