Monday, October 22, 2007
Syria is a beautiful country-at least I think so. I say "think" because when I see it as beautiful, sometimes I wonder if security and normalcy confused with "beauty." In many ways, Damascus is like Baghdad before the war-bustling streets, occasional traffic jams, markets seemingly always full of shoppers ... And in many ways is different. The buildings are higher, generally more narrow streets and there is a mountain, Qasiyoun, which is awesome, far away
The mountain attracts my attention, as it does with many and many Iraqis-especially those in Baghdad. Northern Iraq is full of mountains, but the rest of Iraq is quite flat. At night Qasiyoun mixed with the black sky and the only indication of its presence is a multitude of small, shimmering spots of light-houses and restaurants built into the hillside. Every time I take a picture, try to enter it Qasiyoun. Seeking to put the person in a position where Qasiyoun be the background.
The first weeks here were a special culture shock. It has taken me three months take away certain habits I acquired in Baghdad during the war. Funny how you learn to act in a particular way and not even realize that you do strange things like dodge the eyes of the people on the street or whisper in your prayers inside madly when you are caught in a traffic jam. It took at least three weeks to teach myself to walk again decorated the street with your head up and not constantly look back.
is estimated that today there are at least 1.5 million Iraqis in Syria. I believe it. As you walk through the streets of Damascus you can hear the Iraqi accent everywhere. There are areas like Qudsiya Geramana and which are crowded with refugees. Syrians are few and far between in these areas. Even the public schools of these places are full of Iraqi children. A cousin of mine is going to school in Qudsiya and his class is composed of 26 Iraqis and 5 Syrian children. Sometimes it's hard to believe the majority of families do not have to live on nothing but their savings are being rapidly reduced by the income and living costs.
At one month to get here, we started hearing talk that Syria would require visas for Iraqis and, like many other countries. Apparently, our esteemed puppets in power met with Syrian and Jordanian authorities and decided to end the last two safe havens for Iraqis-Damascus and Amman and. The talks began in late August and was only talk until early October. Now the Iraqis and entering Syria need a visa issued by the Syrian consulate or embassy of the country where they are. In the case of Iraqis in Iraq, said it also required an approval from the Ministry of Interior (a way to make it difficult for people fleeing the militias of the Ministry of Interior ...). Today we talk of a possible fifty dollar visa at the border. The
and Iraqis who entered Syria before the visa entry into force received a visitor's visa for a month. When the month passed, you could go with your passport to the local immigration office. If you were lucky, you got one or two additional months. When they began talks on visas, ceased to give initial border visa extensions. We as a family, we had a brilliant idea. Before the start of the commotion of visas, and before needing a visa renewal, we decided to go to one of the crossings, cross into Iraq and back again to Syria, everyone was doing this. This would give us more time, at least two months.
chose a warm day in early September and drove six hours to Kameshli, a border town in northern Syria. My aunt and her brother came to us, they needed a visa extension. There is a border crossing in Kameshli called Yaambiya. One of the simplest steps for between Syrian and Iraqi borders there are only a few meters. Sales walk from Syrian territory and you're on Iraqi territory. Simple and safe.
When we reached the border police post, we were surprised to see thousands of Iraqis had had our brilliant idea simultaneously-the lines at the border post were endless. Hundreds of Iraqis were in a long line waiting to have their passports stamped with an exit visa. We joined the line and waited. And waited. And waited ...
took four hours to leave the Syrian border after which came the Iraqi border queues. These were even longer. We joined a queue of weary, impatient Iraqis. "It looks like a tail of gas ..." My younger cousin joked. This was the beginning of another four hours waiting in the sun, moving in baby steps, moving more slowly than ever. The line was getting longer. We reached a point where we could see the beginning of the line, where passports were stamped, but not the end. Moving along the line, up and down, young boys were selling glasses of water, gum and cigarettes. My aunt grabbed one arm, as he passed quickly with us. "How many people are ahead of us?". The whistled and took a few steps back to assess the situation. "! Hundred! Mil. Ran was almost as happy to do business.
I was wrapped in a mixture of feelings while in the queue. He was caught between a sense of longing, a kind of nostalgia that gets me in the strangest moments and a heavy feeling of dread. What if we were not allowed out again? It was not really possible, but what if it happened? What if it was the last time I saw the Iraqi border? What if we were not allowed to enter Iraq for some reason? What if we were allowed to leave before?
spent four hours standing, crouching, sitting and bowing in line. The sun was beating us all alike, Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds in the same way. E. tried to convince the aunt to faint, so that he could speed up the process for the whole family, but she gave us a withering look and stood even straighter. The people standing there, talking, cursing or silent. It was another meeting of Iraqis-the perfect opportunity to share sad stories and ask about distant relatives or acquaintances.
found two families known as we waited our turn, we welcome and old long lost friends and exchanged phone numbers and addresses in Damascus, promising to visit. I realized that the 23 year old son, K. missing. I held my curiosity and I did not ask where it was. The mother looked older than I remembered and the father seemed absorbed in thought, or perhaps it was worth it. I did not know if K. was alive or dead. Needed to believe he was alive and thriving somewhere, not worrying about borders or visas. Ignorance is truly a blessing at times ...
Back at the Syrian border, we expect a large group, tired and hungry, having handed over our passports to be stamped. The Syrian immigration man sifting through dozens of passports, pronouncing names and looking faces as distributed passports patiently, "Stand back, please step back." There was a widespread outcry in the crowded back room where we were standing as someone collapsed-lifted him I recognized when an elderly man who was there with his family accompanied by their children leaning on a cane. By the time we
New Syrian border and back again to take a taxi ready to Kameshli, I was resigned to the fact that we are refugees. Every day I read about refugees on the Internet ... in the newspapers ... hear about them on TV. I hear about the estimated 1.5 million Iraqi refugees over in Syria and shake my head, but never consider my family or myself as part of them. After all, refugees are people who live in tents and have no running water or plumbing, right? Refugees carry their belongings in bags instead of suitcases and no phone or Internet access, right? Pressing my passport in my hand as if my life depended on it, with two extra months of stay in Syria stamped inside, I was shocked to see how wrong I was. We are all refugees. Suddenly I was a number. No matter how the rich or educated or comfortable, a refugee is always a refugee. A refugee is someone who not really welcome in any country, including yours ... especially yours.
We live in an apartment building where two other Iraqis are renting families. People on the floor above us are a Christian family from northern Iraq who were persecuted to outside of their village by Peshmerga and the family on our floor is a Kurdish family who lost their home in Baghdad by militias and are waiting for emigrate to Sweden or Switzerland or another European refugee haven.
The first night we arrived, exhausted, dragging suitcases behind us, with the moral a bit shattered, the Kurdish family sent his representative, a boy 9-year-old who was missing two front teeth, holding a crooked cake, "We're Abu Mohammed's house opposite yours, mom says that if you need anything, just ask-this is our number. Abu Dalia's family live upstairs, this is their number. We also are Iraqis ... Welcome to the building. "
That night I cried because for the first time in a long time, so far from home, I felt the unity that was stolen in 2003
- posted by river @ 1:42 a.m.
