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There are an estimated 16 million people living in refugee camps around the world, and another 26 million displaced in camps
within their own countries. Sudan, Somalia, Colombia, Iraq and Afghanistan have the most troubled of those spots. But for this weekend (Sunday, Oct. 19), Little Marina Green Park in San Francisco will have it’s own refugee center set up, compliments of Doctors Without Borders, giving visitors the vaguest hint of what the real camps resemble.
Spread over a grassy knoll on the edge of the bay in the Marina district, near bobbing sailboats and volleyball games, the faux camp is an assemblage of standard issue tents for refugees (a plastic sheet and floor mat), sample latrines and various medical quarters. But what brings it to life are the small group tours led by doctors who have spent time working at refugee camps in some of these countries, like Liberia and Darfur in the case of Benjamin Wang, a pediatrician who led our group.
Wang invited us to see things as a refugee would who has had to suddenly flee their home, from the bombs and bullets of encroaching battles. Where to go, what to bring, and how much of that is left after encountering border guards, often rifle-toting boys high on drugs. Feel how heavy a 5 gallon jug of water, the max allowed per person each day that the mostly refugee women and children carry up to a mile back to their tent. On display is the 2100 calories of food given each person per day, the same rice and beans that constitutes their survival diet for weeks or months on end. Most compelling of all are the stories of malnourished children with upper arms so thin you could wrap your thumb and forefinger around them. But as the before and after pictures attest to, there are happy endings, at least temporary ones, with emaciated tots who were once at death's door now plump and smiling.
And while some might see it as a dress rehearsal for the Great Depression 2.0, a tour of the camp left a deep impression and a realization of how deserving the group was of their 1999 Nobel Peace Price.
www.doctorswithoutborders.org/education/refugeecamp/event/index.cfm?id=sanfrancisco
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