Iraq: A distant, dimming memory

For five-year-old Ali, Iraq is only a fading memory in his mother's mind and in the pictures he colors.

He came to Amman, along with him mother and brother and two sisters, as an infant not long after the fall of Baghdad. By then his kidnapped father had been declared dead, his mother warned to "stop looking" when she had searched for him at many prisons.

The "Habeer" family (not their real name) is one of the estimated 750,000 refugee Iraqis who have fled to Jordan, living illegally and straining the services, and goodwill, of the people there. "Jordan and Syria in particular are showing signs of saturation with the influx of refugees," George Rupp of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) recently intoned. Caritas, one of the largest aid organizations, is worried that the refugee crisis could destabilize the entire region.

Uma Sajaad doesn't concern herself with international politics or the global plight of refugees…she has her own family to worry about.

Not long after they arrived in Amman, local robbers assaulted Uma Sajaa taking her purse and few belongings. Also stolen were all the family's papers, including the passports and Iraqi identification - making them ineligible for most "official" help, even though the incident was duly reported to the police. It would cost $500 to obtain a new passport, and also a trip to Baghdad for new documents - something entirely out of the question.

Uma Sajaad receives minor assistance from charities, like Caritas, but not enough to provide for the entire clan. Desperate, she sent her daughters to a local orphanage. Now she fashions beautiful hand-decorated baskets to sell on the street for $5-7 each in order to feed herself and her sons.

Despite their meager circumstances Uma Sajaad doesn't complain, she knows many families who have even less. At least she has been able to enroll her oldest son, eight-year-old Sajaad in public school, thanks to help from the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHCR).

She want to get Sajaad a vision checkup and eyeglasses, since he has been having headaches and trouble concentrating. Canadian volunteers recently donated hundreds of glasses for Iraqi refugees. Unfortunately, they only came in adult sizes and are being distributed by a group with no optometric training.

Ali is shy as he and his brother show off drawings they have made. They plan to sell them for $1 each to tourists at a nearby church as a way to contribute their share of the family's income.

Although young, they know better than to ask when they might return to the land of their father. To them Iraq is becoming a distant, and dimming, memory.