In my grandma's living room, there I fell deep in thought…..

Author : Waed Sweilmyeen,
Country: Jordan..

In my grandmother's living room so many people could be seen all day long…. The old woman loves being visited and I certainly enjoy her whining about how many people visited that day and how they annoyed her with how much they talked though she can't hear properly and a conversation with her means a speech that the entire neighborhood would enjoy and listen to unintentionally!!!

Amongst those visiting that day , were my family and I , my aunt and an Iraqi woman…she wasn't actually a visitor…grandma called her to come ….she wanted the lady to evacuate the apartment she has rented from us because its owner, my uncle, is returning home and he and his family needed their place back……

I was deep in thought , looking at the woman , the cheep night gown she came down wearing , the fact that she is renting the flat with almost 100 dollars a month in this old building….. they all asked her to look for another place to live and they actually made few suggestions….. the woman could only say that she has been looking for over a week now but she couldn't find any…..

I know really well that she might have found many but none as cheap as this one…. Real estates' prices whether bought or rented, here in Amman have gone up dramatically and are still rising especially after the scourge of war broke in Iraq….
Many Iraqis have come to Jordan and those who came are two kinds….there are those simple people who left everything behind and came with nothing but their selves ; on the other hand there are those who stole Iraq and came with loads of money in their bank accounts!!!

The second type people are capable of leading normal lives in the fanciest places in Amman spending millions on real estate and so on whereas the others can barley find jobs though Iraqis are really intelligent, highly educated people, they can barely find houses and no matter how hard they tried to live normally there is still a huge difference between their previous lives and the ones they are trying to lead here with honor and integrity……

As to what could be done….. Legal intervention to ease things is nowhere to be seen…..my country welcomes any one at any time but being a small country with limited resources and a budget of 2 billions or so it can hardly offer anything….. Compared to Palestinian refugees, Iraqis do not have Jordanian citizenship and frankly it is not the government as much as it is other work agencies and relief agencies that look after them …..

I couldn't ask my grandmother to let her son stay on the street nor could I help that woman!!!! But I could only hope that something is done to help all these people as it isn't their fault that some people took benefit of what is going on to gain wealth…
All what we can do is hope and work for a better Iraq and a better future to its people…