interview with N.

This is an interview with a refugee who has been in Amman for several years without successfully being resettled to a third country. She lives alone with five children, one of whom was recently married. The new couple also lives with N.



Interview with N. (Sept 10, 2007 east side, Amman Jordan)
Interview by Laura Hamblin


H: Could you tell me your names and spell them.
N: My name is Z. I’m eight years old.
My name is F. and I’m 12 years old.
My name is N. and I’m 46 years old.

H: Tell me your story
N: We came to Jordan, year 2001 because of Saddam’s regime. My husband was against the war. They sentenced him to be in prison. And they too all our money. And my husband was sent to jail. And then he ran away from town. And they kept on following him for a while. And then after he left jail, he decided that we should leave the country. We came to Amman.

H: Were they after your husband because of his political views?
N: He was a man of peace. He was against war; he never liked war. He wasn’t a political person. He was an agricultural engineer.

H: Where is he now?
N: My husband is in Iraq now.

H: Do you have contact with him?
N: Circumstances are very difficult and I’m not in contact with him very recently.

H: Is he able to come here?
N: No, he was sent to exile. He cannot come to Jordan.

H: How long has it been since you’ve seen him?
N: Since March 2005. That was when I last saw my husband.

H: Is that when you last saw your father?
N: Yes, it was the last time we saw him.

H: Do you miss him?
N: Yes we do.

H: I’m sorry for your loss. Tell me about what life was like in Iraq.
N: Our life in Iraq wasn’t easy, being Shiites in Saddam’s regime. He used to treat us in a bad way. The big Iraq was our big prison.

H: How did you get out of Iraq?
N: My husband was in prison. And he wasn’t allowed to leave the country and to travel. Then we saw one of Saddam’s people in the army, and we gave someone money, and he issued passports for us, and that was how we left.

H: What is your life like here?
N: It’s very, very difficult.

H: Tell me how?
N: When we first came to Jordan, we were like visitors to this country, and we’re supposed to respect the rules and regulations of the country. And we’re not allowed to work, and that’s something very difficult. My first shock was that in Jordan I had to make my children go to work in order for us to live. And my eldest son, I have to get him out of school so that my husband would stay at home with us, and that police would not capture my husband.

H: What work did your children do?
N: They worked in this factory—a shoemaking factory. And since my sons started working in the factory, they haven’t been able to catch up with school very well. And we suffered a lot with schooling in Jordan. It wasn’t allowed for Iraqis to send their children to school.

H: Here, in Jordan?
N: um hum [yes]

H: Now, didn’t that law just change?
N: Yes this year the law changed, and Iraqis can send their children back to school.

H: Are your children now going to school?
N: Yes, my children now go to school.

H: How do you feel about that?
N: We’re happy that we go to school.

H: How do you fill your day?
N: I wake up in the morning. Usually, well I was an active member in Care International. This is a volunteer thing; this is not something I am paid for. We gather together and we see what Iraqis need, and their issues. We discuss their cases. We try to speak with UNHCR representatives and staff about their cases. I was also an active member in mesan that was a law group for human rights. I tried my best to fill my time with going to meetings and meeting Iraqi women and trying to set our issues on the table and discuss our situation. During the rest of the day I take care of my children and take care of my house.

H: Where do you see yourself in five years?
N: Five years from now, if I stay in this country, I will die. Let’s say that this country is really safe, but there is no life. Now I am puzzled and confused where I am supposed to get income in order for me to feed my children, because I just made them stop working. Now I have hypertension because of my stressful situation, because I’m thinking all the time and I’m stressed. I don’t know where the sickness comes from. I am just getting sick and sick with every passing day.

H: Do you have hope for the future?
N: I am a believer. I am a woman who believes in God, and if I didn’t have hope in God I would have died very long ago. Even my children—I taught them how to live. And God is good, gracious. Tomorrow should be better than today. God will see your patience, and God will know that you are righteous people. Then God would give you a better future at the end. This is what I tell my children, and I live with hope. That’s the only thing that motivates me toward living for the future.

H: What would have to change in Iraq for you to be able to return?
N: Iraq as a country needs a just government, and a very strong government. That’s the only reason that would allow us to go back to Iraq and make it a safe place for us.

H: How can that happen?
N: I don’t know. This is something that the politicians have to deal with. It’s their job to find. . . . I don’t know.

H: What would have to be in place for peace to exist in the Middle East?
N: First of all they should destroy all means of terrorism and terrorists. Terrorism is supposed to end. We are all human beings. We have only one God. We don’t have two Gods. We are all humans. We should be forgiving to one another. We should be clean, innocent people. We should stand with one another in one hand. Excluding no ethnicity, no religion, no . . . That’s the world our children. . . . How are we going to raise our children? How are we going to build a future and build communities? And this starts; it all starts with people who have authority. We are helpless hopeless people.

