Blogs About Refugees

By Juliana Rincón Parra

In the aftermath of the devastating Haiti earthquake, women and girls are still facing gender violence, as some of them not only experience rape, but then have to face an absent judicial system and less than adequate medical care.

Tent-City by Edyta Materka under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

In the Ms. Magazine Blog, Gina Ulysse wrote Rape a Part of Daily Life for Women in Haitian Relief Camps, where she points towards the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH)and Madre's Report on Rape in the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camps as the source of terrifying statistics on gender violence.

Many women and girls have lost their support network as well as fathers, brothers and husbands or boyfriends who might've been able to protect them. So being in cramped quarters in the camps really cuts down on their privacy, many have to shower in public and sleep next to strangers or in locations where they are vulnerable to attacks.  Once the attacks take place, many of the cases being gang rapes, they have yet to face more ordeals: most have no way to receive medical aid from female practitioners and the justice system is almost non-existent,  leaving them to deal with corruption in the police and revictimization from authorities in addition to the stigma from being attacked and the knowledge that their attackers are still at large. Ulysse writes:

Women’s access to jus­tice has been even worse.  Women who reported rapes–and were already strug­gling with stigma­ti­za­tion and the psy­cho­log­i­cal effects of sex­ual assault–were often mocked or ignored by police. In some instances, these women have had to deal with police cor­rup­tion as well. More­over, cases have not been pros­e­cuted by the Hait­ian judi­cial sys­tem. Sur­vivors remain vul­ner­a­ble since they con­tinue to live in the same areas of the camps where they were attacked and their rapists remain at large. Sev­eral women reported that they’ve been raped on dif­fer­ent occa­sions since the quake.

The IJDH, Partners in Health and New Media Advocacy Program released a video a few months ago with testimonies from the victims. The footage was recorded by Sandy Berkowitz and edited by Harriet Hirshorn.

Even though women struggle to return to normalcy, it is unlikely their situation will improve as the temporary camps seem to be turning into permanent accomodations. Back in January, CARE USA interviewed Dr. Franck Geneus who coordinates CARE's health program in Haiti and asked him about the reasons why there is higher risk of rape in these camps, and he mentioned the characteristics that make the IDP camps a fertile ground for attacks: the lack of electricity that makes camps absolutely dark at night, badly organized camps and non-segregated bathing facilities and latrines so that males and females have their own.

Janet Meyers, Gender Advisor from CARE also put in her own 2 cents regarding how the camps would be established to make women safer in the earthquake aftermath, pointing out many of the same issues last  February. I wonder how many of these issues remain unresolved and if, as these camps turn into more permanent facilities, it will just pave the way for more assaults to take place.

The International Journal of Refugee Law's latest issue (vol. 22, no. 3, Oct. 2010) includes the following articles:

• What Assumptions about Human Behaviour Underlie Asylum Judgments?
• The Mandate Refugee Program: a Critical Discussion
• Beyond Borders: Cosmopolitanism and Family Reunification for Refugees in Canada
• Human Rights, Non-refoulement and the Protection of Refugees in Hong Kong

Also in this issue are two book reviews and a German legal decision.

Tagged Periodicals.

Development in Practice, vol. 20, no. 6 (2010) [contents]
- Mix of articles.

Human Rights Brief, vol. 17, no. 4 (Spring 2010) [full-text]
- Special edition issue, featuring presentations from the conference "Strengthening the Prohibition against Torture: The Evolution of the UN Committee against Torture."

International Journal of Migration, Health and Social Care, vol. 6, no. 1 (Feb. 2010) [contents]
- Theme for this issue is "Migration, Health and Social Networks." Includes "Refugees from Myanmar and their Health Care Needs in the US: A Qualitative Study at a Refugee Resettlement Agency."

Journal of Conflict Resolution, vol. 54, no. 4 (August 2010) [contents]
- Mix of articles including "Burden Sharing in the Funding of the UNHCR: Refugee Protection as an Impure Public Good."

Journal of International Migration and Integration, vol. 11, no. 3 (August 2010) [contents]
- Mix of articles including a book review of Jason Hart's Years of Conflict: Adolescence, Political Violence and Displacement.

