Obviously, as you can tell, I am a pretty big procrastinator. Shocker, considering that what I'm about to write about happened over a month ago, right? Well, the opportunity to go to Fez to volunteer with refugees came up in the last weekend right before finals, and obviously, when it comes to refugees or studying, I'm going to choose the refugees. I'm an IR student, that counts as studying, right? Well, after volunteering with the CCC (Commonwealth Catholic Charities) in Roanoke as part of a class assignment, I have become really interested in refugee affairs, so I was excited to give up a Saturday (even if it would just be spent studying) for this opportunity.
On the way into Fez, where you can typically see Sub-Saharan Africans throughout the cit on the sides of the streets or in the medians to sell newspapers, tissues, and a variety of items; beg; and clean windows for a living, we encountered something new. I had always been in a grand taxi before, which these people must know not to encounter the car or face the wrath of the ferocious cab drivers. However, this time, riding in Karen and Kevin's personal car, we were approached a lot more. First, going into the town at a roundabout, there were several women wearing headscarves. They were all holding signs saying, "syrienne," and the equivalent in Arabic as well as showing photocopies of Syrian passports. Karen, who has lived in Morocco for quite awhile, explained to us that there is a new trend across the Middle East, where people are simply posing as Syrian refugees. Obviously, the un-trained eye can't tell a Syrian from a Moroccan, and it's an easy way to get money from western tourists who have heard of the horrors originating in Syria and spreading across the Levant. It is pretty enraging to think, though, that these women are likely not refugees at all, but using the situation in Syria to take advantage of people's kindness. I didn't realize how enraged by this I would be until later in the day, after hearing the stories of the refugees we were going to volunteer with for the day. Not only are the impostors taking advantage of a horrible situation, but they are also deflecting charity from the refugees in Fez who are victims of an entirely other conflict more than likely not as heavily covered by major western media outlets.
Why are these conflicts, those in Cameroon, the Ivory Coast, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among many other places in Sub-Saharan Africa, not portrayed by the media? Perhaps, it is because there is an American interest for keeping the people causing these crises alive in power, but mostly, I truly believe it is the negative connotation the media has given to Muslim Majority States in the Middle East. Yes, there are issues in the Middle East, but there are certainly problems in other parts of the world that mirror or trump what is happening in MENA. It's the media's building-up of Muslim stereotypes perpetuated by extremists that has kept the rather "Christian" states' conflicts out of the news.
I'm still not sure what I was expecting that day, but what actually happened hit me pretty hard. First, all of the volunteers, including Congolese students who organized the meetings, broke up into groups to do the preliminary work including making lunch, separating clothes, and cleaning/dressing wounds. As a clothing sorter, we were finished pretty early, and went out to where the refugees had started gathering in the courtyard with AUI's chaplain. She explained to Alesia and I that the most important job wasn't giving the refugees food or blankets, but just to talk with them, helping them remember that despite all that was going on in their life, they were still human.
The first guy who came to talk to Alesia, Karen, and I was a refugee from Cameroon. He spoke French, so Alesia and I were pretty lost, but Karen would tell us what was going on periodically. It happens that the man had just heard from home that his mother had just died. She had been at a meeting she organized to raise money for her other son, this man's brother, to cross the border illegally via smuggling from Algeria, since Morocco and her neighbor to the east currently are not speaking besides to collect rent royalties from a pipeline running up to the EU. The older brother, the man at the center speaking to us, had fled from Cameroon with his brother to Algeria, and they could only come up with enough money to smuggle one across at a time. As the older brother, he decided to go first in order to look for work in Morocco in order to get a place to live. What I could understand from the discussion, it is in violation to hold a private meeting, and the police who had heard about it were outside waiting for the meeting to end, where they brutally beat the mother in the street until she died. Apparently, the man was also worried about the police going to find his father, killing him also. The man had not heard from his father for over a week, and could not contact his brother, who he had not spoken to since Monday.
All I could think about was how valuable a mother's love truly is. This woman knew the possible consequences of organizing a secret meeting, but went ahead anyway so that her children could have a better life, even if that meant being in another country. Of course, I thought about everything my mother and grandparents had done for me so that I could have everything I want in life as well as pushing me, as well as supporting me, to be successful. Although I am by no means a victim of political dispute, I thought about how I was also in another country, far away from my family, a constant lifestyle that is definitely a foreseeable possibility in my future. However, I will almost always have the decision to go back home, unless, of course, there are economic/scheduling factors. I thought about how lucky that in a week, I would be on a train towards Casablanca to get on a plane that would take me home for three short weeks, where my mom was going to be standing there with arms wide open, ready for a hug and to spoil me before shedding more tears when dropping me off to go to Belgium. How did I get so lucky to not only be born into a family that supports me, which his family also did, obviously, but to also be born into a country where the political situation wouldn't keep me from them through life and death? Later in the afternoon, we briefly talked about politics, when they brought up Obama, perhaps one of the few things these men know about American life. They told us that they would do anything to have a president like Obama, which was very shocking to me, due to the fact that even as Americans, the AUI study abroad students do not even say things this freely (despite being majors in heavily politicized fields, you get really tired of politics in class, and do not fill casual conversation with it). I am also from a part of the country that could win a gold medal in Obama bashing, and it made me think about no matter how much you disagree with either party, the exaggerated, predicted doomsday that you say their policies will bring cannot compare with the politics refugees face in their home and host countries on a daily basis. Never in my life, have I been more glad to be from the US as well as to have a plane ticket for the next week.
