A young girl’s life in a refugee camp

The night has just worn its black coat with bright stars. My grandmother Aziza and I sit on the cold soft dunes of the Algerian desert. She points with her fingers to the wide sky and starts to explain the Saharawi astronomy. Though she is completely blind, she still can sense the position of each star, which she once knew so well. She usually tells me and my brothers about the legends of her family, especially of my great-grandfather who used to be one of the most famous traders in the region. She tells us about their nomadic life and how they used to travel across the desert to exchange goats, sheep, camels and other valuables. At times, she tells us fairytales to make us fall asleep. But, on this night she chooses to tell me a different kind of story, a story that does not make me fall asleep, but one that awakens me and leaves me wondering and pondering on her and my own life.

She takes me back to when she was a young lady and a mother of three daughters and three sons. Like many women in her community, she married at the age of 12, but did not give birth to my mother, her eldest, until she was 20. The number 12 seems to be significant in her life. Even though her name means ‘the dearest one’, she was commonly known amongst her family members as ‘the stubborn one’. She was called so because when her mother was pregnant with her, she ‘refused’ to come to this world until she was 12 months old. It was certainly unusual considering that babies are born after nine months. She was the eldest in a family of five girls and one boy. As a wife, Aziza did not give birth immediately after getting married, which raised concerns amongst her family. But she was lucky enough to have an understanding husband who did not divorce her for that reason. In her community, one of the most important aspects of marriage was to give birth to many children, especially boys. Also, it was common for the husband to divorce his wife if she was ‘infertile’ without considering the possibility that the problem may be his own impotence.

As a mother and a wife, Aziza’s day usually started early in the morning by milking the camels, goats and sheep. ‘Everything was green and the air was so fresh,’ she tells me when comparing the countryside of Smara in the now Moroccan Occupied Territory with the desert of Smara refugee camp, where she has lived in exile for the last three decades. Though she is now blind, she still can sense the dryness and emptiness of the Hamada [Editor’s note: this is the name of this part of the Sahara desert). She tells me things about my homeland, a land that I have never set foot on, and can only fantasise about.

In Smara’s countryside, she was surrounded by the El-Fogra. Although Western Sahara consists mostly of desert areas, Aziza grew up in beautiful, green landscapes next to serene beaches. I think to myself as she speaks, she will never enjoy seeing all of this again! It is very hard for me to imagine where she once lived and enjoyed her youth. For an hour we go back two decades in time to the village of her origin. The hour, however, passes in a glimpse, just as so many of Aziza’s stories. Her fantasies, fairytales, recollections and memories intertwine with one another. She starts to lose interest, and suddenly starts to talk about when her life would change forever.

One morning in January 1976, something unusual happened. The day before, Aziza had heard rumours that the Moroccan army had attacked the northern region and forced people to flee. She did not really pay much attention, nor did any other member of her family, for they lived in the safe countryside and thought no one would bother them. In addition, Western Sahara had just gained independence from the Spanish after over a century of occupation. Everyone thought: Who would come to occupy their country, especially Morocco, their neighbour? They were mistaken in thinking so. On that day, the whole Frig [Editor’s note: frig denote an especially large collection of nomad tents rather than the usual small familial clusters of tents"> was forced to abandon their families, properties, animal herds and the rest of the village. Aziza described the Moroccan soldiers as ‘having strange looks and indeed looked unmerciful.’ They were equipped with forces, guns and tanks and they came in groups. In that instant, her husband left to join other men to fight for their land of the Western Sahara. Like the rest of the Frig, she ran away with her children. The village became very unsafe and they could see other people in the distance being tortured and their sons taken away by the Moroccan soldiers.

