Refugee Camps

Hey Everyone,

As mentioned before, Jordan has a lot of refugees. The majority of them don't live in refugee camps, but still, a very large number of them do. In newspaper articles around the world, we read about the humanitarian crisis happening in these camps, but it's hard to imagine what these camps are. In the past few weeks I've had the opportunity to go to both a Palestinian and a Syrian refugee camp. I went to each camp for very different reasons, and consequently, came away feeling very differently. I want to share some of my thoughts and stories with you.

I went to a Syrian camp today to participate in a volunteer day planned by SIT. Although these camps are not theme parks, all semester, we had been asking to have a chance to visit a refugee camp. This volunteer day gave us the opportunity to see a camp. I'm going to do a lot of reflections about refugee care in this section.

I went to the Palestinian refugee camp last week to conduct some interviews for my ISP and distribute surveys. My initial plan was to interview two families and interact with people living in the camp, but last minute changes (don't forget--it's Jordan) meant that I only had the chance to drive around the camp and look in from the outside and then interview a man in a house on a hillside right outside of the camp.

The Syrian Camp: A Two Way Petting Zoo

With the stress of having six days to finish our research projects, SIT had a volunteer day in a Syrian refugee camp outside the northern city of Mufrak. We didn’t know what we would be doing other than bringing them blankets, socks, scarves, and a soccer ball. We loaded onto a massive yellow coach bus, and drove for an hour up to the north.

As we pulled into the camp, I realized we are in a sad place. We looked out the window and saw a few scattered white tents with UNHCR stamped on the sides. The wind was blowing hard, and children were starting to assemble outside the tents near the bus. They were jumping up and down excitedly, cheering our arrival. I later learned that they thought we were a group from the UN dropping off food. Sorry kids…We sat on the bus for a while, watching them watching us. And then we got out. A group of 20 American students stood in a clump in front of about 30 Syrian children, none of whom could have been older than age 10. It was 10 AM on a Monday—why weren’t they in school?

First about the camp. This camp was not particularly structured, but rather, tents were placed in clusters in areas surrounding already existing Jordanian Bedouin houses. I can only imagine the feeling of siting in a tent freezing my ass off while looking at a concrete house 50 meters away. And it was cold.

 

Soon, they told us that we would be dividing into three stations. Of course, there were only two. Some people were to “train” the children in making friendship bracelets (the wording was awesome), some were to build a tent for a family, and the third group was told to think of ideas and play with the kids.

The group that made friendship bracelets sat inside a tent for a while with maybe 10 kids that were really cute. The group that made a tent assembled a tent that had been taken down so we could reassemble it (not a joke).

 I obviously went to play.

I grabbed the soccer ball that we had brought with us on the bus, and within a few minutes, I was playing soccer with a group that fluctuated between 5 and  20 young kids. When I say soccer, I say that in the loosest of senses. I would throw the ball to a kid (I’m a goalie afterall), and he would throw it back to me. Unless another kid came and stole the ball from him. Or slapped him and then stole the ball from him. Or took it and kicked it randomly in another direction. I threw it around to different kids, trying to get them all a chance to play. I had a lot of fun heading the ball around and proving that I could do chest traps. They were shocked. 

Kids were tripping all over the place, and popping right back up. I knew why they were tripping. It’s not as if there was a grass field, or even a concrete area to play on. The ground was hard packed dirt with rocks and shrubs everywhere. The kids were mostly wearing flimsy shoes—crocs or flip-flops. One girl was barefoot (and I found out that she is Jordanian, not Syrian). Multiple boys were wearing jeans that kept falling down. One very young boy boy was wearing nothing under his jeans, and they wouldn’t stay up. Another had a pair on with holes all over.

While we were playing, some strange moments happened. At one point, a boy ran up to another carrying a wooden two by four with nails sticking out of it. He attempted to start hitting another kid. He hit me a little bit as I tried to stop him, but eventually another kid took it from him. It was terrifying to see a seven year old run at a crowd trying to whack them with a piece of the door on the Chokie from Matilda. In another, one of SIT’s staff members that had previously played with the Jordanian women’s national team, punted the ball straight upward only for it to hit the hood of a car. When the ball went under the bus, I had no choice but to take the following picture:

Almost every kid asked me if they could have the ball. At a few points, I would disappear for 5 minutes and come back to a swarm of kids asking me where the ball is. I would learn that a kid took it to his tent, and all the kids would go and yell at him until we got the ball back. I decided that it was cute.

