Update on Refugee Projects

I wanted to update you on the refugee project I was involved in. We ended up collecting and assembling 200 food parcels for the refugees in Calais. A businessman from our church who had several vans for his business volunteered to take the parcels down to Calais. They were delivered on 18 February 2016. I was going to go down to volunteer in the camp on 5 March but unfortunately was unable to due to some serious unrest going on in the camp that weekend i.e. protests, police, rubber bullets, tear gas etc. In hindsight, I should have gone anyway because a small group of friends of mine from the church in Surrey went anyway that weekend. I was wishing I would have gone when I read about their experiences. So I still have not made it down to a refugee camp even though they are so close to us. I continue to follow all developments with these camps very closely.

In the meantime, I have begun some "personal refugee service" of my own. I found an organization called NataKallum (meaning "we speak" in Arabic). It is an organization for students of Arabic who they pair up with Syrian refugees for Arabic conversation sessions via Skype. You not only get to improve your Arabic skills but you get to help out a refugee(you pay them for the session) and make a friend. I was first paired up with one refugee, a professor who suddenly disappeared. So I was then paired with a second refugee, her name is Varty. She is from Aleppo (where I studied back in 1999) but is currently a refugee in Yerevan, Armenia. We have been doing our Arabic conversation sessions via Skype every Saturday now for a month. After each session, I can't help but get the biggest smile on my face. I am so happy to be back studying Arabic and especially in this way. It is so fulfilling. It has been something I look forward to every week. Varty is so friendly and patient with me (remember, I haven't cracked an Arabic book since 2003). She assigns me loads of homework during the week, which really helps. She and I are really getting to know each other and I love it.

I am also working on my second project for the refugees. I found a charity called GoodsforGood. I spoke with the founder and director about possibly doing a project where our stake would help fill a truck with donations and then sponsor the truck to take our donations to Northern Iraq and Syria where she has connections to aid organizations who would distribute our donations. I along with some members of our stake presidency meet with her this next week. I hope it works out.

I continue to Skype with my friend Areen. Remember her?

She is doing well. She has two sons and her elderly mother who she is still caring for. She has moved to the center of Damascus because it was too dangerous on the outskirts when Russia started bombing. She is working for an international micro-finance organization that helps people through micro-loans buy a cow or some chickens to help sustain them financially.

I have been helping her translate the minutes for some of her meetings about the banks in Syria and some of their contingency plans. It has been very interesting to learn about how the banks are coping during the conflict. I feel like I have all this inside information on banks in Syria but no one cares enough for me to tell. Areen and I Skype or message each other about once a week lately. She told me how women are really stepping up in the work place since very few men are around. They have been told to speak up and go after what they want. She likes the empowerment. She is doing so well compared to most people. She makes good money though it does not go far because prices for everything are so high. She and I call each other "sister." She is my sister. I continue to pray for her especially as she travels around Syria for work checking on the recipients on the micro-finance loans. She is an inspiration!

 Above and below are pictures of my other lovely friend in Syria named Sahar. I worked with Sahar in Damascus from January to May/June 2001 while I was studying with the University of Damascus in an intensive Arabic course. She is very intelligent and highly educated. She is currently living in the city of Homs and is working for UNICEF and her husband runs a lighting and bits & bobs shop since the electricity is such a problem. She and her husband briefly lived in a refugee camp because it was safer than Homs since Homs was hit very hard at the beginning of the conflict. I remember her emailing me that her husband was driving huge distances trying to collect need items for people in the camps and was in great danger. He was kidnapped for a while and she had no idea where he was. Fortunately, he was found (I never got the full story about it). Sahar's father was killed a year ago Christmas in the conflict. Homs is still not that safe of a place but Sahar claims that the center of the city is fairly safe at the moment. I am glad she has a good job and seems to be doing ok right now.

Worcestershire

For February half term, we went to Worcestershire, England (yes, like the sauce). It was a lovely little getaway in a nice little cottage by a river. We spent three relaxing days there.



On the back of the cottage was a very large deck that went right up to the river. You could jump in or catch some really nice fish if we would have had any equipment.... 

This is a view of part of the cottage from the deck.

While in Worcestershire, we went to a place called Bliss Hill which is a working Victorian village with dress maker shops, a bank, a bakery, a chemist and many other shops to browse. You had to change your money into Victorian money to buy anything. Pretty fun! Abby had visited this village on her Year 6 trip last year and when I heard about it, I thought it would make for a nice day out, so that is the reason I chose Worcestershire as our destination.   

This picture and the one above and below is the dress maker's.

This is the Victorian school house. Unfortunately, we missed the lessons they had that day. We did get to go on a coal train into a coal mine.

Charles was unable to go with us to the Victorian village because Alex got the tummy bug while we were there and was vomiting every few minutes. Fortunately, she got it after we arrived so she was not throwing up in the car and she was over it before we left for home. It was a good holiday to be sick because we didn't have much planned, just some chill time. It would have been much worse for her to be ill at Disneyland Paris last year. So you see, it wasn't so bad...

Hooray for little getaways!