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In a sprawling refugee camp in East Africa
“Raspberry, strawberry, apple jam tart, tell me the name of my sweetheart,” chanted the matchstick figures, but they sang in the Somali dialect I’d become familiar with. The stick-thin girls brought to mind the emaciated factory workers pictured before the soulless British factories that filled the canvases of artist, LS Lowry. But these children waiting their turn to jump rope were surrounded by the desolate barren terrain of Tent City.
“A, B, C, D, E, F...” This was her fifth repetition of the alphabet and as Zahara’s leathery feet pounded the brick hard sand, my mind drifted away to another sun-burnt country where my sisters and I had skipped to the same rhyme under a blazing sky. Ever since I’d heard that my application to transfer from Hagadery, a refugee camp at Dadaab in East Africa’s grasslands, to a frontline hospital at Suruç a Turkish town close to the Syrian border, had been approved, my own home had been on my mind.
I love my family and yet in the six years I’d worked at Hagadery, a sprawling refugee camp in East Africa, I could count the number of times I’d been home on the fingers of one hand. Now that I was off to Suruç, I couldn’t see me going back any time soon.
“You’re out, you’re out.” The girls lilting high pitched voices put an end to my reverie.
“I am not,” shrieked Zahara, standing her ground. “Nala pulled the rope.”
“I did not. Ask Miss?”
Nala, well over six feet tall and thin as a blade like all Somalian refugees, failed in an attempt to hide her grin. If I’d learnt one thing in my six years at Hagadery, it was to avoid refereeing girlish disputes. I blew the whistle threaded on a ribbon around my neck. “The next game is the last and then it’s time for tables.”
I ignored their grumbling. “Ashanta and Fatima take over from Nala and me.” I dropped the rope and waited for the girls to organise themselves. “All in together girls, very fine weather girls, when it’s your birthday please join in ... January, February ...”
I smiled, feeling contented, as the girls continued. Introducing the old skipping rhymes I’d learnt from my mother was my most successful teaching strategy.
A small boy tugged at my shirt tails, “Please Miss you’re to come to the office, pretty damn quick.” My heart skipped a beat.
“Thank you Akushi.” I knew his name but I didn’t know every child’s name. How could I? There were over 105,000 children between three and seventeen years of age in the camp. However as a floater, I helped out where I was needed. I was frequently in the office but not as often as Akushi was. He’d been a fixture there since his birth. His mother was one of the lucky ones with a job. For without basic literacy and numeracy skills refugees find employment hard to come by. Girls are particularly disadvantaged. Impoverished Somalian parents don’t see the benefit of educating their female children. Girls as young as twelve are married off. A child bride’s future is grim, which is why I spend my time-off teaching girls denied access to Hagadery’s overcrowded school.
I removed the chord attached to the whistle from around my neck and handed it to Nala. “You’re in charge ... tell the girls to recite tables two to twelve.” I waited until they were up to “eight threes are twenty-four,” and then I left them to it.
As I cut through row upon row of the dusty uniform tents made of the blue plastic sheeting provided by the United Nations, I didn’t pause to exchange greetings with the refugees as I usually did. I was worried that there was a hitch processing the paperwork for my transfer. On an anxiety scale of one to ten I’d have scored a ten and that’s not like me, I’ve always kept a tight rein on my emotions ... but that had changed when I met Karim.
It happened on my first day in Tent City. Feeling like throwing-up after picking my way through rotting piles of trash and human waste on my way to the staff canteen, I carried my lunch of African porridge over to an empty table. Inside the canteen the putrid odour filled the airless tent and permeated the muddy grey millet-based mush I was supposed to eat. I knew if I took even a mouthful I’d vomit. I was wondering how I could possibly stick out one day in this hellhole let alone three hundred and sixty-five, when a stunning guy wearing a white coat over ripped jeans and carrying a heaped-up bowl, asked if he could share my table. My tongue tripped over itself in my haste to say yes, of course.
I’ve always thought that men from the Middle East are drop-dead gorgeous ever since I saw Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia, one of my family’s vast collection of videos. The exotic stranger smiling down at me could have been Sharif’s double, but with a lethally dangerous edge like the Arab sheiks on the covers of ripped bodice romances, the ones who are always making off with virgins with waist-length hair.
Very tall, wide shouldered and long legged, he wore his long dark hair on the top of his head in a man-bun — a look I’d never been keen on, but Dr. Al-Karim Farouk could have sported a hairstyle like Donald Trump’s and still look sexy. His darkly olive face was not perfectly proportioned in the way that Michelangelo’s statue of David is — it was too strongly shaped with high cheek bones, an aquiline nose and a square and determined jaw. But his sculpted features were redeemed by large eyes of a brown so dark that in some lights they appeared black. He was also blessed with brilliant white teeth and a full sensual mouth. I later learnt it was capable of glowering angrily when the hospital’s supply of essential drugs was reduced. But he was all smiles on the day we met.
“It won’t be long before you’re wolfing the porridge down like Oliver Twist and asking for more.”
