Crooked Wood: A war on childhood

Last spring sitting in the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford and working on my final dissertation, I was writing somewhat frantically to my contact at Oxford Aid to the Balkans (OXAB). I desperately wanted to switch my placement in Bulgaria from an orphanage on the Black Sea to a small, dusty town a few hours south of Sofia called Pazardzhik to work with a group of Syrian refugee children. When I finally got confirmation that I would be heading to the veritable boonies of Bulgaria to teach these kids with another student from Oxford, I think the Rad Cam heard its first squeal in at least the past 150 years. A month later, I found myself on a plane to Sofia, trying to decipher the words that suddenly surrounded me. Even when I learned the Cyrillic alphabet, the world that I now inhabited remained obscure. Then again, it has never been particularly clear for the children we were to be working with. They and their parents have remained in a bureaucratic limbo, filled to the brim with political agendas and centuries-old prejudices. Even worse may be that no one actually knows of their struggle. While the Syrian refugees that remain in Iraq, Turkey and Lebanon have received widespread news coverage (not that this has benefitted them to any great extent), those who have made it out of the Middle East and into the European Union are virtually invisible. Fair enough, one might think, considering the disparity in wealth between the two locales... until you look at Bulgaria.

For many refugees, the path out of Syria was clear: Escape to Turkey first and then cross the border into Bulgaria where the hope was that they would make it to Germany, Switzerland or Sweden. Bulgaria remains an unlikely place for the over 11,000 Syrian refugees who have entered since the war began in March of 2011. For a long time and for good reason, Europe has been marketed as the “Promised Land” for displaced persons, but Bulgaria remains the poorest country in the European Union (EU), beating Greece, Romania and Latvia for the title. The average hourly rate in Bulgaria is $4.48, and an average annual salary is around $6,700. It is in no state to house the thousands of seemingly permanent residents that now occupy its makeshift refugee camps. Those more fortunate, who find their ways out of the camps and into the workforce, are seen as competition for low-wage jobs. Just as Mexican migrants are viewed by many Americans to be a contributing factor in our current economic climate, the Syrians have been met with hostility for the same reasons. However, it’s not just job market competition that stands between the refugees and acceptance into mainstream society. Bulgaria is a predominantly Orthodox Christian country, and the influx of a largely Muslim population has rattled an already fragile nation — a republic in its infancy.

A far right party, which has a disturbingly large following although no parliamentary representation, called Ataka, which means, as one might imagine, "attack," has no qualms about spreading their xenophobic message across Bulgaria. Syrians are often beaten by police as they attempt the dangerous border crossing from Turkey to Bulgaria and then beaten again by the local population once they arrive. The refugee camps, namely Harmanli in the east of the country, are what one might expect to see in war-torn Syria, not in a member of the E.U. Imagine a single toilet without running water per 100 refugees, heating shortages and sewn fabric barricades in lieu of walls to make private rooms. Schooling is far from prioritized. Basic language courses are given at the camps, but only now is it coming to light that Bulgarian must be taught, since the coveted countries these refugees came to Europe for have shut their doors for the most part. Children and their parents sit at makeshift desks memorizing the Cyrillic alphabet without paper or pens to practice with. Besides language skills, their education is non-existent, with few substantive courses beyond rudimentary material and humanitarian entertainment provided by Clowns Sans Frontières among others.

The combination of job competition and religious persecution has made Bulgaria a fairly hostile climate for Syrians. Many who were initially smuggled into the country from Turkey have attempted to return to Syria, citing the abhorrent conditions. Those that remain stay in camps such as Voenna Rampa and Harmanli indefinitely. Some are eventually integrated into society and housed in what the locals deem ghettos, just beyond the Roma communities. Yet even here they face discrimination, often physical, from their neighbors. The men have difficulty finding employment, and the women are simply not hired. Elementary school-aged children cannot attend school until they have sufficiently mastered Bulgarian, since there are few, if any, Bulgarian as a second language programs. This means that three years after their education came to a standstill thanks to the war, they are still out of school until they can pass the entrance exams. Of course, there are no free resources outside of the refugee camps to assist them with learning this difficult language. Their parents, focused primarily on basic survival, cannot provide much support, and, out of fear of violence, many parents require their children to remain indoors when unescorted.

If you’re wondering now what kind of existence this is, how they can tolerate it... well, it isn’t one, and they cannot. I worked with a group of ridiculously adaptable and precocious children, whose ability to entertain themselves with what most first-world children would deem garbage never ceased to astound me. In Oxford, preparing for our summer school, my fellow teacher and I were instructed to make a list of 12-15 activities per day to keep the children occupied. When we arrived, we had them make their own nametags, writing their names in Arabic, Bulgarian and English. They spent about one and half hours on it, out of sheer joy to have something to do. We continued like this for our entire time together, providing them with MacGyver-esque activities. One morning we did science experiments: density layering of liquids, tornadoes in a bottle and lava lamps. Another day, we had Bulgaria’s first lemonade stand, selling fruit, juices and biscuits to their hearts’ content. They seemed oblivious to the passersby’s scorn and only grateful when they finally won over the hardened faces that walked through the town square. They learned a Boy Scout song from my fellow teacher, which they sang at every opportunity, much to the amusement of the shopkeepers and beggars that lined the streets. We taught them to sing the refrain from “Here Comes the Sun” after they gave each of us a daisy to wear in our hair. English lessons were held each afternoon; we used the end of a broomstick as our pointer. By the time we were finished, one of our 11-year olds was able to read Eric Carle’s “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” aloud to the class. They suffered so many avoidable indignities that sometimes the frustration on both our ends was intolerable. We would bring toilet paper to the school because it wasn’t provided, and one day we forgot it. We spent 20 minutes searching everywhere for a substitute for one of our children as he waited for us. We were invited to a pool one day, and some of the children didn’t have swimsuits. We were reprimanded for letting them swim in their clothes for fear the dye might bleed in the water. The list goes on. By the end, they were able to ask each other where they were from (Damascus if you were wondering) and to ask us if we liked Bulgaria. Yes, we told them, we love Bulgaria. I think they could see through our little white lie, but it was enough to help them ride it out for the duration.

Most of the children we worked with have been relocated to refugee camps in Germany, where they are currently residing. The hope is that within a few months, they will be established in permanent housing where they can learn the language and get on with their lives. For the youngest, this will all be a mere disruption they will faintly remember, especially when they know the word for something in Arabic, Bulgarian, English and German. But for the oldest, they are marked by this nightmare. With Germany’s newest educational initiative providing free tuition to all (including non-German citizens), I am hopeful that they will have the futures they deserve. Yet for many of them, their families are scattered now across two continents, and countless relatives and friends didn’t make it out alive. The solutions to the more chronic problems regarding education, integration and prosperity involve a synchronization of efforts across the E.U., the U.S., the U.N. and of course Syria and Iraq. We need to stop extending our ankles to trip these people, especially the children who have been specific targets of Assad’s regime. One of the most shameful aspects of global politics is that the existence and welfare of many depend on the attention span of the West. Hold these people in your thoughts for a few hours after you finish this article.