Dzaleka Refugee Camp

I’ve been putting off writing about this and it’s because I still feel like I’m reeling from it emotionally. Recalling the experience is still unsettling and, though the emotional effects will fade with time, I don’t think the memories ever will.

Two friends of mine are working for the UN in Malawi this summer and were able to arrange a visit for myself and a few other EWB volunteers to a refugee camp.I suppose I didn’t know what to expect. Most of my expectations were formed from the movie “Blood Diamond” and, when it comes to realities of Africa, I’ve found that Hollywood and the media can be of limited accuracy.

The Dzaleka refugee camp, operated by the UN High Commission for Refugees, is different. It is the only camp in Malawi but the permanence of it is staggering. I was surprised at first by the absence of fences that I assumed would be surrounding the camp. Perched on a now deforested hilltop far from any other settlements, fence or no fence, most people here won’t be leaving anytime soon.

It was originally established in response conflict in Mozambique in the 1980s and has now existed for close to 20 years. With Mozambique now at peace and the refugees repatriated, the camp continues to harbor people fleeing various conflicts in Southern and Eastern Africa, mostly from the D.R. Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, and Somalia.

Perhaps the term camp is misleading. For me, the word summons images of tents and other temporary shelters yet many of the structures are very permanent. Of the approximately 10,000 people living here many have already spent many years at Dzaleka and have few prospects for the future.

Refugees have three options: they can stay in the camp; they can return to their home country; or they can try to resettle in a third country. Cases successful with the last option are exceedingly rare and, since many either cannot or are unwilling to return home, most sit and wait.

And who can blame them? Here, food stipends from the UN ensure that people can get by and a primary school funded by UNICEF offers primary school for children. There is also a small high school and students who excel here can apply for WOSK scholarships to different countries but their numbers are very few.

I think it was the stories of people that really got to me. Of the thousands at Dzaleka, I only heard the stories of a few yet each one had its own unique horrors. I met a woman from Rwanda whose entire family had been killed. A man from the DRC had a similar story. Formerly the son of a Chief, his family had been shot and his village destroyed. Somehow, he escaped into the jungle but was eventually recaptured. He spent 10 months in prison, became ill, and eventually escaped from the prison hospital and fled to Malawi. He has now been at the camp for 6 years and has mixed feelings about returning home. Though the DRC is his origin, with his family dead, there is not much of a home for him to return to. So he waits.

I feel a little differently about the experience now. A friend of mine who is working for the UN brought up a good point. If I were to burst into tears after hearing someone’s story, what are they supposed to do? Comfort me?

I’m glad that I experienced it, difficult thought it was. I think my biggest realization was that refugees exist every day of the year, long after a crisis “ends.” I was raised in a very different reality where I did not experience such hardship and, even if I cannot truly understand the plight of the people I met, I can know that it exists. There are people who have a more difficult life than I, those who suffer, and even if I choose to look away, that doesn’t mean that their realities do not exist.