H: What could the United States be doing differently to help make the situation better?
N: It [The United States] is a strong nation, a strong country. And no one could have beaten Saddam, but they did. They did beat Saddam and his régime. I don’t know. They have the power; they have the authority. They have . . . they have the strength. In order for them to put law in the country . . . I don’t know what they could possibly be doing.

H: Were you kidnapped?
N: No, but I was hit by Saddam’s followers, Saddam’s people. I was beaten by them.

H: Were you hurt physically because of the beating?
N: Yes, I lost an eye. I came to Jordan, and here I got this artificial, glass eye.

H: It still cries, I noticed.
N: Even my right eye I cannot see with it properly because it is weak. We were happy that Saddam’s regime ended and he was beaten. And we thought that we would be able to go back to our country. But that didn’t happen. And Saddam went, so after Saddam left, sectarian beliefs, they came up . . . then kidnappings, terrorism, violence. We only had one enemy, and that was Saddam. We saw this enemy. We knew the enemy. And it was only one person. It was obvious for us. He was in front of us. Everything was clear. Now we’re lost. We don’t know who our enemy is. It is chaos.

H: Why is there such chaos?
N: Because it’s a lawless country. There is no good government. Of those people who are governing right now—they know nothing about politics.

H: Do you miss Iraq?
N: Of course. I do. I miss it. Every day I cry for Iraq and every day I watch Iraqi news.

H: What do you miss most?
N: My family, my parents, my place—my being. Iraq is my country. In Iraq I feel my self worth, my dignity. Here, I’m a stranger.

H: Do you think that you will be able to get asylum in another country with your family?
N: This is what I’m here for. This is what I’m trying to do.

H: Which country are you trying to get to, which do you hope for?
N: Well, I did apply for resettlement in general. But I was [appointed] to resettle to the United States.

H: You mean, that’s where you’ve been assigned to resettle at some date?
N: Yes, assigned. . . . Not for my sake . . .I’m not doing that for my sake. I’m doing it for the sake of my children. I want them to live; I want them to live so they will be safe. I want them to study. When they were young one would say, “I want to become an engineer,” and the other would say, “I want to become a doctor,” and everything, but now they have no ambition. I try to talk to my kids, and maybe sometimes try to motivate them, but they even start telling me that we might stay here for another year or two, we have been here already, for long enough. For example, my daughter she finished secondary school, and she wants to go to university. But she cannot because I cannot afford it.

H: It’s my sense that a lot of people [in the West] aren’t aware of the refugee situation here. We don’t hear about it much in the news.
N: Our situation, the refugee situation in the region is very, very difficult. It is horrible. We’re in a country where you are a stranger, you have to pay rent, you have to pay for food, for electricity, for water. Your children, they have many, many needs that you have to provide. And you have nothing. I can’t tell a small child that “Today, I’m sorry that we don’t have food for today.” Or when the tenant [landlord] would knock your door to asking for rent, you cannot just tell them, “I’m sorry, I don’t have money.” It wouldn’t wait. The Jordanian government doesn’t allow Iraqi’s to work in the country, unless they have a work permit and residency. To obtain a work permit and residency would cost people a lot of money. Especially when some people could just get them by just depositing a lot of money in the bank.

H: Is there any special message that you’d like to give people in the West about your situation?
N: I’m one of hundreds and hundreds of Iraqi women here in the region just pleading the western countries whether Europe or Sates, to facilitate the resettlement of refugees in order for them to leave the region. When you raise children in such circumstances and such difficult atmosphere, then your children will not be healthy in the future, and then they would grow up and, they would have the sense of revenge. And you just deprive children of everything, and you then want them to be good, and well, and healthy, and stable, and you want them to be peaceful, and honest, and work and things, and you them want the to become good people in the future—that’s very difficult. So if our children go to your country, then for example, as we hear education is free in the west, so at least our children would get the chance to enroll in schools, and college and universities and that would be for their good. I ask that the west would look at our children, and that they would try to think of our children. Our age is almost over; our lives are almost over. But our children are what matters to us.

H: How do you afford living here, how do you afford the rent here?
N: My children, as I told you, they used to work. I saw that the future of my children would be under-stake, so my husband then was forced to go out and work himself. I made my children quit working and I sent them to schools. My husband started working in construction. When my husband was sent back to Iraq, I started working sewing clothes, and I started doing things for neighbors. When I did the operation for my eye, and the doctor told me not to stress my healthy eye, I went to UNHCR and I explained my situation to them. And they started giving me a salary—which is 120 JDs [approximately $168.00] per month for the whole family—for everything. Although it was never enough, but I used to say, “That’s good enough to pay the rent and electricity and the water.” And there is this organization, because we’re close to Ramadan, and that’s why we could get a bit of stores [from the charity]. And there is this person in the NGO; she also helps me with the food supply because I have been known to them. And New Years and other holidays, she would give me food supplies. We’re surviving, but it’s very difficult, very difficult. . . .

