Friday, November 10, 2006
5/11 Visit to a Palastian Refugee Camp
We wandered up and down narrow, grubby streets lined with the same concrete or concrete block houses we see everywhere in our minibus taxi. Finally, we seemed to find our address but I'm not sure how. We were ushered into the front hall of a two story house with the steel reinforcing stretching out of the concrete corner pillars into the sky. Like everyone, each family hopes to build another story to house the next generation.
The Palastinian family we visited had fled Palastine in the 1967 war to Germany. The grandmother and grandfather marrying there and moving to Jordon 20 years later so they had a better chance of returning to their homeland should the trouble ever be over. Of course they began a family and had 4 children while in exile. One son and daughter still live in the home with them. The daughter with her husband and 2 small children. The older generation still consider themselves Palastinian, the middle generation straddle the two worlds and the children/grandchildren (about 12 by the look of the number of babies through to teenagers hanging round the house for grandma to look after while their parents worked in Amman)consider themselves Jordanian. They all have Jordanian citizenship, grandad owns the house, but the area is still considered a refugee camp. They are not well off - downstairs had 4 rooms - small bathroom and kitchen and two rooms - formal living room (like an English parlour for receiving and entertaining guests) and a bedroom where everyone slept, the kids watched TV and the women socialised during the day. The matresses were stacked in an open cupboard through the day with a couple left out for sitting on. There was another floor upstairs, identical, that their unmarried son lived in. I got the impression the daughters family lived dowstairs with the grandparents. The grandma did all the housework, cooking, cleaning, washing and childcare and the daughter helped when she got home from Amman. The daughter did the shopping. The younger men worked in factories and granddad was retired. They were saving up for a computer (about JOD500) to help the kids with their schooling. We sat in the front room with the men until I asked could the visiting women please meet the women of the house.This was agreed and 3 of us went to the back room to speak with the grandma. It was very difficult as they spoke very little english. But they spoke good german and one of our group spoke passable german so we translated through her. The biggest shock was seeing a 'camp' that was a suburb of Medaba - 45,000 residents. And that after 40years they still hoped to go 'home'. A very interesting afternoon.
We wandered up and down narrow, grubby streets lined with the same concrete or concrete block houses we see everywhere in our minibus taxi. Finally, we seemed to find our address but I'm not sure how. We were ushered into the front hall of a two story house with the steel reinforcing stretching out of the concrete corner pillars into the sky. Like everyone, each family hopes to build another story to house the next generation.
The Palastinian family we visited had fled Palastine in the 1967 war to Germany. The grandmother and grandfather marrying there and moving to Jordon 20 years later so they had a better chance of returning to their homeland should the trouble ever be over. Of course they began a family and had 4 children while in exile. One son and daughter still live in the home with them. The daughter with her husband and 2 small children. The older generation still consider themselves Palastinian, the middle generation straddle the two worlds and the children/grandchildren (about 12 by the look of the number of babies through to teenagers hanging round the house for grandma to look after while their parents worked in Amman)consider themselves Jordanian. They all have Jordanian citizenship, grandad owns the house, but the area is still considered a refugee camp. They are not well off - downstairs had 4 rooms - small bathroom and kitchen and two rooms - formal living room (like an English parlour for receiving and entertaining guests) and a bedroom where everyone slept, the kids watched TV and the women socialised during the day. The matresses were stacked in an open cupboard through the day with a couple left out for sitting on. There was another floor upstairs, identical, that their unmarried son lived in. I got the impression the daughters family lived dowstairs with the grandparents. The grandma did all the housework, cooking, cleaning, washing and childcare and the daughter helped when she got home from Amman. The daughter did the shopping. The younger men worked in factories and granddad was retired. They were saving up for a computer (about JOD500) to help the kids with their schooling. We sat in the front room with the men until I asked could the visiting women please meet the women of the house.This was agreed and 3 of us went to the back room to speak with the grandma. It was very difficult as they spoke very little english. But they spoke good german and one of our group spoke passable german so we translated through her. The biggest shock was seeing a 'camp' that was a suburb of Medaba - 45,000 residents. And that after 40years they still hoped to go 'home'. A very interesting afternoon.
# posted by The Essence of Good Taste @ 1:25 PM 
