Omran
A husband and father, Omran recounts how he was fortunate to find friendly people who made him feel welcome on arrival:
“I sat outside guarding some flowers on the road. So I saw an old lady, so I wanted to help her. She showed me the piece of land behind the [reception centre]. She told me: ‘you can use it. Grow whatever you want on it’. I have an experience because in Aleppo, I had a big house with garden as well. … About 600 m². I planted it and I lived in it.”
Gardening is an activity that many refugees look to, when seeking to create homes away from home - you can read more about this emerging thread and sustainable technologies such as hydroponics being employed to overcome the challenge of water scarcity in the Jordanian desert in a UNHCR report here.
VICKI SQUIRE
This extract is from an interview conducted during the summer of 2016 as part of the Crossing the Mediterranean Sea by Boat project, which was led by Vicki Squire: www.warwick.ac.uk/crossingthemed. Fuller stories from which these excerpts are taken can be explored here: www.crossing-the-med-map.warwick.ac.uk