Hanana Assaad, 32, walks slowly into a maternity clinic run by the United Nations. Her water broke last night. She hasn't slept. Her tired eyes are framed by dark circles.
In the heavy midday heat, she has just walked almost a mile to get here from the U.N.-supplied trailer she shares with her six children and 20 other family members in this refugee camp of 120,000 people.
She grimaces as she tries to get comfortable on an examining table in a trailer that serves as the waiting room. The maternity clinic is four trailers - plain white boxes with a couple of windows, set around a dirt courtyard.
She is worried about the baby. She had six others back in Syria, but this is her first birth as a refugee, and it has been the hardest pregnancy. Her diet at home was rich with fruits and vegetables, but here it is mainly rice and lentils. The baby is coming three weeks early, and she blames herself - she's stressed out, badly nourished, exhausted, scared, weak.
"I was afraid I was going to lose this one because of the stress of the bombs and the shooting and coming here from Syria," she says.
She says her family fled their Syrian village, al-Nawa, five months ago to escape the daily bombings by Syrian government planes. They hitched a ride in a truck for 30 miles, then walked the last mile to the border. Jordanian soldiers met them and brought them to the camp.
Post a Comment