Driving to a town in The Middle East only 12 days after getting back from remote villages in Bangladesh. As we drive past a refugee camp it occurs to me that this is the first time I will be coming to work with people displaced by war. I have seen and worked with misery and poverty and trauma in many parts of the world including my own. But this is new. I’m not sure how it will feel.
I’m here with a team of really beautiful mature people with lots of life experience who’ve served in Yemen, India, Cambodia, Zimbabwe and with refugees in Australia. We have come to teach English, and do home visits to Syrian refugees who are living outside the camp and being helped by a group here who distributes aid and helps the refugees.
There are hundreds of thousands Syrian refugees in the UNHCR camps and just as many scattered in other towns and villages with some towns doubling in size.
In most countries where they are refugees, Syrians can’t get a passport,own a business, rent a car and it’s hard to get a job and when you do you are paid less. Many can’t go home to Syria because they will be killed, they have been told they are on a watch list or their homes are physically gone. And they have nowhere else to go. Even when some are offered immigration to other countries ( and that is a small percentage)that can be a devastating decision to make as families are often separated and sent to different countries – that can be soul-destroying for a culture dependent on extended family and a further blow to those already suffering loss and separation from war.
One of the groups visits the refugees in their homes and develops relationships with them, providing emotional support and friendship. They also deliver food aid in partnership with other NGO’s and help facilitate medical care and other things.
There were many sad stories from the people our teams visited. One man had been jailed, tortured and left for dead until someone rescued him when they saw him moving . His wife and kids had been killed in front of him.
We decided to go out for New Year’s Eve dinner and went to a Yemeni restaurant run by some guys from Yemen, quite likely refugees. One of them was from the same place where one of our team had lived as a teacher for a while and they were quite excited by that. The food was amazing and the way we ate it was fun – the food was all piled up in the middle of the floor on a plastic mat while we sat around it on cushions. We ate our fill of the delicious food and then got the leftovers packed up. Then we watched in amazement as ‘clearing the dishes’ consisted of picking up the plastic mat and taking the entire thing away, liquids, dishes, food and all.
We’ve divided into pairs to teach different groups of students English. I was thankful with Rose to get the 13 year old teenage girls who have been attending the church school and already know a bit of English. Also with my experience with Kowie teenagers I found it more in my comfort zone. They are a lively bunch of beautiful girls.Almost all are from Homs or Alleppo which have been devastated by the Syrian war. A couple are from Daara where the Syrian war started.
As the days have gone by we have grown closer to the girls. It seems weird to say when you’ve only been teaching them for a few days but I already know all their names and they remind me so much of the Kowanyama girls I love so much and they are so sweet. I wish I could stay and get to know them more.
Today we visited an older couple who are more fortunate in that they’ve been granted immigration to England. But they’ve waited seven years and it’s bittersweet because their children are scattered in Syria,Germany and America and the old lady welled up with tears as she spoke of her grandchildren she has never seen. I was able to share some of my story with her and with their friend, our Arab interpreter.
Some of the others in our team visited a lady who is alone here with lots of children. Her husband was arrested in Syria.They are very poor and rely on UNHCR food coupons, aid from a church and small odd jobs she and her older children can get.
Another sad story we heard is that often in the summer,wealthy Saudi Arabians come over here to prey on poor families and ‘buy’ a young wife ( and I’m talking about ‘child’ young) only to divorce them at the end of the summer. Essentially a religiously acceptable form of prostitution.
Two of our team have a group of young men and a couple of older men in their English classes who don’t speak a lot of English. Touchingly one old man tried to convey his feelings about these Aussies coming over to ‘help’ them and he said on Google translate on his phone – “thankyou for sympathising with us”.
The ladies in our team are teaching two different groups of women – some with a little English and others with none at all. Some of the stories that came out towards the end as trust was built were gut -wrenching. Some women RAN across the border fleeing war, dragging children crying and screaming and some were pregnant as they fled.
We got to meet a young German guy travelling the world volunteering and two American cousins who are here to learn Arabic for their future work. They have been working in West African refugee camps too. Seeing such young people doing these things with their lives is truly encouraging and inspirational.
some lovely local boys we metOn the way back from a days outing our lovely driver ( who had also driven us from the airport) asked if he could invite us for tea. He seems to have a soft spot for Australians and it was an honour to be asked. We turned up at his family’s olive grove and before you knew it family had rolled up from all around and we were making a fire in the grove from olive wood and being served strong, sweet tea around the campfire. Noone really spoke English but we managed to still have a great time and have conversation of sorts. It’s amazing how much you can still work out. We are pretty sure his mother in law was trying to organise a marriage for the younger ones and was pretty concerned about my husband not being with me, and he was trying to get me to lecture his sister-in-law and mother-in-law about smoking but not him because he ‘only’ smokes 2 a day. It was such a lovely peaceful experience sipping tea around a fire in an olive grove as the sun set over the desert.
