#gazacamp

[begintheworld]

Superb day out in Jerash #GazaCamp with @sitti_soap

[babelborders-blog]

Where the streets have no name

  On the road

It's ten o'clock in the morning and we're leaving Amman. Samir is our driver and he's a good talker while driving on this hot day. Walking outside the van for more than 2 minutes might become a sacrifice only for tough ones. I wonder how in the past people could manage walking on this desert climate with no bottled water or shadows.

One hour and half, one turkish coffee, a nap, and dozens of flowerpots on the sideway it's all it takes to reach the Gaza refugee camp today. Seen from the sky it's a patchwork of white tiny houses, surrounded by grey dust. Inside: 3 bedrooms, one kitchen, a toilet and an average of 8 people living inside in it entitled no citizenship. Well some of them have palestinian and egyptian papers. Some from Gaza, others from Egypt. But that's it: valueless papers.

While we're heading, Fred is looking at the landscape and realizes as if he's making a confidence and suspending time:

-”There's no much difference between jordanian landscape and Palestine; the land, you know. And Palestinians represent more than 60% of the population here in Jordan. The majority has no rights at all towards the land”.

This is a statement we'll hear a lot. Then my eyes become more attentive and I start looking at the landscape like a film: a long take.

There's a donkey near a man in a military uniform, more flowerpots for sale, shabby couches left over, and vans on the road carrying chairs. Gazing at the panoramic view we see a coloured-amber-land. A pale yellow land spotted with tuft green olives.

There's sign now: Irbid and Jerash forward; Marsah to the right. Let's keep forward, while passing old cars, and some shops selling beach balls, cold sodas with arabic characters strings on the fridges displaying Coca-Cola.

There's a kid playing on the dust, on the dry sunny day. Behind him there are clothes being dried inside a wrecked house. He smiles busy with the ball.

Samir has a cup of coffee in his hand while driving. No acrobatics. It's a natural gesture.

*

Jerash refugee camp is a city. Well it looks like a border city. It was inevitable not to compare it to two references I have in my mind: a mixture of favelas in Rio with Ciudad del Este in Paraguay. The sewage, the dust, the wrecked shops selling knickknacks, more odds and ends, chickens caged, small warehouses and repositories, and men smoking sited in floor mats.

The police is our first appointment: let them know we're here, what we'll be doing, with whom we'll speak to. Kids come and mess with Dalia. They're not used to see unveiled women wearing pants and t-shirts. There´s no trash cans, there's a bakery, colored juices, a veil shop and little convenience shops selling candies and tobacco.

Next stop: the Services center's office where three men and an old lady are chatting. On the entrance, in the main hall: A big white board written in Arabic and Dalia starts to translate it. It's the technical details about the Jerash camp: 0.75 square kilometres, 24,000 registered refugees living in it, One women’s programme centre, Four schools in two double-shift buildings, One food distribution centre, One health centre, One community-based rehabilitation centre, One camp development office, Demographic profile. Though it's not written, we know already the main problems: Poverty, Overcrowded, High unemployment, Around 3 in 4 shelters are not suitable for accommodation because of structural problems.

This will be our formal first contact, regardless the fact we still need the UNWRA's permit to speak in on with the coordinators of each programme and institutions within the camp. We visit first the Health Center. A woman wearing a black veil holds a baby in her arms. She waits in the shadow. Inside an old lady and mothers with kids wait to be attended. There are UN posters all around with faces of kids.

The doctor we meet speaks off the record. 5 minutes later we head to the Women's Association where Afaf Abusosin makes us a briefing of the main challenges. It's been 22 years working on the camp. She's 40, and was born here. The camp is 45 years old. She speaks out the throughout the years they get less and less support from UNWRA. Yahya Abuathrah, the Principle at the Boy's School has the same speech. 31 classes, 42 students each, and as I've written already in double shift. He's daughter had last year the highest mark on the national exam: 99%. She studied at the Women's School on the Jerash Refugee Camp. Even tough, as she's from the Camp she can further her studies and UNWRA's university classes, which have limited options, and majority follows English Literature.

Going back to the beginning building: we meet Ahmad Absi from the Palestinian Affairs. His office is one of the rooms at the Services Center. It's a big room with a vane. The air is circulating. He offers a Saudi Arabian coffee. When we arrive his grandson is sited on his big chair looking up above the table where some newspapers lay down. In one of the walls we can see the King's generation. In another wall, centered, the Royal Family smiling. He's cautious and asks what we're doing, tells us to listen to everyone, to get the facts straight, as there's a lot of misinformation going by. That's actually where our efforts are.

*

It's still too hot. It's almost 3 o'clock. We'll just wander in the small alleys to feel this invisible “city” for the majority of the people. Sometimes the alleys become so narrow that only a body is able to go forward. We get in line to walk. Trash, sewage, several bundles and packages of fast food are the main remains on the dusty floor.

As it is too hot there are few kids on the alleys. A group comes and starts saying random words in English. When we answer playing with them they stop static.

I look around trying to find plates, signs, something to identify the narrow lanes. Imagine you're in a Labyrinth. There´s nothing. A veiled woman walks by where the streets have no name. A veiled young girl all dressed up from head to feet passes with and handwriting workbook. Her eyes are strong, delineated with a strong eyeliner. Her lips are prominent and dried and cracked.

Near the cemetery some kids are playing with a baby cat. One of them holds on so tight that the poor little one is meowing in pain. Dalia tries to convince them to let it go. It's a living toy for them we realize. They start running away afterwards.

The dwellers are in very bad condition. The zinc roof has stones and some bricks, holding it. We can't imagine how is living there. The doors creak, have wraps giving privacy for the families. Some of the “units”, as are called the dwellers, are being reconstructed. Still there's a lot to do. Thousands need improvements.

We're strangers passing by. We're sure this street, alleys, redoubts are temporary-long lasting-refuges in an suspended land. Paradoxes, more puzzles. We are here researching because Remember US is not just another video about palestinian refugees. It's a long lasting project and this is only the start. The goal is not only awareness, keep that in mind, but Dalia Abuzeid's life project.

We might be so mistaken, wrong, erroneous strangers, but if these streets will ever have a name it will be belonging. While its people remain landless invisible citizens in a middle of political oblivion these streets will never have a name.

*Vanessa Rodrigues| journalist