Life in Captivity

Refugee camps that I’ve been to don’t look like your Sally Struthers’ camps from TV. I’ve never seen anyone starving and kids don’t sit in the dirt with flies all over their faces. They are dire places for obvious reasons - hot, dusty and above all, crowded. People arrive on foot from bordering war-torn countries and are provided with just enough to survive - food and water rations as well as basic health and school services. But these come at a price - refugees that seek the security of a camp are then not allowed to leave, unless it is to return to their home country, irregardless of dust storms, droughts, flash floods or disease outbreaks. They are not allowed to earn money or grow their own food, lest they make competition for the often equally poor local people. They have little or no voice in the affairs which govern the camp or determine their situation. In essence, they’re in the middle of nowhere, both figuratively and physically. The best they can do is wait and hope they'll be able to return home and resume life one day. For most, this wait will actually take years. If this is as hard for you to comprehend as it is for me, the Hurricane Katrina disaster provides a nice parallel - remember the Houston Astrodome filled with evacuees? Now imagine if those evacuees had to stay exactly in that Dome, and live there for 10 years or more. That is the real tragedy of life as a refugee.

Despite all this, life in the camp is usually better than wherever the refugees came from if, for no other reason than no one is shooting at you. Here, rival tribes live together in general peace - perhaps too tired or too traumatized to be troubled by differences at this point. They construct huts from local materials (mud and straw) and organize themselves into tidy “villages” complete with an administration system and courts for dealing with judicial affairs. Resilient as humans are, life goes on as normally as possible - women do the daily chores of fetching water, cleaning the home area, doing laundry, caring for children and preparing food. Boys and men go to school, make or find things to trade, work for the camp charities in exchange for extra rations and, on Sundays after church, get drunk on the local brew. As humans do everywhere, people fall in love, get married, have children and hope that their kids will have better lives than themselves.

To add to this fusion of tribes, languages and complexions are all the workers necessary to keep the camp running. The UN coordinates the charities (NGO’s) that operate all the different activities like distributing food rations, providing health services and teaching. Most of the workers are from the communities in the region, lured by the prospect of relatively high-paying jobs - a good paycheck being the ultimate noble cause in Africa. Westerners, like me, also come and implement activities with arrogant goals like “eradicating violence against women” and “empowering the youth.” The missionaries are there as well, ready to spread the word of Jesus or whomever. And from seemingly nothing, the refugees develop their own informal market - trading their food rations for t-shirts, sneakers or household goods; providing services like laundry, ready-made cooked meals and bicycle “taxi” rides; and even creating things like woven baskets from strips of discarded trash bags.

I’m not going to say it’s not fascinating to be in these places. It is probably an anthropologist’s dream - having everyone mushed up together in a fairly controlled environment. The best part of my job is getting to spend time with my refugee colleagues, who welcome me warmly on each visit and treat me like a sister. Many of them have spent 12-20 years living in the camp. They’ve been educated, professionally trained by Western charities/UN and exposed to so many different people from all over Africa and the world. They each speak at least 4 languages (tribal, national, host country and English). Their creativity and resilience doesn’t amaze me anymore - I expect it. And yet, almost like a cruel joke, they’re stuck there, in the desert. So many times I find myself thinking that I should do something more - sponsor a friend so they can get out of the camp. Bring needed medicine or toys for their children. But if I started doing that, where would I stop? Who would I help and who would I not help? And if I did do that, every visit, every conversation would be tainted. (or maybe i've being naiive - perhaps they already are tainted) So I sit and listen and try to be realistically encouraging when they tell me of their dreams to leave the camp one day so that they may be able to provide for their family. And some eventually may leave. Peace in this region comes in ebbs and flows. Some will return home one day. A very small percentage may get resettled to other countries. But most will be here when I come and visit again next month. And each time I board the small plane that brings me back here in less than 90 minutes, I feel like the flight should take a lot longer.

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