As I talked to the people around the camp and made more observations about the environment, I realized just how bleak the situation for Syrian refugees is.

At one point, after I was playing with kids for a few minutes, an older woman spoke to me in very fast Arabic, and all I heard was the word Haram. Was I not allowed to play with the kids? No. It turns out that the word harem means blanket, and it is not the same as the word that means not OK. Another woman came up to me and explained that her baby needed a jacket. I wish I could have helped her.

Eventually, one of the women decided that us kicking the ball around threatened the tents, because one of us easily could have made a tent fall down. We moved to their soccer field. I wish it resembled a field. It was more a large amount of space. It was slightly flatter and less rocky than the area we had been in previously, but not by much. At one point, we had to move our game because a group of shepherds came through with about 50 sheep. I died of laughter. We were in the badia…

A bit later, we were all hanging around in the main area, and our program director hands us boxes of wafers to pass out to the kids—one for each kid. It was so uncomfortable: “Hey starving brown children who probably all have post traumatic stress from what you have experienced in Syria and as a refugee in the last few years. I am a mysterious white person, and I come bearing sweets. Remember, white people are here to take care of you, oh poor, helpless Arabs. I took a box and begun distributing the packaged wafers. I’ve never felt more popular in my life. Granted, I sort of got attacked, but it was too funny not to appreciate.

 

We stayed at the camp for roughly two hours, and I decided that we had went that time in a petting zoo. The question, though, is who was petting whom.

Our group, as self-righteous Americans, went to a refugee camp to volunteer, to say we helped out, to say we made a difference. We built a tent! We trained them to make bracelets! But really, we as global Americans just wanted to see what people living in a crappy situation look like.

Their community, a group of displaced families from Syria that has nothing, does not have a lot of variety in their lives. They spend all day surviving, the mothers stay with the kids (who don’t go to school); the fathers often don’t have work. We provided entertainment. We were toys to play with. They took as many pictures of us as we took of them. We were equally intrigued by the other, for totally different reasons. A young girl asked me if America was pretty. Had she never heard anything about America that wasn’t political? A young girl tried to share some of her wafers from earlier with me. How long has it been since she had the chance to offer something to someone else and not just take?

We were all taking pictures of ourselves with the other group. Primarily, they asked to take pictures with me, or to have me take pictures of them. Here are some of those:

This boy could not believe I could do a chest trap. 

Physically, we gave this small community 20 blankets, a lot of pairs of socks, hijabs, and some sweatshirts. But we couldn’t give this community what they really need. I wish I knew what they really need.

They need shoes, and sweatshirts, and blankets, and hijabs, and pants. They need diapers, and band aids, and tissues, and hand sanitizer, and polio vaccines (not measles). They more protection from the snow than a canvas tent, more protection from flooding than some rocks along the bottom of the tent, and homes that allow for them to live and maintain dignity. How can a person keep their head high and feel proud of themselves, their ability to take care of their family, and their contribution to society when living in a white tent that says UNHCR on the side? They need the opportunity to have dignity, the opportunity to not feel like someone else’s burden. They need to have ways to return to a sense of normalcy and stop being refugees. But how the hell does anyone make that happen? The war in Syria is still going on, the UN doesn’t have the budget to do any more than they’re already doing, and a million NGOs are doing whatever they can.

But how can we give them any of those things without just being the white people from the west, coming in to save the starving children? We can’t. Refugee care is incredibly self-righteous. Every tent had a large sign saying which agency built it (these were mostly UNHCR, but there were some exceptions. The water tanks were all donated from Saudi Arabia, and had the word Saudi spray-painted on them in both English and Arabic. Some Saudi volunteers had come and built a tent out of goat hair with a concrete floor—and in a two minute description of it, they said the word Saudi about 500 times. I know that it’s good that different countries/groups are helping refugees, but there has to be some limit. I would not be surprised if I saw a refugee camp built by Coca Cola, with red tents instead of white ones. Our group was as guilty as the other ones.

To return to the ideas of the petting zoo, I think that this two-way petting zoo isn’t as bad of a thing as it sounds. We are in no position to help these refugees in any substantial way, so if nothing else, we can distract them for a few hours, give them some new people to gawk at, and show them that people care. We can play with some kids and let them see some new faces, give them a chance to laugh at our poor Arabic skills, and show them compassion, which every child can use more of.