Journal of Peace Research, vol. 47, no. 4 (July 2010) [contents]
- Mix of articles including "Armed Conflicts, 1946—2009."

Tagged Periodicals.

It has been a long couple of weeks, filled with early mornings, hot days, long boat trips over rough waters, plane flights high above those rough waters and an average of five hours of driving each and every day of the week.  My camera is coated in salt water, my skin is a deep red and my clothes will most likely walk out of the room and try to wash themselves off as soon as I take them off.  God knows I dont have enough energy left to wash them myself.  But I am wrapping up the project soon and will begin editing images in the coming weeks.  I hope to post the full feature story here in about a month.

Georgetown Immigration Law Journal's latest issue (vol. 24, no. 2, Winter 2010) features several articles on asylum seekers and refugees, including:

• The Development of Gender as a Basis for Asylum in United States Immigration Law and Under the United Nations Refugee Convention: Case Studies of Female Asylum Seekers From Cameroon, Eritrea, Iraq and Somalia
• Prosecution or Persecution: Contradictions Between U.S. Foreign Policy & the Adjudication of Asylum Claims Involving the Harboring of North Korean Refugees
• A Solution: An Approach to Addressing Fear-Based Claims Within the Religious Conservative Community and its Application to a Current Refugee Concern
• North Korean Border-Crossers in Yanbian: The "Protection Gap" Between the Economic Migrant and Refugee Regimes

Also in this issue is a discussion of temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitians.

Tagged Periodicals.

Asia's Response to Climate Change and Natural Disasters: Implications for an Evolving Regional Architecture (CSIS, July 2010) [text via ReliefWeb]

"Casualties of Disharmony: The Exclusion of Asylum Seekers Under the Auspices of the Common European Asylum System," Emory International Law Review, vol. 24, no. 1 (2010) [full-text]

Greece: Irregular migrants and asylum-seekers routinely detained in substandard conditions (Amnesty International, July 2010) [text]

Land and Natural Disasters: Guidance for Practitioners (UNHABITAT et al., 2010) [text via UN Pulse]

"Perceptions about human rights, sexual and reproductive health services by internally displaced persons in northern Uganda," African Health Sciences, vol. 9(S2) (Oct. 2009) [full-text]

Safeguarding New Zealand's Borders? (IARLJ, posted July 2010) [text]

Tagged Publications.

By Onnik Krikorian

This is cinemelo comments on Border, a 2009 film from director Harutyun Khachatryan. Ostensibly a tale of life in rural Armenia, the blog says that the most telling images come from barbed wire fences which illustrate the filmmaker's connection with his country and his hatred of the war and closed border with neighboring Azerbaijan.

Global Humanitarian Assistance Blog [access]
- Commentary on funding for humanitarian assistance.

PRRN: The Blog of the Palestinian Refugee ResearchNet [access]
- Forum for personal observations on the Palestinian refugee issue from members of the PRRN.

Seeking Refuge [access]
- Provides a forum for asylum seekers in Hong Kong to tell their stories and share their experiences.

UNHCR Central Europe Blog [access]
- Stories and anecdotes from refugees in Central European countries.

Tagged Web Sites/Tools.

Darfurian Voices: Documenting Darfurian Refugees' Views on Issues of Peace, Justice, and Reconciliation (24 Hours for Darfur, July 2010) [text]

The end of the road? A review of UNHCR's role in the return and reintegration of internally displaced populations, PDES/2010/09 (UNHCR, July 2010) [text]

Migrations internationales: Travailleurs migrants, demandeurs d’asile et réfugiés en Europe de l’Est, Asie centrale et Caucase du sud (FIDH, July 2010) [French text] [English text]
- Conference report from FIDH's regional seminar.

"Tuberculosis: evidence review for newly arriving immigrants and refugees," CMAJ, early release (July 2010) [text]

World Refugee Day, June 20th: Reflecting on the Plight of Burmese Refugees in Malaysia (Untold Stories Blog, June 2010) [text]

Tagged Publications.