I blinked. He may have looked like a genuine, dyed in the wool Arab, but the moment he opened his mouth, it was clear he was no such a thing.
I said, “Oh, you’re an Aussie ... I am too.”
“I know you’re Beth Godson. I’m Dr Farouk, your mentor ... it’s my job to help you settle in.”
I was on the point of saying there’s really no need I’m not sticking around but just in time I paused. I’d had plenty of boyfriends at Uni but none had made my heart flutter as it was doing now. Poised for the big leap, I said, “Great, there’s so much I want to ask you.”
“Ask away.”
I smiled at the memory. Aid workers came and went, but six years on, Karim and I were a fixture. Or so I’d thought. I was stunned when he announced he was applying for a transfer to a war zone.
We’d slipped out of camp. I was lying with my head on his chest in the moonlight on a blanket on the ground, reveling in that warm and fuzzy post-sex sensation. Suddenly anxious, I’d asked why he wanted to go elsewhere when he was needed here.
“Here I can be replaced. Beth, there are plenty of doctors and nurses volunteering to work at Hagadery. But it’s impossible to get replacements for the 1500 doctors that have left Syria.” He proceeded to paint me a picture of what it was like living under siege in the war-torn city of Aleppo, being constantly in fear for your life.
The strength and determination in his voice shook me. He cut to the quick in a way that left me feeling deeply for the trapped civilians in besieged eastern Syrian. But I must admit that it was purely selfish reasons that pushed me into saying, “I want to go with you ... that’s if they’ll have me.”
My concern was legitimate. Karim, a doctor with over a decade’s experience patching up the wounded, was a shoo-in. But I was a floater, a kind of glorified gopher. Occasionally, I was called on to help out in the infirmary but I didn’t have any formal medical training.
I was over the moon when Red Crescent, the Muslim equivalent of Red Cross had accepted me. Their acceptance only made the Syrian government’s refusal to give me an entry visa so distressing. What made the knock-back even worse was that at the same time, Karim’s visa came through. For though Syria refused to issue visas to Western Aid workers, Karim was born in Egypt and had dual Australian and Egyptian nationality. That made the difference.
I was devastated. I tried not to show it and urged him to go without me. Karim wouldn’t hear of it. “I’m considering relocating to a field hospital in Suruç, a Turkish town close to the Syrian border. It’s as close as I can get to Aleppo with you by my side,” he’d said, smiling for the first time since my visa application was denied. “You will come with me?”
I’d agreed as soon as the words left his mouth.
If he’d asked me to cross the Pacific in a two-man kayak, I wouldn’t have hesitated. That’s how crazy I was about him.
A few days later our transfers were approved. And that was why I dreaded going to the office. I’m not usually a worry-wart but I felt certain my reassignment had fallen through. Exactly why, I couldn’t imagine, for both my work permit and visa had been approved by the Turkish authorities. Nevertheless, I dragged my feet as the admin building came into view.
* * *
It was not what I’d expected. After my father ended the call, I sat with my elbows on the desk biting my thumbnail, dazed, and anxious. I was still sitting there when the usually discreet manager finally returned. He saw my face and said, “Is it bad news from home?”
I nodded my head. “It’s my mother. She’s very ill. My father said I must return right away.”
“Did you know she was unwell?”
I shook my head. “Apparently, Dad wanted to phone me weeks ago, but Mum wouldn’t let him.”
“Now, now don’t cry, there isn’t time for that. The WHP[1] supply truck arrived this morning. It’s going back to Nairobi as soon as the shipment has been unloaded.” He leaned across the desk and picked up the phone. “Jafari, tell the WHP truck driver to wait. He has a passenger.”
He put down the receiver and flipped open a teledex and then punched a number into the phone. “Hello? Air Mauritius? I want to make a reservation on the first plane to...” He looked at me enquiringly.
I said, “P-perth,” fighting tears.
“To Perth[2], Australia in the name of Miss Elizabeth Godson.” He picked up a pen. “What time does the flight leave Nairobi? And the flight number? Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”
He put the phone down and tore his notes from a scribble pad and handed it to me.
“It’s six hours to Nairobi by road. Your flight doesn’t leave until this evening at seven thirty ... you’ll be there in plenty of time.”
I said, “But I’m meant to be in Suruç in ten days...”
I couldn’t go on, choked by the enormous lump in my throat.
“My dear girl, let me worry about that. You hurry off and pack your bag. Mustn’t keep the truck driver waiting, my dear.”
“But I’ll have to let Karim know that I can’t go with him.”
“Dr. Farouk left for Ifo sometime ago. There’s an outbreak of measles in our sister camp. He won’t be back today.”
I swallowed and blinked back my tears. “If I write him a note, could you please give it to him when he gets back?”
“Yes, of course. There’s pen and paper on the desk and I’ll ask Jafari to find you an envelope.”
I waited until he’d left. Then I picked up the pen. We’ll only be apart for a short while my love. Once my mother is back on her feet, I’ll join you in Suruç...