We did not make a lasting impression on the refugees living in this camp, nor did we make a substantial difference in the lives of these kids or these families. But we provided a few hours of entertainment. The kids looked really happy. 

 

As we said goodbye, all the kids came up to the bus to shake our hands. They wanted hugs from all of us. My last kinesthetic experience in the camp involved me rubbing a young boy's head. His hair felt as though it was filled with dirt and hadn't been washed in a very long time. Good luck kid...I wish I could do anything to improve your situation.  

So what’s the alternative? Interestingly, at lunch, I got the answer—one I never expected.

Talking to our homestay coordinator who will hopefully be getting a PhD in human rights soon, we learned that there is nothing we can do to help Syrians. There are a million aid organizations receiving millions of dollars in donations, tons of food, clothing, blankets, etc. Distribution is not effective or easy, but giving an extra pair of shoes to one of these NGOs is not the way to make a real difference.

The way to make a difference with that pair of shoes is to donate it to Iraqi refugees in Jordan. Iraqis started coming into Jordan during the second gulf war. The stereotypical Iraqi had money—meaning Jordanians weren’t as automatically inclined to help them, as they could help themselves. It’s been 10 years since that war started, and funds have dried up. The media is constantly talking about Syria, so people are helping the Syrians; no one is helping the Iraqis anymore. They have nothing.

The Palestinian Camp

I'm currently working on a research paper all about the Palestinian right of return, so I can talk about this topic forever, but I'm going to (try to) be brief. Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan were initially founded in 1948 in the Arab Israeli war. In 1967 more refugees joined them. International Law grants refugees the right to return, but Israel has not granted them this right. Further complicating the matter, UNRWA refugee status is inherited by children from their parents.

This means that these camps have been standing for as long as 65 years. Initially, people lived in tents (like the Syrians do now). In the 1980s, the camps got more sturdy houses, with concrete floors and canvas roofs. Only in the mid 1990s, after Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty, did concrete apartments get built in these camps.

I always knew that life in Palestinian refugee camps involved children being born as refugees, being told that they are from somewhere else and will someday go back to somewhere else, but I never realized what that meant really before coming to the camp. As we turned off the highway and drove along the outside, I looked into the narrow streets of the camp itself, and saw litter everywhere with small kids running around. I saw people pushing carts on the main streets, walking to stores, and sitting on their front stoops. I opened the window and smelled a stench that was not welcoming or inviting.

The camp was not a tent camp, nor was it a city. It was a slum.

I know that the Right of Return is important to Palestinians, who have had an injustice happen to them. However, in Jordan, people have the legitimate opportunity to move on. Unlike Palestinian refugees in Lebanon (who are kept in tiny camps with barbed wire fences and not given citizenship or the opportunity to work), Refugees in Jordan were given citizenship. Consequently, these Jordanians of Palestinian origins (JPs) have the opportunity to leave the camps and do better for themselves and their families.

How do you set up a shop in the place in which you and all of your siblings were born while considering a foreign place in which you’ve never stepped foot home? How do you live in a cement house and grow up thinking of it as temporary? How do you live in this dirty, smelly, slum while knowing that other places in Jordan will provide you more opportunities for you and your family?

In Jordan, only 18% of registered Palestinian refugees live in refugee camps. I only talked to two of them, but both were bitter, angry, and resentful of their lives. They would also never consider leaving the camp to go to anywhere but Palestine, because leaving the camp is turning your back on Palestine.

Here are some pictures of the downtown area of the Camp.

Conclusion

Palestinian and Syrian (and Iraqi) refugees are in completely different different situations. One people is encouraged by their homicidal president to return to their country; one people is denied their right to return in order to give me a right to move to a land in which I have no immediate family. But Syrians haven't yet had the chance to recover and move on, and Palestinians in Jordan "do."

I just wish them all the best. What else can I do?

Thanksgivikkuh in Amman

Hey Everyone,

Today is a special day--for the first time and last time in some many thousands of years, Hannukah and Thanksgiving fall on the same day. It sounds like a fun day to be an American Jew. It sounds like a good day to be an American Expat in the country roughly 50 miles to my West. But I'm in Jordan, a country that could not give two shits about either holiday. Geography makes no difference, though. This post is all about my Thanksgivikah celebration.

I will start it with a picture of my proudest project to date: The world's most creative (nearly) Kosher Channukiah. Yes--those are mini birthday candles stuck in a cucumber. Yes--the shamash is made of a piece of pepper stuck in with a piece of a paper clip. Yes--I'm the least crafty person EVER.




