Laying One Brick at a Time, Taking One Step at a Time

Suleimaniya, Kurdistan, Iraq, April 13, 2012

"People say: What is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time." Dorothy Day

I when I feel overwhelmed by the things I experience here, I ask myself: What is the sense of my efforts?. Sometimes I cannot see that small bricks are necessary to build a wall.

Today at the [Qalawa] camp was very hard. It was hard to get the kids attention, they were not following instructions, and sometimes I get very frustrated when things don't come out as I expect. I forget that the real reason to be there is not to be successful.

Today, I spoke to one of the woman in the camp that has a disabled child. As she told me about the child's condition, my heart was immersed in deep sadness. The young mother was fixing a button in the boy's pants and telling me he can't see, or walk, or talk. I felt helpless at such a reality, and could just listen to her talking and looking at her child. The boy's hands were so beautiful and perfect, as if to compensate for the rest of his body's handicap.

I suddenly realized that every week we come, the kids are still there, living under the same deteriorating conditions as the last week. I had the thought that what we do is not changing anything in the lives of these children. What I cannot see is that everytime we go, the camp's air feels different; special. Every family welcomes us, greeting us with a smile. I like their simplicity and the respect they show us when they invite us to share whatever little they have. I find myself very close and comfortable around them.

As Robert Fisk said last week in a lecture in Erbil: "What people really need is not  democracy, but justice and dignity." And I think this is exactly what we have failed to do here in Iraq; while bringing "democracy", we have stripped the Iraqi people from justice and dignity.

In the meantime, and despite my own frustration, I echo the words of Mother Theresa: "The miracle is not that we do this work, but that we are happy to do it".

PS. I never put pictures of the kids in order to protect their identity and dignity, but thought these don't show their faces and wanted you to have a sense of what our days look like.

Amir explaining the rules of the game to the kids, actually this day was very successful and the kids enjoy this game that consisted of putting some dirt in a cup that had a small hole in the bottom, then running to the other side as fast as they could to bring as much of the dirt to the other side. The team with most dirt wins, actually both teams won!

After the day activities, everyone was full of dirt and fun!

The kids never want us to leave after the day activities are over, we are super tired and they ready to continue!!!

Something to think about on Thanksgiving, Suleimaniya, Iraqi, Kurdistan

It has been more than three months since my last post. In that time, many things have happened here in this part of the world: the PA went to the UN to ask to be admitted as a member state, Arab Spring has become the Arab autumn and now the Arab winter, thousands of Syrians have been killed, Egyptian Christians have been massacred in Cairo, Gilat Shalit was exchanged by 1027 Palestinian political prisoners, 24 Turkish soldiers were killed in near the Turkish-Iraq border (Turkish territory) which led to air and land strikes in Northern-Iraq, Kurdistan, Muammar Qaddafi was murdered. It seems that violence is business as usual.

Perhaps I didn’t have the will to write, I was sick, very frustrated, overwhelmed or even disappointed. After a year in Kurdistan, nothing seems to have changed. Life goes on, people in the west and even here go to work, and they are busy with everyday things. In the meantime, I try to keep myself motivated and find a reason to wake up in the morning; to believe that there is hope for change, a reason to keep fighting for justice, in a far away country, removed from all the things that I love: my family, my friends, my country. Sometimes I find it hard.

Every morning and afternoon, I walk to work and pass by a group of old Kurdish men (Kakas) that greet me and invite me for a domino match, I have even beaten them a couple of times. I walk on the neighbourhood, absorbed on my own thoughts. I go to work and the day goes by seating between emails, reports, forms, meetings and trainings. Then the weekend comes and the story repeats itself. This doesn't make sense. Seems like if I were working for nothing, as things don't seem to change.

Suddenly, Friday morning, my day off, I go to a very special place. A place that is hard to explain, a place where love and misery coexist. Here, I realize why I am here, when I see the face of the children I get to work with every Friday, they are Iraqi children internally displaced by violence. Their eyes are so beautiful, full of laughter, full of joy, despite the hard conditions of living as refugees in their own country. When they come running and I hold them and see how full of love they are, I can’t but remind myself how lucky I am to be there and get to enjoy this time with them. We play, sing, dance, and learn together. The other day, I taught them the Macarena, I wish you could see how their small bodies danced to the rhythm of the music. For a single moment I lost sense of where I was, and just enjoyed their laughter. I forgot they are children of war and violence, displaced, fragile. I get back to reality, most of them must have spent the majority of their lives in this forgotten camp, a place of uncertainty and misery. Now every single week, they are asking to dance the choreography they learned. Even if we don’t have the music, I will sing for them and they do the steps. We have so much fun together. Then when is time to leave, everyone is sad, but we just look forward to next week.

Yes, this happens as you live a different life, go to do your groceries, to the salon, to the post office or for your daily walk. According to the UN Refugee Agency, there are 27.3 million internally displaced refugees around the world, the majority of them women and children, Iraq being the third largest country with internally displaced people (IDP), between 1.3-2.8 million, after Sudan and Colombia. Although internally displaced people outnumber refugees by more than two to one, no single UN or other international agency has responsibility for responding to internal displacement. As a result, the global response to the needs of IDPs is often ineffective. And guess who paid for the wars that created these refugees? You, with your tax dollars! And who is paying now, for programs to help refugees? Again, you with your tax dollars. And who should be accountable for these millions of people who now are homeless, I leave that for you to answer. Desmond Tutu said that those who are silent to injustice can be called complicit.