She and her three daughters and three sons had to cross the desert to seek refuge in Algeria. They had to cross on foot – no camels, cars or any other means of transportation could be used because they were afraid of airplanes dropping bombs on them. During their journey, they walked at night because it was dark and no airplanes would be able to spot them. Even walking at night was dangerous: Snakes, scorpions and other dangerous desert insects lurked in the naked desert sands. During the day, they could not walk because they could see military airplanes flying over their heads and every then and now, they heard a bomb in the distance. They had to hide behind trees, if they were lucky enough to find any, and rocks when resting from the long walks at night and feed the children with the little food they could carry with them. ‘Lala and I took turns watching for airplanes, while the other one napped,’ Aziza tells me. Lala, my mother, was only 12 years old and she was the oldest child, while Brahim the youngest was eight months old.

Three days passed and they started to run out of food and water. So, surviving meant eating whatever could be found in the desert. Not long after that, Brahim died of dehydration. Still, they had to continue for fear of worse things happening. Just two days after Brahim’s death, while taking a break, the other two young boys died in a landmine explosion. ‘Half of the family was gone. It was a true devastation and heartbreaking,’ she tells with tears in her eyes. The tragedy did not end there. As my tears continue to drop, she says: ‘And then I lost my sight.’ On the following day, as they continued their journey, an airplane dropped a bomb just few metres in front of them. Since Aziza was in the lead, the ashes sprayed into her eyes and she lost her sight forever. Despite all of this, they could not stop. With a smile and tears in her eyes, she says, ‘The next day two men came on a truck and took us to the camps.’ A month after they arrived at the refugee camps in the southwest Algerian desert, she received the message of her husband’s death in one of the battles between the Polisario and the Moroccan army.

I quietly cry some more and then hug her. It was then I realised why she was so protective of her eldest grandchild. A widow with no sight, she was the mother and father for her three daughters whom she had to raise and take care of in the harsh conditions of the Hamada. Since there was no man in the family, my grandmother was the head of the family and her consent on every decision was absolutely necessary.

I was eight years old when I was faced with two options: Continue my education thousands of kilometres away from my family or stay at home and get married shortly after. It was a hard decision and one that I could not make by myself. On the one hand my mother wanted me to finish my education for she saw my potential but on the other hand, it was very hard to convince my grandmother who never went to school that this step was an important one in her granddaughter’s life. It took a very long time of arguing for my grandmother to finally agree on sending me to school, but it was too late. The trucks had just left taking the students to the buses, which would take them to boarding school in northwest Algeria. The place was about a two-hour drive and we did not have a car. I was convinced that the second option was what meant to happen.

It was a scary and an unbelievable scenario for me because school has always been the place where I found true refuge. My day always started very early in the morning by waking up as early as five; I was always the first of my family to get up. Every day, I get very excited about starting a new day in the classroom with the teacher and learning something new and different. My daily routine started with Qu’ran School for an hour and a half after which I left to the regular school. I was the most favoured student for Lemrabet, the Qu’ran teacher. He always gave me special privileges like teaching other people who were much older than me. He liked me because I memorised the Qu’ran verses very quick and always learned more than he expected.

Ideally, the point of the Qu’ran School is to understand the Holy Scripture but that was not the case, rather the point was to memorise the entire book and make your family proud. However, that would never be possible in my case for I was a girl. As a girl, I would not be able to teach Qu’ran nor could become an Imam to lead the prayers. It is prohibited by both the Muslim religion and the Saharawi culture. This, however, did not prevent me from memorising a quarter of the Qu’ran in four years. After I finished Qu’ran School, I headed to my regular classes and as always, I was the first one to come to the school. I just loved everything about studying and doing homework. The first thing I did when return from class to my tent was doing my homework. I always did more than what was asked for the homework.