We at SIT decided to have a Thanksgivikuh potluck. This afternoon (normal Thanksgiving food time), we sat down on the floor in our main sitting room to enjoy our potluck feast. We had Turkey, stuffing, Salad, mashed potatoes, mac n' cheese, green beans, and sweet potatoes. I made Latkes.

Here's the story. 

The first challenge came when I had to explain to my mom what Thanksgiving is a few days ago. My mom asked me a few nights ago if there was a holiday coming up. I said that Eid Thanksgiving was happening. She asked what we did on this holiday. I explained that on Thanksgiving, family comes together and eats. And eats. And eats. I realized just how anticlimactic Thanksgiving is when I mentioned that literally, it's what they do every fucking day: Gather the whole family together to eat way too much food communally, and start your meal way too early in the evening to be considered dinner. My family eats between 4 and 5:30 every day.

She then asked me if it's a Jewish holiday or not. I said no--It's an American holiday. I'm American, I'm Jewish, mish mushkila. She asked how since all American holidays are christian holidays. I said no. Lucky for me, she has a daughter in Georgia that celebrates Halloween. Only when she recalled her muslim daughter celebrating an American holiday did she understand. Success! I was so proud. But there's another holiday starting this week...is it worth explaining it...? I'm a little bit ashamed to say that the answer is no. It was difficult enough trying to explain one holiday. I wasn't going to confuse her.

Mama, it's Eid al Thanksgiving.

Fast forward to Wednesday night. I went over to a friend's apartment to begin the latke prep process. I grated 15 potatoes, hand grated 5 onions, added eggs and flour, and put them in tupperware containers. Only while I was doing this did I decide to call my mom and ask for permission to use the kitchen during the day on Thursday. I was SHOCKED when she said yes. Legitimately.

As the sun set, I looked outside, and realized that Hannukah ahd started and I didn't have a Menorah. Believe it or not, unlike in America, Hannukah candles are not universally sold at grocery stores in Amman. To make it a step more extreme, Chabad isn't even standing on street corners passing out Channukiot. This means creativity is a must. For the first night, before I had gotten it together to buy some candles, I decided that I would take a piece of newspaper, light it on fire, and transfer the flame to another piece of newspaper. Although it didn't get to burn for the Halakhic 18 minutes, I decided it was better than lighting down the Hyatt Apartments.

The Cooking 

I was terrified to use my family's kitchen, but I figured it would be OK. My friend Diana joined me, and I bought my own oil, paper towel, and everything else I would need to cook in the family's house. 

Sure enough, as Diana and I start setting up, my sister is there, watching us like a hawk. Mama wasn't home, and nothing was going to go wrong in that kitchen. Sure enough, everything was going perfectly. Latkes were frying, potatoes were being peeled, the kitchen was smelling like diabetes. We sampled the first few, and they tasted just like the impending heart attack they should. 

Then the honeymoon ended. While trying to get over her fear of frying, she spilled a pan full of hot oil on herself. One of her thighs and one of her hands got a huge amount of oil on them. Sure enough, just as the spill happened and she started reacting to the pain, the front door opens with my very confused host brother. My host family luckily had burn medicine handy, so we were able to get her taken care of fairly quickly. My host sister was amazing. After a few minutes of getting Diana's burns under water, she looked at me and told me to get back to the kitchen for the latkes.

I went back to the kitchen, slid on the oily floor, and got back to the frying pans. 10 minutes later, Diana and my host dad left to go to the hospital (she got some medicine and is now fine. An hour later, with the help of my host sister, I was done. Not surprisingly, my family was unwilling to let me clean anything, even a grater. I was a little bit upset about this in principle, but I'm not complaining. It means I didn't have to deal with the floor.

I haven't yet been home since I left with my Latkes to go to SIT for the feast, but I have a strange feeling that the kitchen will go back to being off limits to me--and all future girls that stay with my host family. When I heard my host sister tell my mom over the phone, she said something like "an American girl made a mess." They kept telling me it wasn't a problem, but...I mean...