By Karlo Mikhail Mongaya

The Marocharim Experiment designates the Filipino word “dayo” as descriptive of the Filipino experience of migration: “Diaspora assumes exile, deportation, the removal of identification. ‘Dayo,' like ‘pakikipagsapalaran,' represents the hope for return; of when, they can only tell.”

Tropical Storm Bonnie, which as kind enough to not become Hurricane Bonnie, has still managed to make my project more difficult than it already was. I was due to go out with the US Coast Guard today to photograph work on one of their oil skimming ships in the Gulf of Mexico and stay overnight with the workers there. Unfortunately all of the operations were canceled yesterday due to the weather. I was able to get on a Coast Guard plane yesterday to fly over the spill sight and snap a few photographs of the remaining oil and skimming operations. Zoriah --

Tropical Storm Bonnie, which as kind enough to not become Hurricane Bonnie, has still managed to make my project more difficult than it already was.  I was due to go out with the US Coast Guard today to photograph work on one of their oil skimming ships in the Gulf of Mexico and stay overnight with the workers there.  Unfortunately all of the operations were canceled yesterday due to the weather.  I was able to get on a Coast Guard plane yesterday to fly over the spill sight and snap a few photographs of the remaining oil and skimming operations.

For now I am lying in my hotel room trying to get caught up on editing.  I really cant complain, as I found a wonderful room in an old mansion in New Orleans Garden District.  I am actually staying in the mansion of the Tabasco family, and I must say they had a very, very nice home.  Hopefully things will be back on track by monday and I will be able to continue my work photographing the BP Gulf Oil Spill.  I will keep you updated.

Information resources:

"Forced migration and asylum: stateless citizens today," Chapter 10 in Migration in a Globalised World: New Research Issues and Prospects (Amsterdam University Press, 2010) [text]
- Scroll down to p. 183.

Locked out: The 12 million people without a country, and their need to become a citizen (Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, July 2010) [text]

The Struggle against Statelessness Advances in Strasbourg (Open Society Blog, July 2010) [text]

UNHCR Executive Committee Conclusions related to Statelessness (UNHCR, July 2010) [text]

United Nations General Assembly Resolutions of particular relevance to statelessness and nationality (UNHCR, July 2010) [text]

Viet Nam ends stateless limbo for 2,300 former Cambodians (UNHCR, July 2010) [text]

Job opportunities:

Asylum Aid is seeking to fill two consultancies for its joint project with UNHCR on statelessness in the UK: a Senior Legal Researcher and a Demographer/Statistician. Apply by 29 July 2010.

Tagged Publications and Events & Opportunities.

A Different Way Home: Resettlement Patterns in Northern Uganda (posted May 2010) [text]

Enhancing the Capacity of the Externally Displaced in the Post-War Reconstruction of Sudan: An Exploratory Qualitative Study on Development, Civil Society, and Good Governance with Sudanese Refugees at Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya (posted May 2010) [text]

From the Right to Asylum to Migration Management: The Legal-Political Construction of 'A Refugee' in the Post-Communist Czech Republic (posted July 2010) [text]

Internally Displaced Persons: Protection Measures Under International Human Rights Framework (posted June 2010) [text]

Media Representation of Human Trafficking in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada (posted July 2010) [text]

News Frames and Story Triggers and in the Media’s Coverage of Human Trafficking (posted July 2010) [text]

Refusing 'Refuge' in the Pacific: (De)Constructing Climate-Induced Displacement in International Law (posted July 2010) [text]

Understanding Human Trafficking in South Africa: A Theoretical Perspective (posted June 2010) [text]

UNHCR's Parallel Universe: Marking the Contours of a Problem (posted June 2010) [text]

Women, Vulnerability and Humanitarian Emergencies (posted May 2010) [text]

Tagged Publications.