As I stood there helplessly and thinking back to the old school days, which had become just some old memories, I suddenly felt someone grab me from the hand. It was my mother. She told me: ‘You are going to school. Let’s find someone to take you to the buses.’ After few minutes of searching, we finally found a police officer whom my mother convinced to drive me. With brief goodbyes and hugs, I climbed into the police car with my metal-square-suitcase-like baggage. I could only pack certain things. The boarding system was very strict and my family could only afford to give me so much. I had packed two trousers, three tops, a few of my favourite Arabic books, soap, tooth brush and tooth paste. The police car barely made it to the buses. A tall man asked for my name and he checked off the list. I slowly entered the bus and looked around hoping for familiar faces. All the girls were wearing the Melhfa, which made them at least 13 or 14 years old.[1] Since I was not wearing the Melhfa, some of the girls soon started to call me a ‘baby’. I turn around to find a seat, and an older girl asked me: ‘Can I adopt you?’ I smiled and excitingly said, ‘Sure!’. Her name was Galia and she was very nice to tell me all about the do’s and don’t’s in the boarding school. She had been in that school for three years and so she knew every small detail and every single person there. She told me about the usual daily routine and what to expect. She also warned me about many things including not studying very hard and never having a good grade on the sciences: ‘Saharawi girls are known for not doing well in math and sciences. So, I hope you are not that geeky type who likes these subjects.’ I forced a smile and I said: ‘Oh, no, I don’t really like that kind of thing.’ I had to lie because I did not want her to hate me. On the contrary, I loved math and sciences and I was very excited to learn more. At that point I had memorised all the multiplications up to ten, as well as most of the animals. The other subject that I really liked too was geography. I used to make my younger brothers memorise different countries and their capital cities. I knew the name of over a hundred countries and their capital cities by the age of six.

I spent the next eight years in boarding school during which I changed schools three times. Every time it was only the location and the name of the school that changed for me, my routine never changed. Galia was right about the daily routine. It was exactly the same as she described it to me on the bus. The bells go off at six in the morning. We had one hour to wash, brush out teeth and get ready. By seven, we line up for breakfast in the dining hall. Breakfast was exactly the same every single day; five-inch long French wheat bread with jam and butter, and Algerian coffee. It was standard that we have to eat our meals in exactly 30 minutes. For this, you either eat very fast or starve for the next five hours. After breakfast we go to study and do last-minute homework before classes started. At 8:30am, both boarding and day students gather to raise the Algerian flag. Classes started at 9am sharp and went on until noon. At 12:15pm, we line up again for lunch, which for the most part was lentil soup with bread or sometimes rice with tuna fish. At 12:45pm, we go to study until 2pm when the second sessions of classes resume. The classes go on until 5pm after when we go back to the dorm to change and by 6pm we had to go back to study even more. At 7pm we had dinner, which is always the same; plain spaghetti or mashed potatoes. We then had half an hour break to play, chat with your friends or simply spend it alone. At 8pm, we go back for more studying until 9pm when we go back to the dorms. We have one hour to change, wash and get ready to sleep. The lights go off at 10pm. Another day starts with the exact same routine but different clothes!

As I lay down on the soft dunes watching the starts and reflecting upon my struggle to get an education, I remember my exciting route on the way back home from boarding school. My life has been full of routines that even the two-hour drive from Tindouf city has been engraved in my memory very well. This route never changes and if you were to visit the camps this is how your trip would have gone. When you first arrive at Tindouf military airport, the pilot welcomes you to the capital of the Algerian desert and thanks you for l with Air Algerie; things already look totally different from Algiers, capital city of Algeria. When you come out of the airplane, a hot, dry and rather charming breeze hits your face. You walk through brief security and then, you take a mini-yellow-old bus with few torn sits to your intended wilaya (town), in this case Smara, which is about 40 miles away. The minibus goes through the city of Tindouf and you get very excited to see a new and a different kind of civilisation. The red and yellow houses from the French time strike your attention you as you pass through the narrow, crowded but live roads. Clearly you would not expect to see proper houses, shops and a post office; a refugee camp would not be this developed even after two decades of existence. It only takes about half an hour before you realise that what you have just seen was not the actual refugee camp. As the bus keeps going, Tindouf starts to disappear in the fast deserted landscapes of the Hamada. As you turn right and left hoping to see something green, more empty terrain fills your sight. The entire place looks uniformly the same, with exception of some rocky hills every few miles. It would be impossible to travel by yourself in this landscape because only the locals would know it the best.