The Second Night of Hannukah - Thanksgiving

SIT's thanksgiving feast was awesome. Everyone stepped up so that we had an amazing spread of food for dinner and dessert. Our Arabic professors and SIT staff showed up, and they were really impressed that we knew how to cook. They keep telling us that our group is among the better ones they've had, but after telling us this is only the second Thanksgiving celebration with a turkey that has ever actually happened, I believe them. The Latkes were a big hit. A few kids on my program had never had latkes before (I can't believe it either), and they liked them even though they were served sans sour cream (which doesn't exist in this country and applesauce. I was super proud of myself. But not as proud as I was of the Channukiah. Here's the food:





Channukah Time

After we had all sufficiently stuffed our faces, Chabad declared it candle lighting time in Amman, so the few Jews of us gathered to light Channukah candles. We told everyone they were welcome to join us, and in the end, about 15 of us crowded into the kitchen to light and bless my very crafty Channukiah. For roughly $2, I made it. Regardless of where in the world you are, you can celebrate the least religiously significant Jewish holiday ever.




Singing the blessings was magical for me. I am officially 6 months post op, and for the first time in four years, I sang the Hannukah blessings without hating the sound of my own voice. For the first time in four Channukahs, my voice didn't crack. As we finished singing the blessings, the evening call to prayer rang out from the mosques of Amman. I guess this achievement was big in Islam and Judaism.

Seriously, though being Jewish in Jordan is not the burden I expected it to be. It is not a source of shame, or a source of hostility. If anything, being Jewish is something that makes Muslims happy. If I'm not going to Muslim, at least I'm religious. Even with the Palestinian community, the problem isn't Jews--the problem is people that take their land. Each person I talk to explicitly tells me it's not a religious issue.

Tonight, I plan on going home, telling my family that Eid Al Thanksgiving was great, and that a Jewish holiday is happening all this week. Inshallah, I'll light the candles at home with them tomorrow so they can see Hannukah in Jordan. I might chicken out though. We'll see.

Wrapping Up - As Cliche as Possible

I have a lot to be thankful this Thanksgiving. Some are more significant than others, but all are important.

• Being able to sing again
• Being in Jordan and having the chance to ask a lot of questions
• Being in a community that inspires me to try to answer those questions
• My family and friends that supported my decision to come to Jordan
• My host family that has taken me in with love and food
• My SIT tribe that has kept me somewhat sane during the craziness of these last few months
• Being happy, healthy, well fed, and filled with ample excuses to procrastinate doing work

If you read this, thanks a lot, and I hope you have a great Thanksgiving and a wonderful rest of Hannukah. 

Becca

Explaining Zionism to a Palestinian Refugee

Hey Everyone,

This post is all about the research I am currently doing. It's long, really academic, and hopefully interesting. If you have any interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from any angle, I recommend you read it. The story in the title is one that happened earlier this week when I was photocopying surveys that I'm distributing. It's talked about at the bottom of this post.

The very last section has to do with the physical cases that have caused me to ask a lot of questions about Zionism since being in the Middle East. Jews, Zionists, Jews questioning Zionism, PLEASE read it.

Why am I doing research, and what am I researching?

The independent study researching project is a large component of my program, and it's actually one of the main reasons I chose the program I did. The first months of our program are jammed packed with classes so that the last month can be dedicated to us doing a research project on a topic of our choosing. If you know my background, you may be surprised by the topic I've chosen. If you really know my background, though, it shouldn't be too surprising:

I am researching the Palestinian Right of Return, specifically, how Jordanians of Palestinian descent view their relationship with the Right of Return. 83% of Palestinians in Jordan do not live in refugee camps and all Palestinians in Jordan were granted citizenship to the Hashemite Kingdom in the 1950s. This means that Palestinians in Jordan are largely assimilated into the culture, settled, and most interestingly, have never actually been to Palestine (because they aren't allowed to).

When Israel looks at the right of return, they assume that it means 7 million Arabs moving into Israel proper and ruining the demography of the state (I'm not going to touch the morality of this claim with a 10 foot pole). When Palestinians look at the right of return, they see a breach of international law that is yet another injustice to occur to the Palestinian people.

My goal with my research is to talk to Jordanians of Palestinian descent (like my host siblings), to see how they would act if given the chance to move to Palestine/Israel in the right of return scenario.

Wait, Becca. Are you, like, a Palestinian now or something? Has Jordan made you question everything that you know to be true from your upbringing?

So, to answer this exaggerated question that I'm sure many of you that have known me for many years are thinking, the answer is simple and complicated. I'm not, in fact, a Palestinian. I am not a Jordanian, and I'm not an Arab. I also don't see any of those names as being insulting, but that's another conversation.

