“You are this tree, standing on solid ground.”
When we met Fatima for the first time, we could see for ourselves how strong she was amidst the challenges she faced as her family’s breadwinner. But we also observed that she looked much older than her age of thirty-three. She admitted that she was tired of living the life of a Sudanese refugee in Jordan. “My son drew a palm tree the other day, and told me, ‘This is you mama, you are our palm tree.’ I asked him, ’What do you mean?’ He said, ‘You are strong. You work and you take us to hospital. You are this tree, standing on solid ground.’”
There was a time, she told us, when her life in Jordan was slightly easier. She arrived in the country for the first time in 2007, had trouble adapting to her new surroundings, and returned to her home country of Sudan. But soon after her return, the internal security in the country worsened. Moreover, her mother passed away and her son whom she delivered in Sudan, also passed away due to lack of medical attention. That was the saddest day of her life. With no family left in Sudan, Fatima decided to reunite with her husband, still living in Jordan. So in 2009, she returned to Jordan, making a second attempt to settle in a place that continues to reject her, discriminating against her by virtue of her race and refugee status.
Fatima is from Darfur, but when the war intensified there, she sought refuge in Khartoum, Sudan. Her father had passed away when she was still young, and she worked with her mother preparing and selling meals in the market. Despite their dire financial circumstances, Fatima wanted to continue her studies. She finished her first semester of university-level courses in computer science but had to leave because they could no longer afford it. She married her husband, who was twenty-seven years older than her and moved to Jordan to begin their married life. Her husband had left Sudan in the mid-1980s to work in Iraq. When he was there, he was tortured—Fatima did not explain why—and sought refuge in Jordan. She said that he still suffers from the effects of that torture, and no doctor has been able to diagnose or treat his trauma.
Shifting sands
Their initial years in Jordan were manageable. At least Fatima’s husband was able to find jobs that paid around 250 to 300 JODs (~$353–$423) per month. He worked in Amman and Ma’an in the southern part of Jordan. In 2016, a medical condition prevented him from carrying out the kind of jobs refugee men were offered such as porting heavy goods in the market. It was the most difficult year for the family.
One year later, Fatima was forced to start working to provide for their family of five—the couple and their three children. Fatima started offering waxing services for women at local beauty salons, but the work was seasonal with demand mainly in the summer. Later, despite lacking a work permit—a document that is nearly impossible for Sudanese in Jordan to legally secure—she found a steadier job at a beauty salon in Amman. She worked long hours for low pay. Worse, she felt “humiliated” because of the way customers remarked on the color of her skin (if not verbally then through body language). She decided to quit. Her employer refused to pay her the last wages, but undeterred Fatima hired a lawyer, and the lawyer was able to convince the salon-owner to pay what was due.
After Fatima left the salon, she worked as a beauty freelancer, but, disappointingly, for little pay. With the onset of COVID-19, demand for such work declined. Today, she is at odds, and cannot think of other ways to earn a living. Because she did not complete her university education back in Sudan, Fatima had no formal training to fall back on. While UNHCR and the World Food Programme did provide monthly assistance of 245 JOD (~$345) Fatima’s list of expenses is never ending.
The family’s monthly rent is 130 JOD (~$183). To save on rent Fatima would like to move to a smaller apartment in the Sudanese neighborhood with cheaper rent, but she fears clashing with neighbors, something rumored to be widespread. “I really want us to find work as guards (where they do not pay rent), so we can then save the cost, and save up to pay for my husband’s medical care. But people do not want a family to live with them, they want a single man or at most one child, not three.”
Rent is only one of Fatima’s challenges. Three out of five family members need regular medical attention, expenses that are not covered by UNHCR. Paying for their treatment out of pocket severely strains the household budget. “We do not even have enough to pay for a doctor’s visit. I do not sleep at night, always worrying about the future. What would I do without my husband with three kids?” Fatima said, sharing her worries.
In addition to these concerns, Fatima fretted about coming up with funds to treat her daughter’s speech impediment, which cost 15 JODs (~$21) per treatment. Occasionally, a few acquaintances pitched in to help cover the cost of her visits. Their support, though kind, was cold comfort. Fatima worried that because the sessions happened sporadically, they were not doing much good.
On top of her concerns about her daughter, she also worried about her eldest son who suffered from a neurological disorder. UNHCR had been paying for his treatments, but the payments were not regular. Fatima, now waiting for UNHCR to renew her son’s coverage, is paying for his treatment out of pocket.
Braving racism
Adding to the expense of rent and medical treatments, Fatima worried about her children’s school fees. Because her children were bullied in public school, she sent them to private school. In fact, the family moved to the neighborhood where they now live because they heard it had a good private school with more children of color. They hoped that this would help the children integrate more smoothly.
It was a difficult decision as they had to move away from the area where their Sudanese friends lived and all the support those friendships entailed. But Fatima believes they had no choice. Although the children were generally happier with their new school, they still faced racial discrimination. Her husband even went to the school to sit with his children’s classmates, trying to explain that color should not be an issue, that his children were “foreigners’’ in the country, who should be supported, not bullied.
The racism did not stop at the doorstep of the school, but spilled out into their neighborhood, with neighbors regularly making racist remarks. Fatima keeps her peace by simply minding her own business. She does not interact with neighbors unless absolutely required to do so. She teaches her children to face such remarks with self-confidence, asking them to reply to racist remarks by saying, “I like my color.”
“We breathe, eat, and drink, but we are not alive.”
With the outbreak of COVID-19, Fatima struggled to find work. When we spoke to her in June 2020, she had debt amounting to 560 JOD (~$790), as she had not been able to pay for rent or school fees, and had borrowed to meet other expenses. She was even considering taking her children out of school. Of course, this was not her first choice, but she could no longer afford to pay for private schooling and could not face returning them to the public schools. Their emotional well-being was her priority. She received private donations to pay off the outstanding fees and with remote education, Fatima thought she had caught a break when the school offered to reduce their fees by forty percent.
Later, however, the owner of the private school denied he had ever made such an offer and demanded full fees. Unable to afford the full cost, Fatima had to send her children back to public school. She continued to pay off the outstanding rent, little by little. In November 2020, when we met her last, she still had outstanding loans of 375 JOD (~$530). Ultimately, they had to move to a new home in the area when they were not able to pay rent.
With little support, no chances of integration, and the constant struggle for survival, the only solution that Fatima sees is resettlement in a third country. She said, “We breathe, eat, and drink, but we are not alive.” Fatima continues to follow up with UNHCR on the family’s resettlement application. Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, and the closure of UNHCR offices, Fatima used to pay them a visit every week asking for an update. The staff explicitly asked her “not to come back” until they called her and assured her that her application would be prioritized.
However, there has been no progress since then. In the meantime, Fatima and her family have heard of other families being resettled and that has made them doubt the fairness of the asylum process. Although Fatima appreciated that her son likened her to a “palm tree,” she admits that she can no longer take all the stress. There are times when she just wishes to return to Sudan, regardless of the consequences. All she can do is to pray to God to keep her sanity and leave the rest to destiny.