The Foreign Service Journal, January 2005

64 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 5 R EFLECTIONS They Grow Up So Fast... B Y L ULWA B ORDCOSH T he subject was the difference between a verb and an adverb. As I stood in front of the classroom, writ- ing examples on the blackboard, I was hit in the back of the head with a paper airplane. I turned to find two of my stu- dents wrestling on the ground, while the others were running around. To lose control over a classroom is not unusual for a new teacher. But this was not your ordinary classroom, and these were not your ordinary 8-year-olds. I would set out a box of crayons and ask them to draw a picture. Instead of the typical house with a sun in the corner, they would draw a tank firing at a house. When asked to sing a song, it would not be “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” but a song about the orange groves in old Palestine. When I asked them to talk about their relatives, I would not hear about the trip to Disneyland with grandma and grandpa. Instead, I would hear how their grandparents were massacred in 1982. These children were different. They lived their entire lives in Shatila, the Palestinian refugee camp outside Beirut. They have known nothing but violence, destruction and conflict. One day I walked to class with Mohammad. We passed the Shatila Massacre memorial, countless Pales- tinian flags and nationalist murals. As I tried to maneuver around the pud- dles of sewage and bundles of trash, I realized that this is this boy’s life; these are the images he sees every day. As refugees, with no passports, with no nationality and because of the stigma associated with being Palestinian, these children will probably grow up to become vegetable vendors or taxi drivers. I was upset to realize that Mohammad, who dreams of becom- ing a doctor, will have his potential wasted. I asked him what he would be if he did not become a doctor. With a big smile he shrugged his shoulders and responded cheerfully, “a taxi driver.” Before class, I would hand out treats to the children and listen to them talk. One day, with juice boxes in hand and straws drawn at each other, I found two of my students arguing over British foreign policy. “I would never want to go to Britain,” 8-year-old Jihad said. “The British are colonizers. They not only colonized our land, but they colonized Egypt and Iraq too.” With a mouth full of cookie crumbs Mohammad replied, “No, Jihad, there is a difference between the past Britain and the new Britain. The past Britain were colonizers, but the new Britain, you see, they are not. You can’t call it all one thing.” I was amazed how aware these children were not only of their own political situation, but that of the rest of the world. They would ask me why Americans love Israel and hate them. One day, 6-year-old Mira asked, “Aren’t we as cute as the Israeli chil- dren?” I realized Mira and her friends will most likely spend their entire lives in the refugee camp, see- ing their children and grandchildren struggle with the same issues of vio- lence, poverty and discrimination. These Palestinian children made me realize that an innocent childhood is not universal. My experience at the refugee camp this past summer made me both proud and ashamed. I was proud that I was lucky enough to grow up in America, in a free and political- ly stable country, where I had a care- free childhood with Crayola coloring books and Care Bear cartoons. As a child, I had no idea what Reagan- omics was, why curtains were made of iron, or why wars were cold. Perhaps if we did more to ensure every child around the world had a childhood of innocence, a new gen- eration of peaceful youth would arise for whom war is not a reality, but something to read about in a his- tory book.  Lulwa Bordcosh, a former intern at the Journal , currently attends the University of California, Santa Bar- bara, where she will earn her B.A. in global/international studies and pro- fessional writing in June 2005. The stamp is courtesy of the AAFSW Bookfair “Stamp Corner.” I felt ashamed that America, with all its wealth and power, does so little for the children of Shatila. w