I arrived in Louisiana a week ago and began to work on documenting the aftermath of the Gulf Coast Oil Spill. It has been hot and hectic and each day has brought new challenges. The area that must be covered in order to photograph this particular disaster is just gigantic and I have spent an average of four hours a day in the car moving from one location to the next. I have visited a rehabilitation center for birds affected by the oil spill as well as photographed affected marshlands in the gulf. And it is just the beginning of this project. Zoriah --

I arrived in Louisiana a week ago and began to work on documenting the aftermath of the Gulf Coast Oil Spill.  It has been hot and hectic and each day has brought new challenges.  The area that must be covered in order to photograph this particular disaster is just gigantic and I have spent an average of four hours a day in the car moving from one location to the next.  I have visited a rehabilitation center for birds affected by the oil spill, spoken with fishermen as well as photographed affected marshlands in the gulf.  And it is just the beginning of this project.

I will be waking up tomorrow at three in the morning to head out to join a boat searching for wildlife in distress, which will be a unique photographic opportunity.  I look forward to sharing those images, as well as all the others, with all of you in the coming weeks.  For now, I have to try to sleep.

Other posts about the oil spill:

The Solution to the BP Oil Spill is on YouTube

By Onnik Krikorian

Although a recent conference held earlier this month at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington D.C. highlighted some of the shortcomings and dangers of using new and social media in conflict resolution, there is no doubt that online tools have moved in to fill a gap left vacant by a usually politically polarized and propagandist media in the South Caucasus.

This is particularly true for Armenia and Azerbaijan, two countries locked into deadlock in continuing negotiations to find a lasting solution to conflict over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh over 16 years after a ceasefire agreement was signed in 1994. The war claimed over 25,000 lives, forced a million to flee from their homes, and there are fears that hostilities might break out again, especially after the albeit short war between Russia and Georgia in late 2008.

However, even if most online activity in this area arguably seeks only to acerbate the situation, blogs do allow alternative voices the chance to be heard. Such an opportunity was made evidently clear this week when EurasiaNet, an online news site dealing with the Caucasus and Central Asia, republished two guest entries by an Armenian and Azerbaijani blogger.

These two blog posts by Scary Azeri and Global Chaos were originally published as part of a series for an online project giving space to alternative voices on the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh. […] The project is managed by […] the Yerevan-based Caucasus editor for Global Voices Online.

In the first, originally posted on The Caucasian Knot as part of a larger project using new and social media to overcome negative stereotypes in the region, popular Azerbaijani blogger Scary Azeri offers her own personal reflections on the conflict and how online activity has opened up new avenues for communication.

In my class at school, half of us were Azeris. The rest were other nationalities. I did not even register the fact that some of my classmates were Armenian until people started to leave. Did I suddenly start hating them just because they had an Armenian name? Of course not. Does my mother hate her university friend who had to flee from Baku, but then, years after, having found my mum on Facebook, got in touch? I watched them talk on Skype, laughing, sharing their memories. Nothing had changed between them. Nothing ever could.

[…]

[…] Our mentality, cultures and backgrounds are interlinked and the similarities come through in our music, food and customs. The internet opened the doors in the virtual world that have been shut by the war in the real life.

But, in the real life, how far does this conflict stretch across the borders? What happens abroad, far away from the conflict zone?

Well, I would argue that it fades away.

[…]

And that is what it feels like to someone living outside the conflict zone. Of course I remember what happened. But I also remember the good parts of the past. Every war eventually comes to an end. And I sincerely hope there is going to be peace in the region sometime soon. Sometime in my lifetime.

A second guest entry by the Armenian Global Chaos echoed the same message and particularly focused on the need to think in regional, not national terms.

[…] it is much easier to apply the “nation” label (i.e. straightjacket) and manipulate the minds: the lack of a better alternative and the diverted focus of attention might, after all, fuel sufficient “courage and dedication” for a conflict…

Why not realize that over centuries – before we were even aware of our “nationhood” as such (since the latter is, quite surprisingly, a very modern concept) – we have evolved as a region, sharing land and culture? Why not admit that we are not that different, after all, and that we truly can get over the endless and pointless political debate and continue the process that was so abruptly interrupted with the creation of the mostly artificial borders?

Why not focus all that energy and effort toward sharing, rather than dividing and alienating? Why not realize that we are human beings – first and foremost – before we are assigned a “national” label?

Writing in the blog section of the newly launched Caucasus Edition, Veronika Agajanyan, says that attitudes shaped might simply be determined by an accident of birth.

