Rising to the Task

If you had asked me a year ago to make a list of things that were least likely to happen in Tunisia, at the top of the list would have been revolution and not far behind would have been refugee crisis. In the last few months we have experienced both. It is safe to say that the Tunisia we live in today is a much different place than it was a year ago.

Although events have been surprising, I am not surprised at all by the way the Tunisian people have been responding to these events. Tunisians have demonstrated time after time their generous nature and hospitality and it has brought out in them their best. This is particularly evident in the outpouring of love and support that they have given to those fleeing the fighting in Libya.

I wrote previously about the first wave of refugees that came across the border creating a severe situation and a logistical crisis. This first wave was made up of expatriate workers in Libya from countries such as Egypt, Vietnam and Bangladesh. About 80,000 came across the border during this wave, and even though the international community worked hard to repatriate them there were as many as 20,000 in the refugee camps at one time.

The first to respond was the Tunisian military. Soldiers set up tents and feeding stations long before the UN refugee response team was able to be on site. By in large these soldiers treated people with respect and with compassion and have remained there until today. The military demonstrated not only respect and compassion but a surprising amount of organization and efficiency. Throughout the events of the last few months the previously overlooked and marginalized Tunisian Military has emerged as heroes of the revolution, and they have been universally commended for their competence. The military’s behavior with the refugees, with very few exceptions, has been worthy of their reputation.

When the word got out across Tunisia that people were amassing in camps at their border innumerable ad hoc groups of people were formed collecting food and supplies. Car loads and van loads and trucks came pouring into the camps, one after another, unloading food, milk, water blankets before returning to pick up more. The outpouring was phenomenal almost unbelievable. Time and again I witnessed groups of men, from small villages 6, 8, 10 hours away, drive into the camp with vans packed with goods and bearing large signs that read, “Sons of the revolution.” They would jump out of the van with massive smiles on their face, quickly unload their cargo, take a few pictures, jump back in their van and say, “See you in a couple of days.”

The second wave of refugees was primarily undocumented immigrants. This group was largely made up of people from West Africa, Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea. Repatriating the second wave was much more difficult because most from this group did not have passports and many of them didn’t want to return to their home country. There are several thousand from this second wave still in camps at the border now, and there is little hope that these numbers will diminish any time soon. It is likely that Tunisia will be faced with a refugee situation for at least another year – a burden which could challenge and test any society, but I suspect Tunisians will rise to the occasion with the same veracity and competence that I have come to expect.

The third wave of refugees has just started. They are Libyans and mostly Berbers. The last we heard about 40,000 have crossed the border and most of them are being hosted by Tunisian families. It is yet another opportunity for Tunisians to step up to the task, but that is not the only opportunity that I see – more to come…

Pictures of the Refugee Camp

I really wish I was able to share with you some better pictures. The landscape was very flat so it made it difficult to capture the magnitude of the place, and it was constant work so it was difficult to break away and take pictures. Mostly, however, it was hard to disengage emotionally and treat the situation as if I were a tourist.

Nevertheless, I was able to get a few pictures. They will give you an idea of what it was like.

My team (5 men) came down in two cars. We packed every inch of free space with plastic plates, cups and spoons, because that is what was most needed on site. We were able to bring down about 10,000 of each. We thought we were bringing a lot, but it only lasted for one day.

This is the tent that we used for cooking. We had another similar tent for food prep and a small tent for cutting meat. You can see a journalist in the picture filming what we were doing. The journalists were everywhere.

Those of us cooking and serving wore these yellow shirts. Here we are serving tea and a snack about midday. We then served a hot meal in the early evening.

These are the tents that the residents of the camp stayed in. The rectangular tents in the foreground were for supplies. The residents stayed in the semi-circular tents that make up the entire background of this shot. The number of tents changes from day to day, but there are easily 3-4 thousand of them. I saw about 6-8 people per tent.

This is what the tents look like before they are erected. In some ways they are exactly like a tent that you use for camping. They all came from UNHCR which is the refugee arm of the United Nations.

One of two (that I saw) water stations where residents were able to bathe. As you can imagine it was not easy to wash oneself in a mud puddle. People did a good job keeping clean from what I could see, but most were hoping to be evacuated back to their home country before needing a shower too badly.

This is a mobile hospital that the Tunisian military set up. It is made up of three trucks: triage, treatment and surgery.

