PWi7dat wi7dat and who knows what is wi7dat!
My dear friend N. has been talking me into helping her in her drive to collect food for some poor community in Jordan, she thought of a Palestinians refugee camp. The effort of convincing me took more effort than the process of gathering the food… She would talk orphans and I would strike back with DVD and movie nights, she would talk about hunger and I retaliate with catered parties, she finally managed to convince me somehow. I thought her persistence to make something out of my lazy life is very sweet.
In the few weeks we put for ourselves to achieve the goal, we collected 56 sturdy bags (she gathered 55, and I gathered 1!) we arrived to Wihdat refugee camp at around 10 AM, and were met by two volunteers who represent some Islamic social organization. The guys’ hearts skipped a beat when they discovered that we were two young women alone accompanied by our driver! We realized that the driver would spoil our chances of being popular in that environment, but big E who is N. husband insisted that the driver SHALL accompany us.
Wi7dat Wi7dat, and who knows what is Wi7dat!!! People who heard the story told me oh but Wihdat is rich… TRUE Wi7dat camp is as rich as Wadi Abdoun compared to Abdoun. Which actually happens to be one of the poorest areas in West Amman, for those who don’t know. The place that I have seen is HORROR upon HORROR!!! Grim streets, shabby houses that are not more than 8 square meters apiece, roofless tops, and in the very best case tin roofs ( that is why every house I entered had all the pots and pans sitting on the floor collecting the water that came down from the roofs)…No windows whatsoever, no sunshine, no furniture, no bathrooms, no heating system, no water supply… but when I saw tens of children piled on mattresses on cold floors, I was so shocked that it took me an enormous effort not to collapse…. it seemed illogical to bring satisfaction to all those people with 56 silly bag, when each one needed a divine hand to help!!
I was going from house to house shaking hands with young women and old women and tall woman and short woman, fat and thin… the one common factor between all these women is that they lost their husbands who are the source of money and they were left with several hungry kids to feed… obviously none of these women worked. Mainly because this is not an option for many reasons that I would not go into now… honestly I finally managed to understand the concept of DEADLOCK that Professor Khamis tried to push in my head at university time few years back!!! … in Wi7dat camp you don’t have money and you cant do anything about it except wait for some daddy long legs to pass by with a bag of goodies.
We left around 4:00 afternoon, and went home straight to bed. I guess my brain needed to shut down for few hours to be able to deal with the misery that I never imagined looked like this! What is more shocking is that Wi7dat camp is a five star hotel compared to the other poor communities around Jordan.
Yeah :\ It's really depressing, especially when you're sitting in a million layers of thick wool in your concrete-walled, extra-heated house and you're still cold. Allah y3eenhom.
I hope your efforts and other people's efforts will help them, even if its just a little bit.
-Roba
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Mariam, I know your shock, it isn't easy at all to see this misery and even worse think you'll be saving lives with things you have to give away and then realize you need 10 times the number to be able to help them only survive.
Since we were little kids, in any country we were, mom used to take us with her and dad while they gave “zakat” or “sadaqa” to meet poor people who had nothing but the minimum living basics. She always insisted we see them to remember them and to know what it's like to be born poor so that we'd appreciate what we have and never forget the ones who weren't as lucky as we were to have a warm home to turn to in the freezing winter nights.
I must say I'll be forever thankful to her and will do this with my children inshallah.
It's great that you helped Mariam, and it's wonderful that you share your experience and emotions with us…
Eman- Aqua
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Roba, I usually love the snow… today and for the first time in my life i realize that snow means disaster! I mean today my thoughts are very concentrated on Wi7dat camp! and i know exactly what you are saying and it actually makes me feel worse
Eman… You know what? I believe this experience changed my life! When i have kids… That is something i will expose them to! I want my kids to know what happenes around the world, i dont want them to grow up with the naivite that the world is the sheltered lives we lead. … I want them to grow up with a mind set on helping… I think your mom is great for doing this with you guys. please give her a big hug for me
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What you did is a great thing Mariam.
Well we must at least know how much we need to thank GOD for his graces.
Wi7dat is just a sample as you said :\
Nader
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Thanks Mariam. I'll give her a hug when I see her
And I'm sure in future your son/daughter will give you a hug from a friend who admires your heart and decides to follow your steps too inshallah
As long as there are people who are willing not to ignore the other -almost forgotten- members of society, the world will always be a great place to live.
Eman-Aqua
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Doing a good deed to poor people is always accompanied with two feeling, the first is self content and the other is sadness and frustration for realizing that we aren't living in a beautiful world, but let me tell you about an other experience. My family is supporting for more than 20 years 50 widows with their children, in the first few years they used to give a monthly allowance of 10,000 SL (1 JD = 70 SL), but after a while they felt that they are raising these families to be lazy and totally dependent, so they reduced the allowance to 5,000 SL and give each family a sewing machine, after a while of observing they found that only 6 families were beginning to support themselves and the rest either sold the machine or left it as it is. The point of mentioning this story is that charity is not the solution. I think that the real help is providing jobs to them or to the their older children, if it is too hard to manage that the least to do is to help them stand on their own feet, and don't think that individual work is insignificant.
Sinan MFLS
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I agree with you totally… but things are not as easy as you imagine they are. Actually that was the first question we asked, do these ladies work? and the answer that none of them work, mostly because it is not socially acceptable. Obviously that is not something any of us approves of, even these ladies themselves dont, but they are usually put under so much social pressure, and for some of them, no matter how much fighting they put, it ends up with dead end. After being there few times, i really would not judge their value system as i would have before… i simply accept this as another fact of life.
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