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The Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), a manifestation of the ideal of persons
dedicated to serve others, was founded in 1980 by Fr. Pedro Arrupe the
General Superior of the Society of Jesus, successor of its founder Ignacio
de Loyola. Fr. Arrupe lived in the Jesuit House of Hiroshima before becoming
the Provincial of the Jesuits in Japan. Later, he became Superior General.
JRS is a Catholic inspired organization founded to serve refugees that
cross frontiers, in danger of their lives, escaping from war and hunger.
Its motto is "to serve," "together with" and "advocacy
work."
The main office of JRS is located at the back of the Church Il Gessu (Rome)
where there is also a Secretariat that takes care of refugees living in
Rome. There, at the entrance of a small chapel there is a mosaic depicting
the Child Jesus riding on an ass. Fr. Magrinya, JRS International Director,
pointed smiling at the inscription carved on the mosaic: "The Child
Jesus had to escape as a refugee, brought by Mary and Joseph. Do not give
up. Cheer up."
Meals are served there for refugees from Afghanistan and Iraq. There is
also a small clinic attended by 2 volunteer doctors. From 4:00 PM about
400 people come to eat at a dining room there. Although I volunteered to
serve the meals, I was refused because people only spoke Italian and it
would be quite hard for me to be of any use. I felt a bit disappointed.
Fr. Magrinya just arriving late at night from Genova spoke with Fr. Giovanni,
the director of the Italian JRS organization, about the new refugee centers
of Milan and Genoa. Thanks to such a dedicated work many people that are
helped recover hope in their lives. How worthy is such a work! At the same
time, without God's gifts and human talents this will be totally impossible.
Fr. Magrinya has two academic degrees and speaks several languages: Italian,
English, French, German, Portuguese, Latin and Spanish. But, the most important
issue is the complex situation surrounding the refugees, like the economic
and political, the ethnic and geographic issues. To establish a conversation
about world refugees there is a need to master all that knowledge concerning
geographical and ethnic realities and to be able to address so different
JRS staff and so many kinds of refugees living in the midst of many delicate
conditions. There is no place for me to help. Instead, I will do my best
as much as I can.
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We talked about how to reach a refugee camp. A camp is not a tourist spot.
To begin with, the only way to go there is by taking one of the fixed planes
of the UN or of the UNHCR. In order to board the plane one has to show
his proper documentation and the purpose of the visit. And in case one
takes the ordinary route, one must know how to reach Lokichokio from the
nearest airport. Now, how to go to the camp from there? All taxi drivers
refuse to take you. Driving along a flat road one can only see far in the
horizon some small trees scattered around. There is only one straight road.
Using special binoculars one can hardly see far off in the distance a car
running the opposite direction. Road construction is done by lining up
stones. It often happens that drivers who get off their cars to keep away
road stones are shot and the cars are stolen. This, seemingly, is a common
practice among bandits. To avoid it, groups of about 5 cars move together
escorted by UN and police patrols. This is called a convoy. In my car there
were clearly two bullet holes.
Refugee camps change according to the times. Once the emergency and critical
situations, as well as famine and disease settle down the whole general
system is properly maintained. That is the case for living conditions,
fresh water and waste, distribution of food and ordinary rules. Public
order is restored and schools and clinics function. But, unless hopeful
solutions to restore their former countries of origin are provided, together
with a smooth maintenance of the present camps, refugees do not know how
to go back and, consequently, just remain in the camps.
JRS not only runs educational programs but, at the same time, contributes
to alleviate and solve the traumas the refugees experience. Refugees return
once their countries of origin acquire peace and safety so that their lives
are not in danger. And unless they receive education their dreams to rebuild
their nation could not be fulfilled. JRS is not only involved in Primary
education, it continues its support on middle and high level education
through its network system. A high level training of personnel is totally
needed for rebuilding a nation. It is a reality that, very often, the opportunity
to get education ends when Primary education is over. To solve that, JRS
continues offering opportunities to advance to Secondary education levels.
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Nevertheless, new problems arise due to the lack of educational facilities,
no matter refugees feel secure back in the countries of origin. And even
if such facilities exist the education given will be useless unless the
curricula are adjusted to present needs. Again, JRS has the plan to build
schools in countries where the refugees return using the same curriculum
system. The issue, though, is the overextend of the services to refugees
from the point of view of administration, with the results that direct
assistance to refugee camps becomes thinner, because of the need to channel
aid for the rehabilitation of the countries of origin that would require
tremendous quantities of finances and personnel in the fields of hard and
soft goods. Once the camps are established tribal problems and fights start
to come to the surface. It helps people to escape from dangers to their
lives, but they soon come to realize that they have to live together in
the same camps with those that threw them out of their countries. Again,
the camps hold people of different languages, believes and customs that
occasion all kinds of problems outsiders could not be able to solve by
fair thinking. Although UN and JRS staff will not tell in public to any
outsider the truth about how fearful those camps are, the problems remain
under cover. There is no way to confirm how real the conflicts could be,
but the expression in their faces is sufficient to make one believe that
the situation is tense.