As the bus goes farther and farther, things don’t change much accept for few desert scrubs and naked trees. As the time passes, the heat starts to increase and the minibus gets unbearable. As the journey progresses, you start entering the far eastern side of Tindouf province. Both the province and the city have the same name. One hour goes by and then two; you wait and wait to see the first person or perhaps the first tent. Two and half hours later, you finally see it. A dark green-coloured, rather funnel-shaped looking object stands in the midst of many similar-looking others shining in the sunny day. What you just saw is what we call ‘al-khayma’ and it literary means ‘the tent’.

As the minibus enters the camp, things look completely different. You see children running around and playing with basic and their-own-creation toys like socks wrapped with plastic bags as football balls or small cars made of tuna cans. You also see women covered with a six-metre long and one-metre wide colourful piece of fabric called Melhfa doing their daily chores. The moment the minibus becomes visible, all the children come running to greet you as their new guest. The first thing they ask for after greeting you in Spanish is some candy. The common line which all of the children know by heart is: ‘Hola, dame caramelo.’ Children’s excitement is an indicator of the arrival of a new and different-from-us guest; the children run to inform their mothers and then things become noisy.

Al-khayma is where I first opened my eyes to this world. It is where eight members of my beloved family still live. It is also where my grandmother spent over three decades of her life. It is not just a piece of fabric donated by the International Red Cross, it is more than that; it is the symbol of patience and love. My family’s tent is a reflection of hope and sharing. This 12-metre square space is the shelter for all of my family members. It is a protection against the strong and frequent sandstorms. It is an umbrella against the unbearable heat in the summer and a blanket against the bitter cold in the winter. When you first enter the tent, it looks completely transformed from the inside; many unfamiliar and smiling faces welcome you as you try lowering your head so that it doesn’t hit the ‘roof’. The inside is entirely different; you would never be able to guess that it looks like this just by looking at it from the outside. Simple, handmade, long and beautiful carpets run through the tent. The four ‘doors’ are nicely decorated with bright and multicoloured materials. On the right side there is a mini-closet with few perfectly folded blankets. On the left side there is a short and small table with tea set and perfume for the guests. al-khayma is the headquarters of every social gathering, ranging from the very long Saharawi tea ceremony (‘et-tay’) to simply playing volleyball with a ball made of socks wrapped in plastic bags with my brothers. Et-tay is the time when family, neighbours or simply people passing by enjoy sweet cup of tea. The tea is made in a very special way and in three stages and each stage has a different meaning. The first cup is bitter like life, the second is sweet like love and the last one is soft like death.

As I sit watching my grandmother and wondering about my next steps in life, she concludes the night with words that will stay with me for the rest of my life. To me, she is the example of courage and just struggle. Despite all that she had to endure in her journey to the camps and over three decades of living in one of the most inhospitable corners of Algeria, she still hopes to go back to her homeland. I am thankful to have her in my life but very sad to know that she will never be able to see the beauty of her home country. My life has been shaped and influenced by my grandmother’s daring story. The last thing that she told me that night, which still resonates in my heart, was: ‘They [Moroccans"> may have weapons, guns and airplanes, but we [Saharawis"> have patience and determination.’

Home! It is a word I can hardly identify with these days and I don’t seem to find where to place it. For some, home is family. For others, home is a place they can always return to and be safe. For me, home is a far-fetched, ideal, dream-come-true state of mind. I spent my whole childhood, or at least until I was six, thinking that living in refugee camps was all that existed for any person. It was hard for me to envision my life differently.

I grew up in a modest tent with eight family members. The tent or as we call it al-khayma is dark green coloured, rather funnel shaped looking object. It usually has the International Red Cross or the UNHCR label on it.

EXPLORE LIFE INSIDE THE CAMPS THROUGH VIDEO:

* ‘We are Saharawis’ (BBC documentary)
* Sahara (Documentary by Michael Palin)
- Part One
- Part two

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* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.

NOTES

[1] Melhfa is the word for Sahrawi women’s traditonal dress worn on reaching womanhood, consisting of four metres of coloured thin muslin or cotton, and loosely wound around the body and head.