Today we go to visit again the man whose leg is so badly fractured that he cannot walk without an operation he cannot afford. Phil and I have obtained a leg brace that may give him some increased temporary mobility but he really needs the operation. The NGO hospital contact is on leave until Monday and we can’t get through on their phone line but we are praying that that will be a possibility not only for this man but maybe for others in similar situations here into the future. Whilst I did not see them, it sounds like there are at least two infants with congenital hip dysplasia that has been missed and needs treatment also to avoid life-long disability and hopefully the NGO hospital can help with this too.
Now we’ve since heard back from the hospital and it seems they may be able to help this man with the fracture which is good news. ( Update- the hospital has taken over his care and will give him the surgery he needs).
We have had some amazing experiences here meeting Syrian refugees and some amazing locals . Out of respect and safety I cannot tell everything I want to tell you.
Many families we visited were very poor. Living in shanty’s or on rooftop annexes with no fridge and no heating despite the bitter cold.One family was in a cold damp house and all the kids were sick. They had seen their father’s head cut off in Syria. They escaped Syria with others in three tiered sheep trucks and had to drive with no lights to avoid sniper fire. One truck went off the road in the dark and everyone on board died.
Another family had to drug their babies so they wouldn’t cry as they escaped on foot through the trees trying to avoid snipers.
The refugees tell us that sometimes the Saudis bring help but it comes with conditions – the women have to wear burkas and they must send their children to their Wahabi schools.
One lady had children with chemical burns on their faces. They still don’t know what it is but there was a chemical attack and it came through the windows of their houses.
Another man was blind due to the torture and beating he had received in Syria.
Many families are distressed by the poor education their kids are receiving here. Local schools are struggling to cope. The teachers are not trained in how to respond to kids who have experienced so much trauma and have a lot of issues.
Another man detailed the torture he had received in prison –he said he was imprisoned for being a Sunni. His brother is now in prison. And now he is not being accepted by any countries for immigration because they say he’s a criminal because he was in prison.
One couple had spent two years applying for immigration to the USA and had gone through all the paperwork and jumped through all the hoops but then Trump declared no one from Syria could come in so the doors are shut for them.
Another lady and her four kids had just received the call before we visited that she had been accepted by Canada and she was so happy. She wants nothing but a better future for her kids and for them to have an education. She has been working in the fields in winter for a few dollars a day and lives in a sparse concrete house that she can barely afford the rent for.She has no family here and her husband deserted her.
One of the long term workers here is helping her Syrian refugee friend by taking visitors to her house to have henna designs applied to their hands and they pay a few Dinars. A couple of us went there and we attracted a bit of attention from neighbours and their kids who all came to visit then to have a look and meet us. It was a very nice evening. 
The family we visited on the last day had a little girl some of our team had seen the day before. The local worker wanted me to see her as a doctor because she had thick skin coming off in sheets and exposing infected flesh on her hands and feet. It was in fact eczema that had not been able to be treated for 6 months and they didn’t know what it was and it had turned into the most severe case I had ever seen. She needed multiple ointments and antibiotics and thankfully one of the local volunteers is a nurse who was able to come and help translate medical advice and will follow up when I am gone. The poor girl was only ten and was so brave – it must have been agony. Her family were so lovely and grateful. Three generations were sleeping in two rooms and the father and the grandmother had both had strokes. Yet they treated us to an amazing meal and insisted we partake before we left.These people are so generous.
Our last day at the school was very sad. I didn’t realise how attached I’d become to these girls until we had to say goodbye. I fervently prayed that they would have a bright future after all they’d been through. One precious girl told me on the second last day that her home in Homs had been bombed. She had lived near the school and on her first day at school gunmen shot the place up and bombs were dropped. Her sister made ‘boom boom’ noises to illustrate. She said that then when they first came here she was scared to go to school and her mother had to take her but she cried and ran away.
When we said goodbye they all started hugging me and saying they love me and will miss me and I started bawling my eyes out. One of the girls had even written me a letter in broken English and had wrapped up some of her precious possessions as a gift which she didn’t let me open until she had left.
I would love to post some photos of these beautiful girls but we can’t share these or any other photos of any of the other refugees when they are in a vulnerable position and some still live in fear.
I can honestly say that I felt a real warmth and affection and in the case of the girls, even love, for these beautiful human beings who had endured so much. Media portrayals can influence our perceptions but even beneath the Niqab or Burka and behind the different beliefs and cultural practices are human beings loved by God who long for safety, connection and love the same as the rest of us. I will carry the experiences of this trip with me always.
