syriana

Two major refugee camps exist for palestinian refugees in Syria. Both are run under the direction of the UNRWA. Yesterday I was walking home and I took a route that brought me past the egyptian embassy and a travel agency that specializes in transportation and travel to Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. I peeked through the window and then quickly clamored inside so as not to let out too much of the AC. It seems that it's a pretty simple proposition to get oneself to Syria. It means travelling to Amman and then catching a bus and travelling only another two hours to get into Syria. From there the refugee camps are situated along the railway and are easy to get to.

I got in touch with the UNRWA this morning. They only have two doctors in the one clinic serving the entire refugee population in the region. I might like to go take a short trip and see what we can do. The last refugee camp I was at was in ghana with a refugee population that had entirely different needs I'm certain, given that the refugee population in syria is the oldest refugee population in existence. The camp has been there for over 60 years with no internal momentum towards development. This perplexes me.

There were and are large sums of money flowing towards the palestinian refugee cause, however one would think that after 60 years these refugees themselves would have made some attempt to improve their standard of living. It's been 60 years. Who wants to live in a hovel with no privacy, sanitation, and rampant infectious disease, for 60 years? In 60 years, Israel built itself into a modern democracy. Clearly no one was expected to create a nation out of a refugee hut, but to not even have the motivation to build separate dwellings for their families? The victimization irks me and it's the secondary and third generations that have lost out since their parents made some sort of choice to not create towns or villages or any stable and healthy existance, even if transient. Regardless of the choice that was made, health care must be provided. Health care is apolitical or should be. So, maybe we have some sort of an extended role in Syria too. I might like to look into it as a next destination.