What I Learned From Interviewing Syrian Refugee Families In Jordan

This is Part 2 of my story about interviewing a Syrian refugee family for a UN research study I worked on in Jordan a few years ago. Read Part 1 here:

Do Refugees Benefit From Participating In UN Research Studies? (Part 1)

In Part 1, I describe interviewing this family of six: the mom, the dad, and the four little kids. I did this interview with two colleagues. It was July, sweltering heat, northern Jordan, and we were clustered around the living floor on thin mats, asking the mother and father questions about their future plans for their family.

---

I liked the vibe of the Homs family we spoke with. The dad was kind, gentle, and had no problem answering our questions. His wife, Ayla, jumped in frequently with her own inputs.

They had an easy rapport with each other. An equality, a sharing. “Let’s tell them about this, don’t forget to talk about this.” “Remember what happened with your cousin? That seems relevant to share.”

It was the opposite of our (western) stereotype of women wearing black niqab with only their eyes showing, in which he would dominate the conversation.

No, it was not like that at all.

She gently dealt with her kids running in and out of the room: her 13-day-old daughter with the puckered lips, and her four-year-old son who spent a long time trying to break open an apricot pit with the blunt end of a screw driver, banging it continuously against the floor.

(I wanted to ask him to stop, because it was messing up our audio recording of the interview, but I didn’t, because he seemed to be really enjoying himself, and isn’t that more important than our audio recording?)

All the while, Ayla carefully followed the conversation and added her inputs where she saw fit. Her husband dealt with the kids too, and when his little son started, without realizing, as little kids do, to drape himself like a deadweight across his dad’s lap and flop around, his dad gently gathered him up and moved him over, landing his little butt on the mat.

In the end, we finished our questions and asked if they had any questions for us.

“We are afraid,” the man admitted. “We don’t know who you are. If you are the police, or government, or what.”

My colleague Faisal said, “We are from the UN, like we said at the beginning!” He rummaged in his front jeans pocket and produced his UN badge, passing it over.

The mood got lighter then; Ayla and her husband looked relieved, and some of the tension left their bodies. Their kids looked up into their faces, searching for clues about what prompted the change in atmosphere.

I felt bad then. Faisal should have shown his badge at the beginning, I thought to myself. But we’d said we were from the UN, as we always do, and they’d seemed comfortable and ready to begin.

I felt that our daily work, while we could tell ourselves whatever we wanted about it – “we are doing an important research study that will inform UN programs for refugees across the Middle East” – involved, when it came down to it, stressing out Syrian refugees who already had enough stress on their hands.

The Syrians we interviewed were generally terrified of being forcibly sent back to Syria. And for good reason: cases of torture and arrest by the Assad regime of those who left the country and later returned is well documented (here is one example).

No matter how much time we would spend at the beginning of each interview explaining who we were and the purpose of our study, most families still seemed to have an ingrained fear that we were not who we said we were. Many of them thought we were the mukhabarat, or secret police – Jordan’s equivalent of the FBI.

Fear was in them like a habit.

They’d spent years displaced, unsettled, jumpy.

We’d follow all the Do No Harm humanitarian protocols. We’d explain how their participation was voluntary (it really was) and their answers were confidential (they really were). Still. They were jumpy.

Yesterday, with the family from Homs, the atmosphere grew lighter and the dad started making jokes and putting on water for tea, after they finally accepted that we were from the UN and not the secret police.

Even so, I had a lingering sense of guilt that we had not taken more time to explain our purpose in the beginning. They likely still wouldn’t have believed us, but we could have spent more time on it. I felt we owed them that much, at least.

In the same moment I was struck with guilt, I was struck with a sense of admiration and tenderness for these people who remain, despite everything, somehow open.

It made me wonder, again, why they agreed to participate in this study, to be interviewed by me and my team.

I continued to mull this over as we turned off our tape recorder, thanked them for their time, and with the many requisite rounds of thank you – goodbye – thank you – goodbye – thank you – goodbye, piled into our Ford Explorer and drove away.

Perhaps they thought it would have some benefit to them? Unlikely, I thought. Survey fatigue is so high with Syrians, 10 years after the war began and the UN swooped in to interview everyone.

Perhaps they knew speaking with us wouldn’t have any benefit to them personally, but they wanted to share their story anyway. Perhaps they thought sharing their story might have an impact on the wider situation of refugees in Jordan.

Or: they had nothing else going on that day. Why not?

Or: they were afraid that saying no to being interviewed could have some negative impact on them. It wouldn’t, but how could they know that? They can never be sure what action might cause them to receive support – or not – in the labyrinth of the humanitarian aid system. So perhaps they offer an automatic “yes, sure” when someone, anyone, from the UN calls.

Or perhaps they wanted to take the opportunity of meeting us to, if we really were from the UN like we said, ask about something else: cash assistance, resettlement to another country…

Or perhaps it is simply that Syrians are hospitable people.

They always have been.

They always will be.

I don’t know, in the end, why they said yes.

But their generosity, openness, and willingness to meet with us, when they would have had every right to say no, still continued to surprise and puzzle me for the whole drive back to Amman.