On the other hand, the propagation of mobile phones has made it easy to
find out immediately whenever conflicts arise and rush out for solutions,
but this fact has also increased the burdens on the staff. Certainly, there
are now more possibilities of seeking a right judgment, instead of leaving
decisions to each different site. At the same time, the transfer of responsibility
has become easier and cases that obstruct answers adapted to local circumstances
have started to appear. 'One-ring' phone calls have become common and when
the staff checks the incoming calls and realizes a refugee has called is
forced to phone back. This practice sends the phone costs skyrocketing
and puts pressure on the staff.
New fearful problems, once the situation in the camp has somehow stabilized,
are the "budget cuts," "bird flu" diseases that have
been found near the horrible situation in the camps.
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A site near the border is needed but, it is impossible to find good places
for people to settle down. Such places have been already selected by the
population to live there. To tell the residents, "get out from here
because we need to build a refugee camp" could not realistically be
done without creating problems. Consequently, a camp cannot be built where
populations already exist. A totally empty land is not available, but camps
are built in similar places.
Turkana is a dry region in a severe environment with normal temperatures
of 40 Centigrade degrees. The Turkana tribal people make there their living
grazing cattle. Without any consultation with them the Kakuma refugee camp
was built there. Kakuma expanded up to a population of 80,000 people. It
has become the 4th biggest city in Kenya, population-wise, and its extension
covers an area one kilometer wide and 15 kilometers long. Thus the population
density is very high.
Formerly not too many people lived there, because of lack of available
water and now tons of water are needed to fill the needs of 80,000 people,
but there is no way to do it properly. The distribution of water is rationed
from the beginning. There are two faucets and each community can use them
for only one hour. 200 members constitute a community and before the time
for their turn comes many water containers line up near the water faucets.
It becomes impossible to fill with water all of them in just one hour.
Well, there were still left empty containers since the day before unable
to be filled with water.
Then, what happens to those who could not get water the day before? The
only possibility is to get it from their neighbors. Life in the camps is
unbearable unless people help mutually each other. Many refugees are often
handicapped because of the persecution experienced in their own countries
and the hardships involved in escaping. If communities are not able to
accept entirely the difficult situations of each individual will not survive.
It could be cruel to demand generosity when the resident members of the
community were, formerly, living in tense relationship.
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Women and children usually line up for water under the strong rays of the
sun. Children are an important labor force. What about schooling? The highest
priority in their lives is not to attend school but to get water. This
is a very heavy job for women and children. Their image transporting the
heavy containers of water going back home, under the blazing sun, resembles
the one when they return to their countries of origin in the midst of insolvable
problems.
I was allowed to climb to the water tank tower. It was a fearful experience.
My hands full of sweat slipped holding the 15-mt. high iron ladder. It
was not the height that made me afraid but the rusty weak iron ladder.
Once I went up I got amazed at the view of the camp from above. It was
all green and it was easy to determine the border lines separating communities
and households. The land was full of green vegetation. The water was, maybe,
not enough for the survival of 80,000 refugees but they brought it from
some place nearby. Without thinking about having to go down the same ladder
again I enjoyed the view from the tower. There were some deserted dry places
and it looked to me that even there green plants were growing due to the
people occupying the land.
The local JRS staff arranged for me to accompany the counseling service
team visiting refugee families. There were no families that had left their
countries without reason. When trauma develops rehabilitation in the midst
of such hard situations is near impossible. On the other hand, there is
no other organization in the camp that helps people to overcome their traumas.
The activities of the counseling service to families fulfill a very important
task in the refugee camp where the life environment is so hard.
I visited a family from Somalia. The mother had requested counseling. The
husband lying in bed could not move and attend the daycare center. Five
family members live in a place surrounded by a fence made of a sharp-edged
type of tree. In spite of the heat, the man covered with a blanket was
lying down under the hot rays of the sun. He hurt his backbone while escaping
the country. He half-recovered once, but due to overwork he felt pain again
and since then he could not get up from bed anymore. Now the wife does
all the work by herself at home, attends the husband and takes care of
the children. She has no time to plan the return home and the future of
the children and spends day and night attending her husband. It is a very
tiring and psychologically demanding task. She hardly can see and the uncertainty
over the future of the family and the anxiety over her blindness exert
such a pressure on her that she cannot sleep. She would like to go to a
doctor but does find neither time nor money to pay the bills. The counselor
just listens to her realizing that there is no answer available to refugees.
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The next family we visited was again a Somali family. The small house facing
the main road was splashed with muddy water whenever it rained. The house
was not built and given by the UN, but the family moved in arbitrarily.
The husband is from Somalia and his family lives a few kilometers away
building a community. He was infested with AIDS and sent away his husband
and kids, without handing them out his food ration card. He was most probably
afraid of transmitting the disease to his family or maybe, according to
the counselor, he sold the right to obtain food for the family in order
to have some income to cover his disease. In any event sending out his
family without the ability to get food was the same as letting them die.
