After living more than two weeks in Amman, I have developed a routine. From Sunday through Thursday, I get up around 7:15 am, get ready for work, eat breakfast with the other house guests, prepare my water bottles for the day, and head to the IRC Regional office. I work very closely with a team of other fellows from The New School, and we are currently collecting data for our research. As mentioned in my previous posts, my project focuses mostly on healthcare for urban Syrian refugees, but I also help the team with resources on field notes, data collection, analysis, and visualizations. We are a pretty efficient group.
This week, the entire city has become engrossed with the World Cup. I watched part of the France v. Belgium game, but I've also been working on another machine learning project and conducting phone meetings back in NYC to find my next gig. On the weekends, we venture out of Amman to explore the many fascinating historical and natural wonders of Jordan. Last weekend, we went to the Dana Biosphere Reserve, and this weekend we are going to the Dead Sea.
Meanwhile, less than 60 miles north of Amman, there is a humanitarian crisis happening on the southern border between Syria and Jordan. As Russian and Syrian military forces take over the Daraa region, over 275,000 refugees are being forced to live in a no-man's-land that locals call the “free zone” between the Syrian and Jordan border. With a population of just under 10 million people and over one million Syrian refugees already living in Jordan in urban areas and camps, the Jordanian Government has stated that they will not accept more Syrian refugees for several reasons including economic.
Jordanians, NGOs, and others have responded with aid. Despite these heroic efforts, there are reports of deaths from scorpion bites. dehydration, and disease. My team has introduced me to a wide range of web resources to find out more about the Syrian Crisis. I'm finding OCHA from the UN and acaps.org to be quite helpful for me to further understand the conflict and its impact. This infographic/fact sheet was particularly helpful. (download here)
For me, its still very hard to believe that all of this is happening just 60 miles away. With soccer matches, weekend excursions, and my daily routine, I've adjusted to live and work comfortably in a new city. I'm only reminded of the crisis by the news or team members passing along situation reports from NGOs. I've learned a lot since being here, and I look forward to tackling the project ahead. However, my uncomfortableness, concern, and comprehension of the crisis happening north of here will not become routine.
I'll have photos for my next post.