Chonî bashî from Iraq! This Kurdish phrase simply means “hello, how are you?” and you hear it constantly on the streets and in the bazaar.
Now that week 5 of working for Preemptive Love Coalition in Iraq is over, I don’t even know where to start in relaying all that has happened. These 5 weeks have been so full, so challenging, and so good – so I want to share a few stories and lessons that have stuck out to me so far.
First of all, I want to brag on this team of interns. I’m so thankful for the community we’ve been blessed with. They’re incredibly special people who are doing transformational work with such grace & patience. They come home with such beautiful stories from their students.
This is my favorite story from one of the interns teaching young adults English in 2 different refugee camps near Sulaymaniyah:
“Our question today was ‘how do you change the world?’ One of our students, who is about 15, said ‘Instead of building guns, we must build schools and hospitals.'”
This is the kind of transformation that we get to see all around us every day. Refugee children realizing that there is more to life than war, that they have a future outside of a camp, that they have value and worth despite all that the world tells them, and that they can be a part of rebuilding the world and bringing peace.
My day-to-day
Most days, I’m working 9-5 on various graphic design campaigns in the very aesthetic Preemptive Love HQ. I’ve been a part of so many amazing projects: sourcing materials for new products at the bazaar, designing stamps and other branding for refugee soap businesses, shooting photos for World Refugee Day, designing invitations and printed collateral for a US Chamber of Commerce event in Erbil, brainstorming new product ideas, & mocking up a kiosk design for the Sisterhood shop in a local mall, to name a few.
The work I’m doing has helped fill me with hope for the world. It has been hard over the past years to get on social media & read the news because I am acutely aware of the injustice that plagues the world. It’s easy to get dragged down when you are awakened to the realities of police brutality, human trafficking, racism, migrants being mistreated at the border, prejudice against the Muslim community, mass shootings, and a lack of opportunities for refugees across the world. I often felt helpless when reading about these things because what can I do to protect the vulnerable when I’m focused on maintaining my safe & comfortable life?
It’s so encouraging to work for an organization like Preemptive Love. They’re actively stepping into these situations – by sending backpacks filled with essentials to the border, showing up at local mosques in the US after shootings, and creating hundreds of jobs for refugees in Iraq. It’s been good for me & my heart to be actively doing something to fight injustice.
a peek into refugee camp life
I’ve also taken every opportunity to go into the refugee camps and spend time with the children & young adults who are learning English. The camps aren’t easy places to be, but they would be a much harder place to live. Many of the children have never known anything but life in a refugee camp.
The first time that we went into the camps, we were shocked by the disparity between the two. All of these people were fleeing ISIS, so why were they treated so differently? The first camp holds Syrian Kurds, and they have houses, businesses, shops, and educational opportunities. The second camp is for internally-displaced people (IDPs), in this case Iraqis of Arab descent, and they live in tents, seemingly without any opportunities for a better life.
We learned that the reason for the disparity is actually a lot more complex than Kurdish prejudice against Arabs who had once been their oppressors under Saddam Hussein (although this can play a role). The differences in the camps are largely because of the cultural backgrounds of the people inside them. The Syrian families came from bustling cities influenced by an influx of opportunities, resources, and more progressive beliefs. Conversely, the IDP families are from mostly rural or nomadic backgrounds – they are used to living in tents and typically have more conservative views about marriage, family, and education for women. For the foreseeable future, the Syrian families aren’t going home. So they’ve quickly adjusted to life in Iraqi Kurdistan. But the IDP families will return one day, partly because the Kurdish government wants them to leave ASAP, so they’re saving money for their return rather than building a life here.
It was fascinating to gain a fuller picture of what life in one of these camps looks like. The differences in living conditions don’t just stem from economic reasons – they’re also social, political, cultural, and religious. It’s been so good to learn from Preemptive Love to see the nuance & the complexity in these situations. There really aren’t easy answers to solve these problems of unchecked injustice and inequitable opportunities.
That’s why we’re here, first and foremost, to love anyway. That doesn’t mean that we don’t sit with the complexity & try to figure out answers that benefit everyone. But answers don’t always come easily, and so action is postponed. In the meantime, at least, we can love. That’s the way of Jesus.
where is home?
A Yazidi refugee who works as a driver for Preemptive Love asked us if we were homesick yet. We said that we weren’t – not yet. He smiled sadly and replied in Arabic:
“The worst homesickness is when you know you cannot go home.”
There’s a palpable ache in everyone here to go home. But home isn’t there anymore.
For me, I know that home is still there – and this makes me acutely aware of my privilege. Even just carrying around one of the most valuable documents in the world – my American passport – has reminded me that I did absolutely nothing to deserve the life that I have in the US. I could so easily have been born in Iraq or Syria and had to flee for my life when ISIS destroyed my home. There aren’t any fundamental differences between these people and me, just differences in opportunity.