Last week, it rained on the camp, for a full three days, I could not think but how where the kids and if they were warm enough. When we arrived, there was mud EVERYWHERE, but the kids didn't care, they were waiting for us. We always take our shoes off to keep the tent clean, but this time it was needed much more. I found myself lifting up the smaller kids who where struggling to take their muddy boots off. It was a beautiful Friday, a beautiful muddy Friday.....

One of the kids pair of muddy shoes

So, when you are eating your Thanksgiving dinner, and are giving thanks, be thankful for all the blessings you have: a warm and safe home, food, water, electricity; think about the people: especially internally displaced women and children, who have nothing and yet are thankful for the little they have.

Amir's shoes on the tents entrance

My First Day in Suleymania: A visit to Qalawa Refugee Camp, Suleymania, Kurdistan--062911

It was noon and the driver arrived to pick me up. I had accepted a new job and was moving once again, this time to Sulaymaniyah, after 4 months living in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi-Kurdistan. The modern city of Sulaymaniyah was founded on 14 November 1784 by the Kurdish prince Ibrahim Pasha Baban who named it after his father Sulaiman Pasha. Because it was founded as the capital of a powerful Kurdish principality, Sulaymaniyah has developed into a large city with a population of about 1million people. It is the cultural center of the Sorani-speaking Kurds and an important economic center for Iraqi Kurdistan.

A view from the Dukan Lake, Suleymania

I had a mixture of happiness and nostalgia, leaving Erbil, which I already considered home, even though it was very different from my home; language, culture, women’s place in society, but I had learned to accept it and love it, I had friends and had established many relationships. I was happy and ready to try Suli’s way; everyone I had talked to said it was better than Erbil, in terms of customs and traditions, they kept stressing the fact that people in Sulimania were more open and that I would feel better here.

Om Suli, I was invited to attend a puppet show in the Qalawa refugee camp and of course I was in, since I love anything that has to do with children. We arrived to the camp and were greeted in the entrance by a man. There was an empty, rocky and dusty lot and my first reaction was one of shock. I had only seen the Palestinian refugee camps which looked more like neighborhoods, with cements houses, being established more than 50 years ago. Blue tents served as roofs, held by big tires. I didn’t go inside the camp, since the children were practicing and anything could distract them; I perfectly new this from my experience working in a summer camp in Palestine. Instead, few girls came out to receive us and I greeted them in Arabic: Shlonish, How are you? Then I used a more colloquial expression: Shaku Maku, more like what’s up, and they replied; Kulshi Maku, Nothing’s up! This is a normal Iraqi response. We were all laughing!

Qalawa Camp was formed in June 2006 by a group of IDPs on an empty piece of open land southeast of Sulaymaniyah center. It is located in Sharwani area, near the Rizgari fuel station. We were told there are around 59 families living here. I approached two women that were near and asked them how long they were living in the camp, one of them said that she was from Baghdad and was living there since 2009. She said that there were no jobs and that they had problems with electricity.

According to a 2008 report from the International Organization of Migration (IOM), camp residents face poor conditions, as they have no sanitation, loose garbage around the tents, no electricity and no toilets. In addition, there have been cases of typhoid reported. IDPs have access to a mobile medical unit and water is being trucked in. The camp was formed when a large number of families fled sectarian violence in Baghdad and Diyala. During our visit we were told that the children from the camp do not attend school. According to a report from the Danish Immigration service from their visit to the camp in 2010, there were 27 children of school age in the camp in 2009. They were not enrolled in school, particularly if engaged in begging and lacking alternative sources of livelihood, declined UNHCR supported transportation to schools in the neighborhood. Only few of the camp’s children can read.

The children’s messy, untidy hair reminded me of their reality as refugees, but their smiles and beautiful eyes lifted me up. I started to ask their names, and they all took turns to tell me their names. One of them clung into my arm and kissed it, my heart wanted to melt but I smiled and kissed her head back. It was very hot and dusty, and we were trying to set up the stage for the puppet show. It was just a colored banner in Arabic and English welcoming everyone, but it was meant to serve as an interface between the public and the actors. We laid some blankets in the dusty ground for the audience to sit overlooking the mountains.

After some running around and playing, we were able to gather the children in a circle, to get ready to start the show. Then one of the AUI professors, who have been working on the camp arrived and our circle was destroyed. They all gathered around him to welcome him. The roles were reviewed by the volunteers and the children took their puppets and gathered behind the improvised stage. The show started and the puppets as well as the children’s heads were coming up and down. The narrators, a boy and a girl, who were able to read, took turns in telling the story and the children came on stage often times delayed, but we laughed and clapped and enjoyed the performance. The children were happy and full of energy despite the burning sun. It was the first time that they had the opportunity to show their abilities in public. The event was very simple, and yet empowering. It was a symbol of what can be achieved if we can give time, love, solidarity and hard work.

I can’t wait to go back to Qalawa, it reminds me how blessed I am and why I am here; to share what I have with others and to make these children hope for a better future. It reminds me that I CAN do something to change the world by changing peoples’ lives, one at a time.

“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget.” A. Roy