Mia Veigel in Jordan (Photo Credit: CARE Germany)
by Mia Veigel (20), Federal Volunteer at CARE Germany
"I never thought that I would marry by the age of seventeen," Amal (22) told me with her clear and young voice. "Without the war, my life would have run so differently." The war she is talking about is the Syrian War, which has already lasted seven years, and there seems to be no end. Amal told me all this during our first encounter.
Some days have passed since that day, but I can still feel the heat on my shoulders from the first time I stood in front of her house; so intensively have her words been burned into my memory. Before my journey to Amman (Jordan) I had often thought about our first meeting, but what I felt at that specific moment we met was way different from all my expectations.
There is no sadness in her voice
Amal is from Deraa, in the South of Syria. Like me, she also has a joyful childhood in a neighborhood where everyone knows everyone. She loves to go to school, is always the best in her class and dreams about becoming a nurse one day. But her life changes dramatically when an attack on a bus full of kindergarten children is perpetrated. Her parents decide from one day to the other that she couldn’t go to school anymore and for the girl, then a sixteen-year-old, her world collapses. During this difficult time, some of her classmates were kidnapped or suddenly disappeared. Amal’s parents then decided to marry her to a man that could take care of her. “I didn’t know the man I married later," she says with a soft voice and a grin as she sees my astonished face. There is no sadness in her voice and it almost seems like she is not talking about her own life, rather, it's as if she is doing a presentation in school.
In January 2013, Amal and her family flee to Jordan. Amal is at that time already four months pregnant. When I see her sitting next to me, it is inconceivable that she, so small and fragile, gave birth to a child by the age of eighteen. I think about my life in January 2013 and realise, a bit embarrassed, that I celebrated my birthday during a school exchange in Brittany (France) at that time. It’s hard to imagine that Amal then was passing the border between Syria and Jordan surrounded by explosions and road closures. When they arrived, the family, like many other refugees, received support from a CARE community centre. Amal’s family received financial help to start with and got in touch with many other organizations.
A huge gap between us
There is a strange feeling in the air as we enter the sparsely furnished living room of the family´s house. Apart from a rattling fan, there is only silence between us. Amal and I are both uncertain and I feel almost like an invader in her home. We are close, but I can still feel the huge gap between us because her life and all she’s gone through seems so unfamiliar and unimaginable for me. Amal shows me pictures of her home in Syria and a uniformed man. ”That’s my husband. He died two and a half years ago during an explosion in Syria.” While she says this, the door opens and a little boy runs into the room. Amal’s face lights up. Her son is 4 years old. He is full of energy and cannot sit still for a moment. I notice the affectionate look on her face, but also how hard it is for her to calm him down. Since I don’t speak any Arabic, I only find out later, that he can hardly speak, at the age of almost 5 years. Again and again, Amal’s mother says the words “shoes” and “socks,” as the 4- year-old puts them on. She is also the one that blames herself for not advising Amal to not think about the loss of her husband while breastfeeding. To her mind, this may have caused the speech problems of her grandchild. Amal also carries the burden of that belief with her.
Later, as we are alone, she tells me that despite the escape and her loss, she still hopes to be able to study one day. “After moving from the Zataari refugee camp to the city, I could finally complete high school,” she tells me proudly. Nevertheless, when Amal tried to enroll in university, she had to discover that the graduation costs 12,000 Euros – money she doesn´t have. Therefore, she worked hard to receive a scholarship or to find someone willing to finance her education. “I had found someone, but as this person found out about the amount of the costs, she canceled the support,” she tells me, with disappointment written all over her face.
I have all the possibilities, and she?
It’s hard for me to ask her if she wants to marry again one day and move out of her parent’s house. For a young woman coming from a conservative background, her answer is surprisingly straightforward: “I have already lost enough time during my life; from now on, I will spend my time just on me and my son.” Her answer astonishes me. I know that in her culture just a few men would marry a woman that was already married once and has a son.
Again, I feel a great gap between us. I am free from all constraints and have endless possibilities in my future. We are almost the same age and yet our lives couldn’t be more different. The idea to be trapped in traditions and always being under the authority of a man is unimaginable for me. I didn’t experience all the terrible things she has seen, and when I am back in Germany in my daily routine, it will just be a matter of time until our encounter fades away in my memory.
I can fade out all the terrible in this world, but Amal is confronted with it every day. Fates like Amal’s aren’t individual cases in Jordan. According to UNHCR, there are around 650,000 million Syrian and almost 2.0 million Iraqi refugees in the country alone. Still, Jordan manages to deal with this major challenge. In the Arabic language, the meaning of the name ‘Amal’ is ‘Hope’, which seems to be the last thing that remains for most of the 66 million refugees worldwide.