To address the second question, growing up, I was immersed in the American, Jewish, and Zionist narratives, so being in Jordan amongst a massive Palestinian population has made me question a lot of what I grew up learning about. For me, this semester has been about learning the other side of the story. I'll decide what I believe for me later (maybe), but for now, I am doing my best to understand and share a viewpoint that we in American (especially Jewish) circles rarely see from a non-negative point of view.

Not to be too preachy, but for anyone that considers themselves to be pro-Israel/Zionist or anything of that sort, I think you owe it to yourself to try to understand the other side of the story from the Arab perspective. To shout anti-semitism whenever people criticize israel is ridiculous most of the time, but when we think about the fact that Arabs are also Semitic people, it gets that much more insane. Read things that make you angry because they directly contradict what you believe to be true about this conflict. It sucks, but it makes you think. I advise starting with Peter Beinart's "The Crisis of Zionism."

What does your research entail?

My research involves an extensive literature review, a survey, and a bunch of interviews. I will be writing a 50 page paper about all of this stuff, and I'm not going to try to do it here, but instead, I'm going to finally tell the story I promised...it happened while I was photocopying my survey. So I guess I have to tell you about the survey itself.

The experimental group will involve Jordanians of Palestinian descent (PJs), although the survey will also be given to Jordanian-Jordanians. On this survey, I have a the following blank map of the levant, and I ask people to do the following: 1) write in the names of the countries shown, 2) place an x and write the name of the city you consider to be your home. Then after that, I ask them to mark on a scale from 1-10 to what degree they consider themselves to be refugees.

Here's why I did this:

UN Resolution 194, Article 11, on which the Right of Return is based states that "refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date..." This resolution is logical. A person that has been kicked out of their home in a conflict should be allowed to come back to their home. However, multiple generations later, the logic becomes much more complicated. 

How can a person return to a home they have never been? How can a person return to a home that is no longer standing? Can a person return to a city that is different than the one their family came from and still call it return on family basis? These questions don't have easy definitions, but this survey was designed to help me look at some of them in more depth. I have given out about 150 surveys at the University of Jordan, and hopefully, I'll also be able to give some out in a Palestinian refugee camp. 

On one extreme, If a PJ says she considers her home to be Amman, Jordan and she doesn't consider herself a refugee at all, the Right of Return according to resolution 194 should not apply to her. On the opposite one, if a PJ says she considers her home to be Hebron, Palestine and she considers herself a refugee, the right of return should apply to her. 

It's more complicated, though, when the home/refugee answers don't correlate as one would expect them to. People have said that they consider their homes to be in Palestine, but they don't consider themselves to be refugees; people have answered that they consider their homes to be in Jordan, but they do consider themselves refugees. I'm not sure yet how I will analyze those answers in my paper, but I'll let you know when I do. For now I'm just fascinated.

Other interesting things I've found in survey answers: a lot of people don't know the geography as well as I'd expect. Numerous people answered that the West Bank was the dead sea. 

Explaining Zionism to a Palestinian Refugee

When I was in the copy shop near the university, I handed the blank sheet to the 25ish-year-old man behind the counter and told him I wanted 200 copies in Arabic. It became clear quickly that his english and my Arabic are on similar levels. Oy. He then asked me what the surveys were for. I told him research. He asked if I was the manager of the project, and I said yes. He then asked me why I'm doing it. I told him I want to look at the practical side of the implementation of the right of return, and he said that he agreed with my hypothesis that most Jordanians will say they believe in the right of return but wouldn't want to go and live in Palestine. This wasn't good enough for him, though, and he kept asking me why I was interested in Palestine. I then took a chance and came clean--I'm Jewish. Immediately, he told me that he is a Palestinian Muslim from Hebron. Even though I am a Jew, he respects me. I then assured him that I am a Jew, but not an Israeli. He asked me to sit down because he had some questions.

First, he asked me what the difference is between a Jew, a Zionist, and an Israeli. Before I tell you how I answered it, let me remind you of the massive language barrier that existed between the two of us. This meant that I had to say things in as simple words as possible in two languages. 

I explained that he is a Muslim and he is a Jordanian. Jordan is a country where a lot of Muslims live, but not all Jordanians are Muslims and not all Muslims live in Jordan. I said that the relationship between Jews and Israel is the same. Israel is a country; Judaism is a religion. WIth Zionists, I explained to him that there are many kinds of Zionists, some that are nicer to Palestinians, and some that don't see the Palestinians as deserving their native land. Settlers are an extreme kind of Zionist, but many settlers, even, respect Palestinians as people. I kept repeating the Arabic word for problem "mushkilah" as I went, and he understood that this is something I've spent a lot of time thinking about. 

