Until tonight I’ve had two messages sitting in my Facebook inbox that I’ve been pretending I didn’t see. One is from a longtime friend who asked me if I had a minute, could I please give a rundown on the refugee crisis in Europe (clearly she doesn’t know how long it takes me to write a single paragraph). The second is from a former colleague in South Sudan whose heart has been wondering if Syrians are being treated better than the refugees in Africa. These are big questions. You can see why I’ve been procrastinating. But since this is a 31 day CHALLENGE, here goes. I’ve only got an hour tonight since it’s almost midnight and my brain is mush already anyway.

To be honest, most of what I know about the refugee crisis in Europe I’ve learned by reading the news, just like you. I tried to prep for this blog by listening to my friend Stephen’s Podcast. He lives in California and teaches at a university and probably knows more than I do. Unfortunately we don’t have enough internet tonight so I’ll have to come up with original material.

I am not going to talk much about the war in Syria, the policies that have led to the crisis, or about the asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Eritrea or other countries. I am only going to talk about what I know, what I’ve seen. The rest you can Google like me.

Iraq is a host country, with nearly 250,000 Syrians registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (ok, that was still Google). Iraq is also a sending country. According to the article I just read (see, cheating again), nearly 50,000 civilians have left the country in the last three months, and hundreds of thousands are expected to follow suit. And I can’t tell you why. Sure, there are push factors like decreased food rations ($13 a month for a family of any size) and limited access to jobs. There is also trauma on a scale I have never seen before. One IDP camp recorded 9 attempted suicides within a month. Can you even process that? I can’t.

Regardless of the collective reasons for leaving, each family has its own story, its own hell from which it is willing to risk the death of its children to escape. I encourage you to read some of these stories on Facebook. Truth is, I don’t hear these stories firsthand, either. That’s someone else job. My job is to figure out how to manage things. How to get trash collected, buildings repaired for winter, water networks installed, and children enrolled in school. I am not an engineer, a plumber, or a teacher. But I work with the people who are, and together we try to make sure that refugees and IDPs are able to lead lives that are livable.

Someone mentioned to me recently that most of the migrants in Europe are young men between the ages of 18 and 35. That doesn’t surprise me. When Daesh took Kobane last year, many of the first refugees to arrive on the buses to our camp were young men exactly the same age. It’s easy to be afraid of young men. I was. What if Daesh was hiding among them? How would I recognize them? Would they kidnap me while I was stuck in the mud, rainboots too clunky for me to run away? But the reality is, those young men were being brave. Charged with ensuring their mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters would be safe, they were asking questions just like me. Will the community welcome my children, or will they be taunted on the way to school? Can we live in dignity? Will my wife be raped while I am out looking for work? Will I be able to provide for them? Will Daesh follow us here?

The conditions in the Syrian refugee camps weren’t much better than the ones I’ve seen in South Sudan. Where standards exceeded the norm, it was the local community who gave above and beyond the package of core relief items provided by the UN and international NGOs. Local charities and businesses distributed air coolers and refrigerators to as many families as they could. Women’s groups collected milk for babies of mothers too dry to nurse. And the rest was pretty normal. One UNHCR tent, one plastic sheet, five mattresses, five blankets, kitchen set, water bucket. That’s it. From there, the entrepreneurial spirit took over.

I’m not sure we can really measure quality of life by material goods anyway. My heart breaks for each family that lives in the camps I visit or the makeshift shacks we assess. My heart also breaks for my friends in South Sudan, who, as refugees themselves, continue to work to protect their community from the effects of a brutal, unjust war three years later. These two groups are my cup, and my cup is full.

So that’s it. That’s all I’ve got. Not much in the way of answers, and I’m sorry about that. But I think if we had all the answers, there wouldn’t be a crisis in the first place.

What are your thoughts on the refugees and asylum seekers in Europe? Do you have other questions? Friends who are working there, please add your stories in the comments!