Berkley Center

Background: As a part of the Education and Social Justice Project, in June 2016 undergraduate student Jonathan Thrall interviewed Fadi Khairullah, an electrical engineer and a student learning English at the intermediate level, following a curriculum designed and implemented at the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) in Jordan in partnership with Jesuit Commons: Higher Education at the Margins (JC:HEM). In this interview conducted at the JRS Higher Education Center in Amman, Fadi, accompanied by his wife Manar Nashat, discusses the difficulties of not being able to legally work as a refugee in Jordan, the hope and motivation he and his wife get from learning English together, and the dual injustice of the horror they faced in Iraq followed by a never-ending wait to be resettled abroad.

Could you please introduce yourself? Feel free to talk about your educational background.

My name is Fadi. I am 26 years old. I’ve been here for one year and a half with my wife, Manar. I am from Iraq, Mosul. I studied electrical engineering—it’s one difficult diploma!—and I graduated from university four years ago. I am living here as a refugee; I am waiting for a visa [for resettlement abroad].

What about your professional background? Did you work after graduation?

Yes, I was working before I came here. I worked with two companies; one of them was an American company, Viking. It was for rigs, for digging the earth to get out oil. And the second one was construction, buildings. One of them was 30 kilometers from Mosul, and the other one is in Irbil.

What were your experiences when you arrived in Amman?

Actually, when we arrived, we only were interested in applying for [resettlement through] the UN and other embassies, and we were waiting for any response, and there was no response from them. And we got bored, and here as you know it is not allowed for us to work, so when I was bored I started working. I was working in a factory for ready meals; I was working in the economy section. But next I [faced a] problem with the Ministry of Workers. They said, "You are not allowed to work here," and I left that job.

How is life in general today, in Amman today? What challenges do you face?

You know it is different than our life before we came here or before we left our home. It’s totally different. Our life here is depending only on response, only on waiting for call, "Here is visa," or "Here is an interview." We spend all the day thinking of who is going to ring or what [they are] going to say. "Go back to your country"? [Or] "We’re going to make interview with you. You are accepted." Most of the time all of us [are] thinking of that. And that makes us more worried. Every day passes and we get more worried than the day before, because we can see many of families here getting out.

And so definitely the plan is to get out of Jordan, go somewhere else?

Yes.

And tell me, how did you find out about JRS Higher Education?

Friends that were already in the last course. This is my second time to be here, the second lesson. It’s a good opportunity for [my wife and me]; it’s a good thing for us to spend time on, because we can use this benefit after we leave to another country. So at this moment, the most important thing we are doing is attending this course. Because this is one opportunity for us to get better, not to keep waiting and get more bored.

Could you tell me about your study habits? I know this is only your second lesson, but do you study English on your own, outside of class?

You know what, when I [was] dismissed from the work I immediately started learning English self-study. And I was planning to take an IELTS [International English Language Testing System] exam, so I was preparing myself for this exam, and also I watched many YouTube videos about learning, and how is the exam. And when I found this course available I think it is a good idea to get more practice in English, and also it’s a good opportunity for us to get experience in speaking, because it is our first time to speak English. We study reading and writing in the school or university [in Iraq], and we know many vocabularies, but we cannot maybe pronounce it right or how to use it or to use it directly.

So are you going to continue to do self-study by yourself at home on top of the homework?

Yeah, today before I came to the class I didn’t have any homework. I was studying by myself.

And tell me, since you [Manar] are here, did you guys decide you wanted to take the course together? And did you prepare for the course together?

Sort of that. We always study together at home and share the information together, but when we applied to this course we don’t know which one is accepted and which one is not. The first one was me: [I got] the call and I was accepted. And after one week we were waiting, but nobody called her! And then she was accepted, the day before we started the lesson.

I know it’s only been two courses, but could you characterize your relation to the teacher? What’s the dynamic in class?

Yeah, from the first lesson we recognized that we are sort of friends or family. It’s important to help each other and to feel free to talk or make practice and not to be shy and being afraid of making mistakes or something.

And what do you think will be the greatest challenge in your studies at JC:HEM?

I think the main problem for me is for now I have no job. And this course is taking four months. And I am worried about if I can stand, stay four months without work or not—this is my problem.

What’s your greatest source of motivation for studying at JC:HEM?

You know, I encourage myself, or maybe my wife encourages me and I encourage her, when we feel like we have nothing, nobody. When we left our home, we left all things. Not only the home and things, we left our family. We are here sitting only. We have been here one and a half year, and we got married three months before we left. So both of us has left his or her family. And this country is very strange, and we have no other neighbors or family that we’ve known before. So the thing we are thinking is how to leave this country. It’s only that. But when we start learning...it’s better to learn or something else than the waiting and get thinking more and more.