This is the military headquarters portion of the camp. It is where our cooking tents were. It is also where they stored supplies that were brought in. What you are looking at is one shipment of bottled water. We received multiple shipments like this a day. This picture was taken early on in the crisis. After a few days, this entire area was completely full of donated food and water. Other than the tents, I never once saw any food, water or supplies that came from international aid agencies. It was 100% provided by people in Tunisia. Early on, some of the supplies were purchased by the military and shipped down, but the overwhelming amount of food and supplies comes from private individuals, extended families, neighborhoods, Tunisian business, schools and community groups. Everyday more and more cars, vans and trucks are driving down to the border to drop of supplies.

This is a line of residents waiting to get water. At the far left are a group of Tunisians who drove down with a truck load of water and passed it out to those who needed it. The military allowed volunteers do what they wanted and didn't prevent people from distributing anything as long as it didn't cause problems. Sometimes lines were small and orderly like this one, sometimes they were massive and chaotic. I just didn't have it in me to photograph the latter. There were plenty of Journalists on hand to do that.

This is what it looks like when men line up to receive food on a good day. This picture was taken when we distributed tea. There are about 300 people in line right now. When we distribute a hot meal in the evening the line is about 10 times this size.

The military cleared a section of land and brought in football (soccer) goals and a ball. At first the football pitch was crowed with men and filled with chaos. Then, one of the men from among our group of volunteers organized a game between Nigeria and Bangladesh. It was a perfect example of how a little bit of leadership and initiative from outside can provide enough organization to make a big difference to people who are desperate and scared. We also learned that Nigeria is much better at football than Bangladesh.

It is difficult to show the magnitude of the camp with a picture.
There was just no way to capture it all with a normal camera from ground level.
This panoramic shows about two-thirds of the camp.

Wind and Sand

If today at the refugee camp had a theme it would be sand. We have had a variety of weather; everyday has been different. It has been cold and wet and warm and sunny, but today it was windy. The camp is located on an arid plateau with slight vegetation (shrubbery mostly) and no trees. When the wind started to blow sand was everywhere, visibility was poor and we thought, “How are we going to serve food in this?”

Our kitchen is an army tent. We have one for food prep and one for cooking. Our dining room is the outdoors. We serve hot food from large pots placed on the ground – sometimes on a make shift table. We are constantly being vigilant about hygiene issues. We have strict cross contamination guidelines, for instance we have one tent being used just for preparing meat and nothing else, we have stringent hand washing rules, etc. The problem is that there is only so much that you can do in these circumstances.

As nightfall approached the wind picked up, sand was everywhere and everyone was trying to take cover. The air was thick with particulate shooting off the tops of the hills and swirling into eddies before hitting the ground. The lights in the background pierced through the dense air like search lanterns. Off in the distance there were barely recognizable silhouettes of people shielding themselves as they walked about, and we were surrounded as far as we could see with tents. It was to say the least surreal.

Our plans to greatly increase the efficiency with which we served the food were thwarted by the weather. We knew that priority one was keeping this sand, which given the circumstances could have been mixed with any number of contagions or diseases, out of the food. We were able to use a couple of empty tents to serve the food but that meant that distribution went slower and the residents were forced to stand in line longer being sand blasted. We served six or seven thousand meals.

The Egyptian government has been flying about seven thousand Egyptians home every day. So once again the camp was full of Egyptians this morning, but they all were gone by the mid afternoon. The newest arrivals are the sub-Sahara Africans. We met thousands of people from Nigeria and Ghana, new to the camp, all of whom have the same story. They say that the Libyan people asked them to leave because they think that Ghaddafi is paying mercenaries and they are afraid of every black face because they don’t know whether or not it is someone paid to kill them. The interesting thing is that in every case they men said, “They asked us to leave.” It appears that even in war politeness counts for something.

The numbers are still huge, but they definitely seem to be diminishing. This offers some hope, but it is possible that the situation could explode. About 70,000 or so refugees have crossed the border into Tunisia. There are 50 times that many expatriate workers in Libya. We may be on the back end of this crisis or we may only be looking at the tip of the iceberg. Please pray for the former.

The real heroes in this scenario are the Tunisian people and the Tunisian military. More about that tomorrow.

News from the Border

It is now 11:42 pm and I just finished my first day working with refugees at the Tunisia-Libyan border and I am too tired to post any pictures. I will post some tomorrow though so you can get an idea of the magnitude of what it happening here.