He then asked me one of the hardest questions I have ever received: 

Before 100 years ago, Jews and Palestinians lived peacefully together in Palestine. There were no problems. what happened? 

HOLY SHIT. Um...well...HOLY SHIT. How do I try to explain why the 2000 year connection Jews have to Jerusalem was seen as more important than the rights of the people that lived there at the moment. How do I explain to him that I as a Jew can go and live there based on these ancient ties but he can't go and visit based on the physical ties of his parents. 

um...Here we go. And don't forget the language barrier. 

I started the story with Nationalism, explaining that the European countries were deciding who was german or french enough, and that the Jews didn't fit in. Jews decided they wanted to create a state based on the Jewish nation, and the only place that made sense was Palestine. Jews have been praying to rebuild Jerusalem for two thousand years. I then explained that Jews started moving in large numbers from Europe to Palestine. He asked about the people that already lived in Palestine. I answered "Mushkilah." As I continued to explain about the way the Jews ultimately decided that they wanted a state and that the Arabs at the time either had to accept or flee, I just said Mushkilah. Zionism seems like a way more ridiculous idea when you have to tell it to someone whose family was its victim.

Ethics vs. Zionism - Understanding Jewish Privilege 

This isn't the first time since coming to Jordan, I've come to face to face with a paradox that has made me question the ethics of Zionism. Here's the first one. 

My American father (hi Daddy) was born in New York City in February 1960. My Jordanian host dad was born in March of 1960 in Silwan, East Jerusalem. My host dad and his family fled in 1967, and he hasn't been allowed back since. Since my American dad is a Jew, though, he can LITERALLY get Israeli citizenship and buy my host dad's family's house in East Jerusalem. 

About a month ago, I went to the Dead Sea. As the sun set, we were able to see Jerusalem across the sea. I told my host siblings this, and my youngest brother, Rashed said, "I've never been to Quds. I can't." At the moment, all I said was "Inshallah." I felt terribly awkward at that moment. I had the chance to live in Jerusalem for 6 months and I will be going to Israel again next semester. I can do it easily, because I carry an American passport and I'm Jewish. He can't, because as a Palestinian. 

This post got really heavy towards the end, but once I start writing about this stuff, it's hard for me to stop. I will keep you posted on my research and things I learn. If you want sources to read or you have any questions, feel free to let me know. I am learning SUCH interesting things. 

Best,

Becca

Jordanian Health Care 2.0

Hey Everyone,

The last time I posted about medical care in Jordan, I had nothing but good things to say. I still believe that medical care in Jordan is good, but I have a story that is too funny to not share. With no further ado, here goes.

A few weeks ago, the US state department issued a warning that Polio had been found in a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan, and that they advise all expats to make sure to be immunized.  For people under the age of 20, it is strongly suggested (the way a 5 AM fitness session for a sports team is optional), and for people above the age of 20, it’s their choice. We were all vaccinated as toddlers and told before the program that getting the polio booster was possible but not necessary, so none of us did before getting here. 

Someone on my program asked our AD how to get vaccinations and he said he would take care of it. This was maybe two or three weeks ago. Last week, we got an email saying that we had to be at our building at 10 AM sharp to get vaccinated. It was required for all people under 20 and optional for anyone older.

I showed up at our building at quarter to 10, and half of our program was already there. None of us knew anything: we didn’t know if we were getting pills, drops, or shots; we didn’t know if we had to pay for it ourselves; we didn’t know how getting the booster would affect our previous immunizations. But it’s Jordan, so per usual, we went with it.

At about 10:15, SIT’s Logistical Coordinator posted to Facebook that all of us have to be in the building now because a person will be here to give us shots for two hours. When we asked him, we learned that, of course, they weren’t there yet. But he had talked to the Minister of Health the day before, so no problem.

