November/December
2000
What’s
It Like to Be a Refugee? Two Views
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Shanaz, Afghanistan, 12
years old
Shanaz is a 12-year-old Afghan girl
who lives in Kamaz, a camp for displaced people near Mazar-i-Sharif
in northern Afghanistan. Although her name means “princess,”
she doesn’t feel a sense of royalty because life in the camp has
been very hard for her and her family.
When the bombings began in Kabul in 1992, my family and I had to leave
our home. In the three years since then, rockets chased us away many
times from the different friends or relatives we stayed with.
I’ll never forget the last place we stayed. We had been hiding
in a shelter for several months. One day, when things got a bit quieter
and the bombing was not so intense, my two little sisters, Razia and
Zainab, went outside to go to the toilet. A rocket fell on a neighbor’s
house and the blast destroyed the toilets. My sisters were killed outright.
Things went crazy after that. The bombing was twice as heavy and we
decided we had to get away from that hell. But it was impossible to
leave at the time, and for six long months we had to stay in the shelter.
Finally, in March 1995, we managed to escape on a lorry heading for
Mazar-i-Sharif, where things were calmer.
Aziza, another sister, couldn’t endure all the horror we experienced,
the death of our two little sisters and all the bombs. It’s as
though she’s wearing a mask. Her face is completely rigid. She
can’t move the muscles and she can’t smile any more. We only
know that sometimes she laughs because we see little crinkles around
her eyes. And she sings if she is happy.
My mother is very sad too. She’s very tired and she cries a lot.
The Kamaz camp contains displaced people from Kabul. Most of them have
been living here for at least three years. We were amongst the last
to arrive.
Life in the camp is not much fun. Our house is very small—there
is only one room for all seven of us to eat, sleep and study in. The
five of us girls and my mother all sleep under the same cover while
my father sleeps apart under a separate blanket.
Our house in Kabul had much more room. There were two main rooms, a
kitchen and a bathroom with a proper toilet. We had a garden and a
well—it
was much easier to have clean water there. Here, we have to fetch water
from a common tap and the toilets are also public. That’s not much
fun if you have to go out at night to use them. It’s very dark
and there are no lights—I really hate it.
Before, we had beautiful carpets, the very best quality. It’s
very important in our culture to have carpets because we use the floor
a
lot and hardly ever have tables or chairs. In Kamaz, we have no carpets.
Not even one. There are only blankets and the plastic sheets provided
by the United Nations, which give some protection from the cold and
the damp.
I’ve really had enough of living in this muddy camp. And I’m
not the only one. We are all fed up with it. Sure, we’re alive
and we have a roof over our heads—but what will happen to us in
the future? Nobody wants to spend their whole life on this bit of clay-ey
ground.
The situation is very difficult for my father. Like most of the people
here, he has no regular work. He accepts any little job that comes
up,
no matter what it is as long as he earns a bit of money to buy food.
Last week, he worked as a porter, today as a bricklayer and tomorrow?
Well, we’ll see. Uncertainty is the only thing that’s certain
here.
Sometimes, my father gives up hope completely and can’t see any
way out of our situation. At these times he goes to the blue mosque
in Mazar-i-Sharif to pull himself together again. I know that he prays
for us all, so that God will protect us and that no more awful things
will happen to us.
I love that blue mosque. I go there every week. Before the war, Muslims
from all over the world used to go there on pilgrimage because it is
one of the most important Islamic sites and it contains the tomb of
Ali, a holy man in Islam.
I’m lucky to be going to school. That’s because my father
was so determined and would be very unhappy if he had to send us out
to work. He often says, “To be illiterate is a little like being
blind; and it is hard to understand the world if you can’t see
it.”
I know other girls who spend their time begging for food in the town
bazaar and others who have to weave carpets all day long.
Sometimes, when I really can’t take any more of this war, I climb
onto the roof of our house and I imagine that I am somewhere else, in
some magnificent place that doesn’t look anything at all like Kamaz.
I don’t really know where that is. Perhaps in Kabul, perhaps not.
But it’s very beautiful. I dream of my life before the war. I sew
and I’m happy and forget my worries.
Sozana and Saranda,
Kosovo, 17 years old
Sozana and Saranda are twins who attend the Liberty School in New York.
Here, Sozana does most of the talking.
We lived with our father, mother and little sister in the basement
apartment of a house in Pristina. We had just begun 9th grade when
the war broke
out—April 1, 1998. One day, men walked into our classroom and shouted
for everyone to be quiet. When one of the boys didn’t obey, they
took him out and shot him. They also shot our teacher. After that, school
was finished for us. For two weeks we stayed at home. No music. No TV.
We couldn’t even go to the store.
After about two weeks, some men came to our house and said that we had
15 minutes to leave. We left quickly, taking nothing, and went to a
parking lot where about 200 people had gathered. Our cousin and his
family got into their car and left for Macedonia, but there was no room
for us. Instead, we walked to the train station. It was raining and
cold. We got there at noon and waited until night to get on a train
for Macedonia.
The train was very crowded. Everyone just pushed on. There were no
seats. The only place we could find space was in the bathroom. The
windows
were closed and, with all the people crowded together, it was hard
to breathe. Finally, we reached Macedonia. We got off the train and
walked
in the rain. We came to Blaca—which was just fields—and stayed
there for five days. We didn’t have anything to eat and had to
beg the police for bread. We slept in the fields.
After that we went on to a refugee camp. At first we were overjoyed
when we saw the food there, but it wasn’t easy to get. The Albanian
workers who handed it out favored their own relatives and people they
knew. Sometimes, we had to stand in line for three hours in order to
get some. By that time, the rain had stopped and it became very hot.
We began to feel dirty because there was no way to get a shower and
really wash yourself.
In the camp, we all slept in family tents or doubled-up with friends.
We slept on the ground, but they gave us blankets. It was only supposed
to be temporary and, after about a month, they asked each family where
they wanted to move to. Most wanted to stay close to Kosovo, at least
in Europe, but my father told them that he had a brother in America.
A few days later, the list was posted. We were going to America. We
children were so happy, although my father cried and said that he wasn’t
sure he wanted to go so far away.
We were put on a plane to Fort Dix, New Jersey. There were seven planes
carrying about 400 persons each. Fort Dix was a group of army barracks,
but the soldiers had moved out and we moved in. We ate together in
a
big cafeteria and waited for what would happen next. My father called
my uncle who lived in New York and three weeks later he came to get
us—on May 26, our 16th birthday. My uncle found us an apartment
in the Bronx. The Immigration service gave us enough money for clothes,
medicine, food, and the apartment for one month. My father was able
to get a job as a plumber, which is what he did in Pristina.
We started school in the Bronx. It was very hard. We didn’t speak
English at all. After about three months, we moved to where we are now,
in Brooklyn, and started at Liberty. We like it because it is a high
school just for kids like us, who have come from another country. We’re
learning to speak English pretty well, and we help our parents. My father
speaks a little English, but my mother doesn’t at all. We’d
like to finish high school and go to college. Sozana would like to become
a doctor. Saranda, who isn’t good at math, thinks that she’d
like to become a lawyer.
We like America. We study hard. Every week we visit our cousins and
sometimes go to a movie or a beach. But we miss our friends, our home,
and our grandparents in Montenegro. It’s nice to be here, but there
we had lots of friends. We went to parties and we didn’t have
to speak English.
Edited excerpts from interviews from the “virtual” refugee
camp program by Doctors Without Borders. Visit www.dwb.org
for a tour of the camp and to read extensive interviews and other narratives.
Reprinted with kind permission.