After seeing this first hand the situation has become much clearer to me, although I must say it is very complicated. As of Wednesday morning 53,000 people had come across the border asking for refugee status. They are taken to one of two refugee camps until their embassy can arrange for them to be repatriated. It is Tunisia’s intention that all of the refugees return to their home country with help from their government. Of the 53,000 who entered as refugees by Wednesday morning, about 40,000 of them were still in the camps.

Today seven thousand Egyptians left the refugee camp to be flown back to Egypt. About half of these came from the camp that I was working at. In the morning everywhere you looked there were Egyptians. By mid afternoon they seemed to be all gone. Shortly after night fall another group of Egyptians (more numerous than those that left) descended upon our camp. There is some turnover and many people are being sent back home, but they are coming in at a rate much faster than they can possibly be repatriated.

The camps have people from many different countries but overwhelmingly they are from Egypt, Vietnam and Bangladesh. Additionally almost all of the refugees are men. Of the 17,000 people in the camp that I am working in, less than thirty of them are women. Largely the people are behaving well and grateful for how they are being treated. It is, however, a very tense environment.

I am a part of a group that is cooking hot meals and serving them to the refugees. We serve one meal in the late afternoon/evening, and we are currently cooking for and serving about 10,000 meals. When our food ran out tonight there remained a line of people waiting to be served that was longer than when we started serving. The numbers of people are unfathomable.

Tomorrow, Thursday March 3^rd, I am turning 41. I can’t think of any better way to celebrate my birthday. I am honored to be here doing this and I am blessed that God is giving me the opportunity to serve him. Today I had the unique honor of being able to see the face of Jesus seventeen thousand times.

Almost More Than I Can Bear (by Anne B.)

A friend of mine who used to live here in Tunisia wrote to me when she heard about this recent upheaval that they are calling the “Jasmine Revolution.” This friend insisted that I was to be credited (or blamed depending on how you see things) with these events. She said this because for years I have assiduously, and somewhat notoriously, prayed that something would “happen” here to shake things up. Obviously I can’t take credit for this revolution, but I do admit to consistently praying for exactly these sorts of outcomes. For so long I have observed a tension – an angst underneath the calm and light hearted exterior of Tunisians. I have perceived this restlessness bubbling up within the society and verbalized on many occasions that it would require something dramatic – something drastic to allow Tunisians to become fully who they are meant to be – who they desire to be. What we have seen in this country during the last two weeks is almost precisely what I have hoped for but never thought would come. It is almost exactly what I have prayed so long for, but secretly feared was impossible and I am here in the midst of it; I am a firsthand witness to it and it is almost more than I can bear.

There is no question that many have paid a price for this revolution. People have died, property has been damaged, and at its height we all experienced more than our share of fear, but overwhelmingly Tunisians are thrilled with what has happened. In some places the demonstrations persist and nobody quite knows if the people now in control will adequately administer the mandate of this revolution, but there is a hopefulness among the people here that I have never before seen. For so long people here have been controlled and repressed and now that they are free they are exploding with self expression and bursting forth opinions both sacred and profane. This self expression is at times feverish and chaotic and it certainly can be confusing for many Tunisians, but all seem to agree that liberty is well worth the nuisance. Witnessing people that I love experience this sort of liberty for the first time is an honor that I feared I would never have, and it is almost more than I can bear.

Many of my friends have said to me over the last few days that they are happy with what has happened but now they hope things go back to normal. But the truth is it will never go back to normal – I don’t want it to. Things are still tenuous here, and nobody knows what the future will hold, but it is clear that it will never again be what it was. I am so proud of what Tunisians have done here and how they have behaved themselves. The overwhelming majority of Tunisians have been heroes they have been champions in the midst of all this. They have behaved appropriately and lovingly, it has brought out the best in them. Yesterday I went to the souk (outdoor market) and I noticed it more beautiful than ever. The fruits and vegetables were as abundant and colorful as I have ever seen them. I made a comment about this to one of the vendors and he said to me, “Even the produce has been allowed to breathe!”

It is almost more than I can bear that in the midst of all of this I am giving birth to my fourth child. I feel like I have the opportunity to share with this adopted land the experience of giving birth to something new. Childbirth is like a microcosm of what the Tunisians are experiencing. We aren't forcing this to happen we are instead vessels through which something miraculous is taking place. We aren't creating something ourselves, rather we are begetting what is ultimately a gift from God. Childbirth is painful, it is messy and it is out of our control, but it is wonderful and inevitable. For me giving birth at this time in this place is like a sacrament of this new reality and it is almost more than I can bear.