by Faiza Al-Araji
Since 2005, I have worked as a volunteer here in Jordan, helping Iraqi families. I visit them in their homes, listen to their problems and try to help in any way that I can. Sometimes, ‘helping’ means providing medical or financial aid and at other times, it involves financing micro projects for mothers. Sewing machines, cooking furnaces or equipment for a small beauty salon allow mothers to work at home and earn a little income for the family.
I work for a local Jordanian organization in contract with the High Commissary of Refugees (UNHCR) offering educational, social and psychological support services to the Iraqi women and children. This work has, of course, allowed me to see with my own eyes and hear with my own ears, the stories of refugee mothers.
My own experience has allowed me to relate to their plight as I, too, had to leave my home. When we left our house for family (displaced from another area in Baghdad) to live in and one of my sons was kidnapped, we relocated to Jordan. One of my sons went to study in Egypt, the other got married and went to live in America and the third finished his studies here in Jordan.
In Baghdad we used to live in one house, dreaming of a stable future, and we were never separated from each other. Now, however, my small family is scattered.
Like me, many of the mothers that I meet have endured their share of hardships. One woman that I know has three disabled young daughters, all in wheelchairs. Her husband died years ago, but the Jordanian authorities at the border would not allow her son to join her. With no income, the family is poor. With a need for constant medical care (which is not always available here)….their only hope was for a resettlement in Sweden. They received it.
Another young woman that I know is a widow with four children. She is 28 years old. Her husband was killed in Baghdad and she lived here in Jordan—in indescribable humiliation. She worked as a house maid, a beauty salon worker and a seamstress in a leather factory.
After re-settling in America, she was told that she would receive a small allowance for a month or two. After that, she would be expected to support herself. Although frustrating, there was no other alternative. This young mother intends to return to Iraq and settle back there when the conditions improve.
In fact, we all dream of going back to Iraq and living peacefully in our homes—safe and secure. We dream of building our country with our own hands and anxiously await the withdrawal of the American forces. We are still waiting for the fulfillment of that dream……
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November 23rd, 2008 at 9:18 pm
I must say this is a great article i enjoyed reading it keep the good work
November 24th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
This article breaks my heart. My friends who are refugees here in Chicago have left behind everything they spent their lives to build back in Baghdad. They were successful academic professionals with children who have gotten their professional degrees and moved to various places to pursue peaceful lives - in Ireland, England, Florida and Illinois. The parents were of ripe age for retirement and now they live here in a garden apartment (tiny basement level) dreaming of their 2 homes and well tended gardens, their favorite china and crystal glasses and the life of friends and family times long gone. They hope to return and find it all still there, but who knows?
Without hope in an eternal life, these things make no sense at all. I pray for them and we thank God for that which they still have and the hope of all the wonderful blessings that God will bring to them now and forever.