We hear, for example that one country donated one million, one billion for Iraqis in the region, and then we become excited, and we say, yes—we are going to have some of it. We’re happy that somehow we’re going to be ok—we’re going to have some sort of financial or food supply, or whatever form of aid or help. But then at the end it gets cut off by many people and organizations on the way, and whatever is left for Iraqis really to make use of or to get is something very minimal like 10% of whatever was donated from the countries.

I would like to clarify another point also, when any organization would decide to take the chance to help Iraqis, when an organization would open doors to help Iraqis and to better their circumstances, for the organization it’s not enough an Iraqi to go and say that I am in need, I don’t have food supply, I don’t have financial assistance, etc.—all that is not enough for the organization. The organization would decide on going to field visits, visiting the family at home, seeing their circumstances and everything that’s related to their living. And that’s very depressing, humiliating, and stressful for the whole family—especially for the kids. And it’s very humiliating for the parents as well. It’s very difficult for us, for people to come see us at home, and see how we live, and how we’re suffering and everything.

H: I hope I’m not making that worse.
N: I know that you’re not here to hurt me or to humiliate me. I know that you’re here because you have a certain message that you want to convey to others for the benefit of the Iraqi refugee population. And that’s why I’m talking very frankly on behalf of all Iraqis—with no exclusions. When you decide to help someone, you’re not supposed to make their children feel that they’re getting support [charity]. For example, a case worker, or a field worker from an organization—a charity humanitarian would come and visit you and pay you a field visit at home, and they would see that you have a small TV or a tiny satellite, and then they would tell you –you don’t need this. This is more than enough for you actually. This is luxury. And you, as an Iraqi person, as a refugee, you’re not supposed to have this, like mobiles [phones]. In Iraq we used to own our house, our land. We used to have god accommodation. And we were not people who had this bad circumstance. They call us unworthy of owning such small things that would better our lives like TVs and mobiles. There is a very good point here—that Iraqi families, for example this [my] family they have been here for seven years, and Iraqi families would not buy things or bran new things here. When ever a family through the seven or five or four years here, whenever they travel and leave the country, every family would give something to the family who came just afterwards, and so on. So that’s why they have a couple of chairs at home, a couple of [pieces of] furniture, something like that, it’s all because families keep on giving [to] each other. My children are tired and I’m tired, and that’s why I made the decision that it’s only a month from now—and it’s either I leave and get resettled to a third country, or I go back to Iraq. My children tell me, “Why do you fear? Why do you fear? It’s death Mom, and we’re going to die, so let’s die in dignity. And let’s not stay here and die in humiliation. So let’s go back to Iraq.” And if God wills, if God wills, and I have hope in God, and I trust God, I believe in him for the sake of my children, and I hope that I will not be forced to take my children back to Iraq where it’s like hell. And I just pray that I’ll be able to bring them and go and be resettle somewhere else.

I used to gather my children around me, trying to persuade them, to pray and have good contact with their god, and not do bad things. Because I only have my children, if I lose them I will have nothing. I have no country, I have no land, no husband, no money, no country for resettlement. The only thing I have is my children. So I’m trying my best not to lose them. I hope that they will continue to do the best things with their lives, and not do anything wrong . . . to be good to each other and love each other as a daughter loves, as brothers and sisters.

If this is a test from our lord, we have to do very well for this test, so we may be very successful. God wants to see if we will continue to succeed or to fall in sin. That’s why we are trying to continue doing the right things, to avoiding falling in any sense.



H: You’re very brave and strong.
N: I have to be brave and strong because if I’m not like this I may lose my children. I have the role of both a mother and a father, and we are here in a strange country, so if any of my daughters commit any sin, they will say “This Iraqi person did it. They will not say this daughter did it or this girl did it, they will say this Iraqi girl. So we as Iraqis have a well-known proverb that says, “Everyone in a strange country has to be very well behaved.” That why we are trying to reflect our original traditions, to be very good in front of strangers. This is mandatory for us. Wherever we might go, I have to teach my children to respect the country we will live in and respect it’s people. And our religion, Islam, is something, is something very good calling people to be good to each other. It will be a big responsibility upon me if we will be resettled outside, how to teach my children to carry their religion and social concept. Especially if they have contact with a different group people with different habits, different traditions. So it will be difficult, but I hope I will succeed. If everything goes well, and we will be resettled and after many years the situation may improve, so that we can go back to Iraq, so the children may not be influenced by the social, and any bad habits from the other societies, they may carry their own traditions and habits so that they and will succeed and be so happy to go back to their own country. I will be so happy if we will be resettled, but at the same time I’m so afraid for my children—they accept any of the bad habits of those certain societies outside. So, I’ll be very anxious about them. I hope they will keep their habits, the way I raised them so as to be kind to each other and the other people they come in contact with. I hope my efforts in raising my children will not be lost, that I will see my children be successful in the society they go to. . . .