As I was thinking of this, I had to brush back a tear, because how would it look if the volunteer was blubbering over this when he wasn't? We were suppose to be there for support, not to look like weak, pitying westerners. Karen led us in prayer with the man, of course, it was in French, so I couldn't understand it very well, but I could tell it comforted him a lot. One of the regular volunteers joined us, then, and he told the man that there was hope for him finding a job. He pulled out a folded piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and showed us his resume (or CV for all of you non-Americans). Turns out in Cameroon, he had been a businessman, so he has a keen mind for finances as well as a professional business attitude. Also, he spoke French really well, so the regular volunteer advised him to seek out an opportunity within one of the French call centers outsourced to Morocco while he is waiting for his brother to join him from Algeria.
After this, the day seemed to brighten up a bit, as it felt like we were holding court for the majority of the time. The rest of the stations all of the AUI students were working at had finished, so we all met up, and the refugees surrounded us. They gave up there seats for us, and started asking us questions in French. Since there was only one fluent French speaker, Claire, Karen's daughter who lives in Morocco and speaks better French than I ever hope to at this point, there were a lot of blank stares and "Excusez moi. Je ne comprends pas. Mon francais est tres mal," but it was definitely enjoyable. Of course, the basic question was asking everyone's name and nationality typically followed by asking if we were married or had boyfriends back in the United States. We were asked a lot if we wanted to get married in our round-about marriage proposals of the day, much more of a contrast to a couple of weekends before in the medina. This was the important part Karen was talking about. It seemed that during this time, when asking us how Obama was doing and telling us they would come see us in the United States when they became big football stars, they had forgotten about all of their troubles, even if just for thirty minutes.
The next part of the day was more heart-breaking. We served lunch, which the refugees seemed very thankful for. They were all standing in very close lines, and it seems that sometimes things get a little more heated, but I guess that since Anamaria and I were handing out the food, they were a little more tame, and I got a "merci" from each one of the refugees. After they had finished their meal, we gave out blankets, if they can really be called that. They were more like thick, dense mats made out of compressed lint. Nonetheless, they were greatly appreciated, as the volunteers who usually run the show had a list, where they were calling people out one by one to receive their blanket. At the end, it looked like a few people wouldn't be receiving one, and they were getting more noticeably upset, but another bundle of blankets came out, and everyone thankfully left with one. The most interesting part of this to me, though was how the refugees were folding the blankets up after they had held them out to examine them adoringly. They all folded them, some rolling them into bundles, and began looking for spare pieces of the plastic binding they were tied into bales with, making it easier to carry them. I was wondering where they lived, since it seemed like they had a long journey ahead of them, and asked Karen, who told me that most of them live out the outskirts of town under a bridge by the train station and across from the police station. Since the (hopefully) temporary residence of the refugees is across from the police station, there is a problem distributing aid, as the local authorities will claim church groups offering charity are proselytizing, even though, many of the refugees are indeed Christian. Although one of the pillars of Islam is charity, it is really disappointing that a grudge between religions keeps aid from getting to the refugees, who obviously do not have very much in the first place and are beyond thankful for a free meal and a blanket.
Leaving the church which we had spent the morning in, we headed over to BorjFez, the local mall, which ironically, you can see from the veranda we gathered on for the day. The rest of the day made me feel rather hypocritical and too lucky. I had a delicious pepperoni pizza, a true treat in nearly pork-less Morocco, and went to the American School's production of A Christmas Carol. On a lighter note, I was rather impressed by all of the work that the high school students (many Moroccan, speaking in a second, third, or maybe even fourth language) must have put in to stage a performance of a play which I am afraid many native English speakers haven't seen.
Like I said, I'm not sure what I was expecting with the refugees. Probably an experience more similar to what I've had at the CCC in Roanoke, where the refugees are far (farther than the same continent) from their home, and their biggest struggle is trying to assimilate into American culture by learning a new language (because in America, you basically need English to survive instead of Morocco, where you can speak part of French and Arabic and be fine). It certainly wasn't, though. I learned a lot more than I ever could by teaching the alphabet at the CCC about what was going on in the refugees' lives and what it must feel like to not only be away from home, which I had gotten accustomed to in the last few months, but forced out. Definitely, I am glad I gave up a day of studying about IR and conflict out of books to do it firsthand.
Although I was not able to spend my winter break how I had planned , writing this blog has made me so, so thankful, even more than I had been before, that I decided to go home for the holidays. I can only imagine what the refugee from Cameroon was feeling at the time, with the stress of his brother in Algeria, finding a job, living on the street in a foreign country, the post-traumatic effects of fleeing one's home country, on top of grieving for his mother and possibly his father. No amount of words or blogs will be able to fully capture how thankful I am that I did get my hug at the airport and a beautiful day in Washington DC with my mother as well as our last road trip home.
In honor of the mother who lost her life trying to provide a better life for her sons as well as my mom who was my biggest fan and most devoted reader, I dedicate this post to all parents who have gone far and beyond for their children's well-being and happiness.
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