Azraq, Jordan

Today I went on a site visit with Mercy Corps to Azraq, Jordan, which is a small desert town about a 100km east of Amman. My boss has been encouraging me to get out in the field a bit more, which I love, but it can be difficult since my schooled schedule takes up half of my day every day and most site visits are an ALL day excursion.

I went with one of the project officers, Melissa and another volunteer named Jake that works with one of the Mercy Corps consultants that works in this area. There are about 5,000 Jordanian families that live in Azraq and now about 2,000 Syrian families that have fled there. So, it about 40% of the population in Azraq is now Syrian.

It took about 1.5 hours to drive out there and its was pretty much all bare desert on the way. We passes a few of the "desert castles" on the drive, which was pretty cool to see. We first met with one of the Community Based Organizations (CBOs) that Mercy Corps works with to discuss some of the issues that needed to be addresses, get some updates on how things are going and talk about what will happen in the future. Azraq is a very small and poor town. There isn't really a hospital, just a few doctors that can help with basic needs. So certainly no specialists or ways for people with more specific needs to get help!

Then, we delivered some of the hygiene kits and food rations to a few Jordanian and Syria families that have been deemed some of the Poorest families, hence why they get aid. First we went to a Jordanian family with a mother, father and at least 6 or 7 kids. 4 little ones were there and the mother said a few were at school, but we don't know how many. They had a tiny little cement house and big make-shift tent that was built out of blankets, cardboard boxes and rope. It reminded me a lot of my village in Botswana. Including the broken language barrier and trying to understand one another, while using gestures to help explain.

Then, we dropped the rest of the stuff of at a Syrian refugee families house and they lived with Jordanian family members in a small but decent cement home. Lastly, we went to check up on a Syrian refugee family that Mercy Corps is already giving some aid to so we went to check in on how they are doing an what needs changing. One of the daughters who is 4 years old has a rare genetic condition called "Maple Syrup Urine Disease." I had never heard of this before, but essentially it means that the little girl's body cannot break down proteins, dairy and other essential vitamins that the girls needs to survive. In a simple explanation, its called MSUD because the lack of chemical breakdown caused her urine and sweat glands to smell like maple syrup. Due to this disease, she is suffering from neurological and physical handicaps. Another aspect of this disease is that gets worse with anxiety and stress. This family fled Syria last July and so they suffered through over 2 years of the war, which of course didn't help her situation.

There is only one doctor in Jordan that makes the proper protein, amino acid, etc. supplements that the girl needs (since she can only eats carbs as real food at home) and so the supplements are really expensive and hard to find. We sat in the living room for a while and spoke with the family to talk about what help Mercy Corps can get them and what they need. Mercy Corps is already helping to supply some walkers and such to help with her physical disabilities. The family was so sweet and welcoming. They made tea and coffee and then the grandmother brought out plates and gave all 5 of us 3 oranges each. We all looked at one another and laughed a bit cause we all were full already from drinking so much tea at other people's houses already and now had not one or two, but three oranges in front of us and were being told in Arabic to, "eat! Eat! Eat!"

Just as in Africa, it's common and expected to seat your guests and give them at least something to drink and usually something to eat. It in turn, is expected that you drink and eat it ALL (even if you really don't want it). So we each sat there full and really not wanting to eat these oranges so we each ate one and then did our best to smuggle out the second one and pretend we had eaten it. So we put them in our purses, pockets, napkins and whatever we could. It worked for the most part.

Zeid, the Mercy Corps Project officer that took us out there is going to do what he can to get Mercy Corps to pay for and supply the family with the supplements, so that is in the process luckily. After all of that Zeid took us quickly to this little wetlands reserve just to show us a little bit of Azraq's history since we were there. We like to think of it as out "psycho-social down time." Thats the pic from above! It was a great experience and I'm going to get out into the field more. It reminded me how much I love being out in the field and being in the village/town and seeing exactly what needs to be done. I'm so disconnected in the office in the capital.