It was shortly after leaving the calm surroundings of a Bekaa Valley winery that we stumbled upon on one of the countless Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon. Suddenly, our afternoon of wine tasting seemed ridiculous. We were greeted with smiles, waves and motioned to come and say hello by the camp dwellers. All of them had come from war-torn Syria to the safety of Lebanon, to wait until the war over the border ended. Many of the people had been in the camp for more than six months. Families lived in hastily erected homes, made from wooden frames nailed together, with plastic sheeting slung over the top of them. The camp was becoming more and more permanent, some of the homes now had doors, corrugated iron roofs and, thankfully, heating. It was a saddening sight.
Victoria, herself a Syrian who escaped from Aleppo – first to Armenia, and eventually to Beirut, was overcome with emotion as we introduced ourselves to those who welcomed us. One child, no more than two, had recently been brought with a family to the camp. He cried uncontrollably. We asked why. His parents had a few weeks ago been killed in Tabaa, eastern Syria. He was alone on the street, lost, and kind passers by had scooped him up and brought him here. Now he lives in the camp, not knowing where his parents are, not knowing they’re dead, thinking that he’s been kidnapped. He has no papers, nothing to identify him. He’s two years old, and his lost everything.
We felt so stupid wandering up with our expensive phones, cameras, and general air of freedom. But the people we met were immensely friendly, as I’ve become accustomed to in this part of the world. One man, Ahmed, was a tailor from eastern Syria, and showed us around his home in this ever-expanding labyrinth of shacks. His home was comfortable enough for life, but dark, and extremely basic. In each room were all the belongings the family could manage to carry as they fled their homes. They slept on the floor, without enough thin mattresses for each family member. Another man told us he had nine children as well as his wife. They were given two mattresses by the United Nations.
We were invited for coffee with the group that greeted us. We sat in the sun together, and talked to the group about their lives and ours, with Victoria acting as interpreter. It was sad to hear just how little support they were getting. They barely had enough food, and we were told the UN turned up around once every six months to help. Aside from that, a Danish organisation was providing them with support, but they had little. The many children were without schooling, and their futures looked bleak. The English language book I had in my bag would have been useless.
It was nice to show some support – some camaraderie, show that we cared, but the nagging feeling that a lot of these camps were as good as forgotten by the outside world wouldn’t leave the back of my mind. It’s easy for us westerners, with our passports allowing us to go anywhere we want, government who will always support us, credit cards, health care, freedom of speech. But these people literally have nothing. At least they were in good spirits, they had each other, and for a brief moment one afternoon, we could come along and at least try and make their day brighter. They welcomed us into their homes, when, sickeningly, our government foreign offices tell us not to visit these places because they’re dangerous.
Mercifully, the weather in the Bekaa, and around Lebanon, is warm. Getting cold at night is no longer a problem – summer is on the way, and everybody manages to eat. We eventually had to move on, to prepare to hitch a ride back to Beirut, where we had comfortable places to sleep waiting for us, food readily available, and the opportunity to do whatever we wanted. I wish the outside world would do more. Yes, there is fighting in Syria, yes people are dying there, but the world needs to hear more about people like Ahmed, his family, and their neighbours. They are living in shacks by the side of the Damascus-Beirut highway in Lebanon, and there are countless camps here, and in Syria’s other neighbouring countries. These people need our support. Us, the people who spend our money on things we don’t need. We waste food, have all the latest electronic gadgetry imaginable, and moan about high taxes, when everything is basically handed to us on a plate. These people have nothing, and we need to try and do something about it.