They have 3 children. The eldest one is a healthy 11 year-old girl, but
the 2 younger ones, a girl and a boy suffer from some disease. The JRS
staff thinks that they are HIV infested. But none of them have ever had
an HIV check, because they are afraid of the results. Although the kids
are still growing they do not have access to food. The UN does not take
on the issue because it is only "a family problem." But such
an attitude does not lead to any solution. The counselor confronted with
a difficult problem that requires a real answer believes that the cause
is not trauma or mental distress, but cannot find a clear solution. He
tries to imitate the Good Samaritan and desperately feels that he can only
listen to their suffering, and no matter how close he is to the refugees
he feels profound suffering because of his powerlessness. I felt a deep
respect in front of them.
A few days later, when I went to the camp to say farewell to the refugees
I knew, I met again there the Somali lady with sick eyes and asked her,
"How are your eyes now?" Feeling relieved she replied, "Yes,
it could be a matter of putting on glasses, but I don't have any money.
I thought that talking to the counselor JRS will give me money for the
glasses." I asked the JRS guide to come again to visit the family
and apologized for not being able to do anything useful. "Of course"
he answered with a smile. I did not do anything else but listening to the
family, but he assured me that he was coming back again.
As soon as I met Mary I realized there was something wrong. She suffered
from a deep wound and nothing could be done about it. It was clear that
to call her by her name will provoke more suffering to her and I did not
want to know her name, but the JRS staff guiding me introduced her to me
as Mary. She was living in Sudan at the age of 10 when her village was
attacked. They shot both parents and herself was wounded in her back. She
fell on the ground with the trunk of her body burnt and both legs unable
to move freely. She lost all relatives. She spent 3 years in a hospital
at the border with Kenya and was sent to the Kakuma refugee camp, but life
there is almost unbearable to her. She says that she has lost all hope.
Although she does not have any relative alive, she was placed in the refugee
community of those persons that remained alive from the former Sudanese
village where she lived with her family. Everybody is kind to her.
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JRS has given her a special scholarship and although she is 19 now she
is in her 7th year of Primary school. Finally she could enter School. It
is not clear whether she could recover her confidence and make her living.
Since she likes studying Biology I encouraged her: "Maybe you can
become a medical doctor, a good doctor that can understand people's suffering."
She answered sadly, "Yes that would be wonderful." Nevertheless,
I felt her words were not convincing. She continued, "I do not know
anybody in Sudan any more. When this camp shuts down there is no place
for me to go. If I study a little now and become a typist, I think I would
be able to survive." Will there be, from now on, a need of typists?
Certainly computer programmers will be on demand. Nevertheless, she cannot
find any other concrete way of making a living.
When classes ended she returned to her home, walking on crutches. Her body
and arms are very thin and she does her best walking with her crutches.
A few days later I met her at the JRS office. She looked very pretty wearing
not the school dress but an ethnic custom.
I arrived in Nairobi. I had a short visit permission and, on top of that,
I thought I could not digest anything more than what I had seen, but making
a last effort I decided to pay a visit to the slums of Nairobi. Sister
Mercy, a JRS staff that belongs to a diocesan organization assisting to
the most abandoned people guided me. We went to meet an Ethiopian female
refugee with a 2-year old child. That was during the rainy season.
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The roads with bad drainage had become rivers of mud, there were water
holes everywhere and the traffic was stagnant. There was an outbreak of
malaria mosquitoes. I followed carefully the foot steps of the Sister.
We entered an old building in a small street and went up to the 4th floor,
climbing a narrow stair case. There was there a three tatami-size room
where the mother and the little child were living. There was only a hole
like a window with no glass. Naturally anything could enter there. The
only furniture was a bed and a small cabinet. Of course, neither water
nor toilet. The Bible and a small bottle of medicines were on top of the
cabinet. She married a refugee and, 2 years ago, she gave birth. Her husband
left her and run away with another woman. She went for help to the Church.
Her only source of income is washing clothes, but she is not healthy and
cannot do the laundry for others any more. Lately, the nights are cold
and she cannot afford to buy a mosquito-net.
The medicine on top of the cabinet seems to be distributed to retard the
advance of AIDS. I asked her whether her child was an HIV carrier. Luckily
the child is not infected. I asked later the Sister about the possibilities
of survival of the mother about 2 years from now on. She also agreed that,
most probably, there were zero possibilities. How to take such a situation?
Are there any good solutions? All kinds of feelings, like suffocating and
powerlessness, irritation and endurance, came into my mind, bringing me
into confusion. Then, I heard Sister Mercy inviting me to pray. We took
the Bible and prayed quietly, confronting in despair a reality without
a way out. These people living in adversity are strong. "Is this faith?"
My journey drew finally down its curtain in amazement.
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