Who is Jordanian?

In Jordan it is not the easiest thing to find a genuine Jordanian.  This is because most people are refugees from Iraq and Palestine, many still identifying themselves by their country of origin.  Now you can add Syrian into the mix, considering that up to 1.2 million refugees are expected by the end of the year.  The situation is dire, as the country doesn’t have the resources to help them all.

Literally at the last minute of my last day in Jordan, it worked out to go visiting Syrian refugee families in a village east of Amman.  I joined two others from Operation Mercy, stocked up on diapers and food packages and went on their usual rounds with them.  I stocked my purse with lollipops for the kids and tried to make new friends wherever I went.  It was tough to hear how the local communities do not like the refugees and will not help them or visit them.

There was a new family who had come a week earlier.  We revisited the storage room in order to stock them up.  This family of five had a place that consisted of a room, a kitchen/entry area and bathroom.  The room had a suitcase, two mattresses and a TV (of course!).  “We came from a castle of 6 bedrooms,” Umm Marwa said as she sadly surveyed where they were now.  But from what I hear, it is way better than up at the refugee camps where crime, forced prostitution and blackmail are rampant.  We brought them mattresses, pillows, blankets, a cooking stovetop and gas, and diapers for the little one.

Mine was only a glimpse into their displaced lives.  Really, a month in Jordan is only a glimpse into another world where the lines of identity and belonging are clearly defined and defended: Jordanian, Muslim, Palestinian, Christian, Syrian, Iraqi, foreigner, refugee, etc.  I will go back to Finland, where war and snipers feature only in news and video games.  Unreal, disconnected from everyday life. The refugees will continue in a country that at once welcomes and repels them, left with a painful memory of what their country used to be, and an uncertainty of what they will find in this new one.