Amman, Jordan- We've had many meetings with Iraqi refugee families over the last few days, so there hasn't been time to write, but there is much to tell.
I'll start with today's story first. We toured a "charity" hospital that we heard is doing good work with Iraqi refugees here -- the Italian Hospital. I'll write more about the hospital at a future point, but the most interesting story starts after we left the hospital.
We had spent about five hours at the hospital, talking to an administrator, two doctors and several Iraqi patients, and were given a tour of the facility. We returned to our hotel after the visit and sat down on the terrace outside to rest when suddenly a man came rushing up with a young boy in tow. He didn't speak English but started talking heatedly to our translator.
It turns out that the man had seen us come into the hospital five hours before and had been waiting outside for us the entire time, desperate to talk. We didn't see him as we left because we came out a different way, but he saw us from a distance and jumped into a taxi with his son and followed us to our hotel.
Well, I've never been followed before and it's a bit unnerving. But a few minutes with this man and his desperation was clear, his actions understandable. If I were fighting for the survival for my family, I might do much worse than follow several Westerners to their hotel.
He and his family fled Iraq after he, and then his wife and daughter, were kidnapped. It's beyond my imagination to understand how one gets through such horrific acts, never mind an entire family. Only the little boy was spared because he happened not to be with his father when they took him from the street.
The father was held for 14 days and was tortured and beaten. He was released after his family paid a $10,000 ransom. He was targeted because he worked as a security guard for an international humanitarian organization which provided health services. He displayed one of his scars: The deep line in his right wrist where the kidnappers stuck a jagged knife and dragged it across his thick wrist, destroying his tendons. That hand now is nearly paralyzed. An apparently horrific wound to his leg was not visible, but the emotional and psychological scars were. He told us how his wife and daughter were kidnapped and held for 19 days. Again, he paid $10,000 to get them released. His daughter was six years old at the time. His wife was pregnant when she was taken and lost the baby after she was raped in captivity.
He searched us out in part because he wanted help in filling a 5 Jordanian Dinar ($7) prescription for his wife that he could not afford. He came to us also because he simply needed to talk to an outsider who might be able to offer him a glimmer of hope. His wife is very sick with diabetes and is having trouble with her eyes; his daughter, now 10, is losing her hair and bleeds from her nose on occasion -- from the beatings she received while detained. The healthiest member of the family appeared to be the six year old boy, who stared at us with frightened, but still innocent eyes, which shyly warmed in response to our smiles.
The father, as an Iraqi refugee, is not allowed to work in Jordan, and cannot support his family. His wife needs help for a chronic condition, which is very expensive to treat; the one humanitarian aid organization providing health services here generally does not provide such care. The fact that his children can't go to school here drives his despair even deeper.
The man told us that their life in Amman is so hard that sometimes he thinks he should douse his whole family with gasoline and burn them alive to relieve the suffering to which he sees no end.
We contemplated his words in silence and knew he meant them.
We talked a little more with him and agreed to meet his wife and daughter. He said it was the happiest day of his life that he could talk to us. Tears welled up in his eyes, and in ours. We bade him goodbye until the next day. He turned away and went back to his private hell, little boy in hand, and we turned and entered the hotel, feeling heavy with the weight of the world and his hopelessness.