At 11:15, a group of Jordanians wearing lab coats walked down the stairs and asked us if we wanted to do the shots in a private room or in the main room (in which we were all sitting). They then told us to prepare our left arms and get out our immunization cards (if we had them with us). If we didn’t have our cards, no broblem. I am not making up what happened next:

One at a time, we walked up to the people in lab coats with needles, and they gave us shots. They didn’t clean our arms, they didn’t say anything to us before during or after, and they didn’t put any sort of band-aid on the hole when the needle was taken out. SIT had one of the volunteers there with a camera taking pictures of all of us as we were getting shots. I can’t wait for the photo of me being stabbed with a polio vaccine to appear on Facebook. As we all got shots, SIT called everyone that wasn’t there to make sure they showed up quickly so they could get their polio vaccine. I was glad I had chosen to get my optional booster, because obviously, this shot is important.

As more and more people that had their vaccination cards started to compare notes on what vaccinations they had gotten, we couldn’t help but notice that the vaccine listed on the card was “MR.” At first we thought that Polio just had a weird acronym, but then we realized that none of us had gotten the polio booster.

We had all just gotten vaccinated for Measles and Rubella. Um. What?

I asked Mohammad, the volunteer, what we were vaccinated with, and he told us that we got the Polio vaccine. When I told him that his guess was incorrect, he was as surprised as we were.

We expressed our concerns to the guy who had just administered shots to all of us dumb Americans, and he told us nonchalantly that people over the age of 5 rarely get Polio. The booster shot exists, but not in Jordan. Seeing as we had all been immunized as children, we didn’t need to get it. However, over 100 cases of Measles have been reported recently in Syrian refugee camps, so they figured giving us that booster was a good idea. Before coming to Jordan, every single one of us had gotten that vaccination. We weren’t sure if they gave us a vaccine for a different strand of Measles or not, but to make ourselves feel better, we decided they did.

At this point, I felt like a total idiot. I have always been taught to ask a million questions when it comes to medical things, and this time, I hadn’t asked anything. I literally rolled up my sleeve and handed my arm to a person that was giving shots in an assembly line the way people in the great depression received bread. For all I know, they literally implanted a GPS tracking device for the NSA to use to know where I am at all times (hi NSA!). For all I know, they gave me a shot of saline to make me, a paranoid American, stop freaking out. I literally allowed this woman to give me a shot because she was wearing a lab coat.

So I'm dumb, I am super vaccinated for measles, and I really hope I don't get polio. 

APPENDIX

Later in the day, a girl on my program checked in with the American embassy to ask them about what happened and what we should do about it. I have copied and pasted her post so you can get an idea of just how ridiculous this situation actually is. 

So update on the vaccination situation: I have spoken to both my mom (at 1:30 am whoops) and the US Embassy in Jordan to try to find out where to get the polio vaccine. 

Measles: The vaccine that those of you who got a vaccine this morning received was the MR (Measles and Rubella). This was a completely unnecessary vaccine for you to receive. As a child we all received two MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) vaccines. This was required for us to attend kindergarten in the United States. People need two MMR vaccines in their lifetime in order to be considered completely immunized for Measles. What you received this morning was this vaccine without the mumps (just M and R). It was an extra and unnecessary dose. However it will NOT hurt you that you received it. There are potential side effects to any vaccine but there are not any more because this was an extra does. If you did not get the vaccine this morning and went to school in the US (aka all of you), do not go receive another MR or MMR vaccine. You do not need it and that is a waste. When I spoke to the embassy they confirmed this is saying that adults who have had 2 MMR vaccines in their life time should not get another one! They are only recommending that adults who have none or only one does receive one (which is none of you because again you went to school in the US as a kid). I am aware that the doctor said this morning that there is a new strain of Measles. This is not the case. It would be all over the news if it was. There is an outbreak of measles in Jordan but it is one of the 21 strains that MMR protects against. Again there is not a new strain and you should not receive a vaccine if you did not this morning. 

Polio: The reason I spoke to the embassy was to find out where to get the vaccine now that SIT is not helping us. They told me that any MOH (ministry of health) hospital should have the vaccine and they are unaware of only people under five being able to get the vaccine. They believe that US citizens of any age should be able to get the vaccine at an MOH hospital. There is currently no polio vaccine shortage so there should be no reason it is restricted. They could not tell me how much this vaccine will cost. I also do not know where the hospitals are. I do know you need to go to a public ministry of health hospital (according to the embassy). My suggestion is that after the first person or people go, you post here where you went and how much it costs and obviously if you were able to get the vaccine. The embassy did say that all US citizen adults in Jordan who have not received a Polio vaccine (booster but it is the same vaccine as the child one) since they were 18 years of age should receive the vaccine now. That is their recommendation and the recommendation from my mom as well.