And so you think that doing the program together helps also—motivation and encouragement to do it?

Yes, if she didn’t [get] accepted here, maybe I couldn’t come.

So what does learning English mean to you?

It’s about our new life. We are planning our new life, our future. So this is one, the first step in our new life to learning English, because we [hope to be] going to a foreign country, Canada or Australia, both of them using the English language. So we think this is our first step when we reach there, insh'allah [if God wills it].

What does the concept of social justice mean to you? Does it have some personal significance to you in any way?

You know what, the problem that happen with me, I see that is not justice. You imagine yourself, you’re forbidden to work, and you need to spend money. What are you going to do? Are you going to steal or what? So that’s not just. And the other thing is when you apply to leave, and you see another family or another person in the same case of you or maybe less difficult past, and they get all visas and get out, and everything is okay with them, and you still waiting. Maybe it’s okay for us because those are [in the same case as us], but maybe one of these families like my uncle here, his wife is ill and she needs one operation, and my uncle and his wife were waiting for six months [after] they made the medical test, and they were still waiting, every day saying, "Today we are going to leave." And you see one person, he came before five months and start the application, and now he’s out, has left. It’s natural to feel jealous of them. That was one sort of not just things I saw here. We are hoping good for all, for everyone, but this is not just.

Do you think that there is social justice, that it plays a role here, at JRS?

I think it’s the only thing [that] encourages us, the only hope that we have right now, to learn English.

How do you hope to use what you’re learning in class?

Maybe when I am learning something, I imagine myself to use it in another place, another foreign country.

Is there anything that we haven’t discussed that you want to add?

You know what, in our whole life, we can’t recognize anything. We start learning there is no justice in our life. Only the war and injustice. Actually, I think you have heard our story, the Christian people in Mosul. You have heard it before? All our life is like Tom and Jerry: next day you are in another place. And everyone faces that thing, knows many things that another [won’t know if he’s never faced them]. The first thing, I think, is when you lose everything, you are going to change. This is the first one. And some people are going to change to good, and some people are going to change to bad. Another thing, I think, when you lose everything, and you get started again, and you lose again, and you get started again. You feel that your life is, as I told you, like Tom and Jerry. And you feel that you have no hope in your life. Why am I living? I should die; I still [live] the same thing every three or four months.

And when you see your other relatives killed, it’s really hard. Imagine that when you see any movies that, [compared to someone who hasn’t seen] any blood before, you are seeing something different. Anyone [who] didn’t see any blood before, easy. You see it more hard, and you see it and remember your fight. You can imagine that when I was only a child—I was 14 or 15 years old—when I went to school, I can see heads on the roads. My wife, her uncle’s daughter and her husband have two children, one boy and one girl. One day, they were in Mosul, and they were driving the car. And a few members have guns and kill the parents—the father and mother—in front of the children. The children were only 3 years old and 11 months old. And they stay in the car crying, don’t know what’s happening.

And another thing, you know, I left my family. She left her family. That thing, maybe, is not clear right now, but maybe a few years later we can say everyone of the family is in [a different] part of the world, so there is no family. I know there’s Viber and Facebook, but actually everyone [is] in far off place. You can see here when one family has one member going to Canada and another one going to Australia, in the same family. This is one sort of injustice.

Maybe I speak to you to share this in your country, yes.

Is there a question you feel I should ask in this interview but I haven’t?

Actually, the last thing I want to add, I don’t know if it’s important to you, but we came here, and the first thing we do is to apply in the UN for the refugee [status]. And you know, that year only the first interview is available for everyone, but the second one is canceled. For all of us. Everybody made the first one and canceled the second one. Everybody called and asked why it is cancelled, but nobody responds. We [are] still thinking, "Why don’t they make our interview?" We asked the people who came before us; after maybe three or four months they made the second interview. And the second interview, they get more information about you and maybe decide where to put you on, and maybe decide you are considered a refugee or not.

One year [later], we have to go to the UN again and to renew the protection paper [that the UN provides to an asylum seeker during the first interview]. And we want to ask them this question, all this year we are waiting for this day to ask this question, "Why you neglect us? Or not make any response?" One year is a long time here. Here, one year like five years in your country. And we asked them and they say, "There is nothing. You have to wait." I told them that my wife is pregnant. Is that going to change anything? They say no. I ask them for any help, if they going to help in her birth or pregnancy. They say no, because you are not a refugee. No other progress for us. And we really don’t know why.

Another thing, in the UN they give salary for each person or each family; I don’t know exactly. For Syrians and a few of Iraqis...but not all refugees. Only if you have the second interview. Without, you are not a refugee until they call.