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