Our birth does not depend on our will. We are never free to choose where and when to be born. […]

[…]

In 1988, I could not imagine that the first two facts were actually about to be incompatible. And it was not me to decide that at the age of one I would have to leave the city, where my life had started, without a right to ever go back. Anyway, it had to happen and it happened.

[…]

Well, our birth indeed does not depend on our will. However, it is always us who decides how to live further. We are always free to make a choice between war and peace, hate and love, destruction and creation, death and life. Taking into account the facts of my life one can notice that I was actually too close to devote myself to the negative feelings. But my parents as well as Armenian and Azerbaijani friends did not allow it to happen. And I am most grateful to all of them for that.

The young Armenian refugee from Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, also takes the time to recount her own experience after being inspired by another guest post by ethnic Azeri refugee Zamira Abbasova who also fled her home in Armenia during the war. Global Voices has put the two in touch.

Finally, in another guest entry on The Caucasian Knot, popular Armenian blogger Ianyan also notes the importance of using new and social media in opening up lines of communication, overcoming stereotypes and placing human values over national ones.

The more I wrote, the more it was evident that all of us – Armenians, Turks, Azeris – shared more than we were led to believe. In the simplest of terms, we became humans – a notion we had forgotten for way too long. The most rewarding element of this entire incredible experience was realizing that we had all become agents of change right in front of our eyes.

“There are no nations,” said Isaac Asimov. “There is only humanity. And if we don’t come to understand that soon there will be no nations because there will be no humanity.”

And while the change will come gradually and slowly and we will still be exposed to those who prefer to spread intolerance and misunderstanding, the tides are turning and the momentum is big. Taking a step to understand a fellow human being beyond the politics, territorial lines and propaganda isn’t hard at all – you just have to take the time to try.

Global Voices will continue to monitor developments in the use of new and social media in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. A special coverage page is available here.

This is the second set of images from my most recent work in Haiti.  Two months after the quake the country was still in utter chaos with few signs of hope for rapid improvement.  Entering the rain and hurricane seasons was also weighing on the minds of the countless families living in tents and makeshift shelters.

Images from Haiti the week of the earthquake can be found here and here

A before and after comparison is here

Part one of this series of images shot two months after the earthquake is here

 

A girl eats a piece of corn on the dirt floors of her mothers shack in Port au Prince, Haiti.  The already impoverished family was forced to take on another member after a young relative's mother died in the quake.

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To children walk through streets filled with rubble in a neighborhood nearly completely destroyed by the quake

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A man living on the streets hangs his hand washed laundry to dry on the fence of a school that was severely damaged by the quake.

 

A boy stands on a staircase after bathing in cups of water outside one of hundreds of makeshift refugee camps

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An elderly man stands in front of his home, which was reduced to rubble during the Haitian Earthquake

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 An injured boy rests in tent that is being used to house overflow patients on the grounds of the main hospital in downtown Port au Prince

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A large box of dirty medical instruments waiting to be cleaned outside of the hospital triage

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Fearing further injuries and deaths from aftershocks, most church services are held outdoors.

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A large group of Haitian men sit in a tent given out by an aid organization and watch sports on a small television set.

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  A man sleeps on the streets of Port au Prince

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To mark the 50-year tenure of UNHCR's Executive Committee (EXCOM), the UNHCR Global Report for 2009 includes a brief history and timeline that highlights the major refugee events of the past decades and the important role that EXCOM has played over the years. To learn more about EXCOM, its mandate, members, rules of procedure and much more, visit the relevant section of the UNHCR web site. You can also access full-text documents disseminated during annual meetings as of the 41st session in 1990.

Not much has been written about EXCOM generally. In 1990 the now-defunct Centre for Documentation on Refugees (CDR) compiled EXCOM in Abstracts: A Bibliographic Description of Documentation Issued in the Context of UNHCR's Governing Bodies and Major International Refugee Conferences 1951-1990, which summarizes the official documentation submitted to the advisory bodies of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 1951 to 1990, that is, EXCOM and the two entities which preceded it: the High Commissioner's Advisory Committee and the United Nations Refugee Fund (UNREF) Executive Committee. The editor's introduction provides a useful overview of these three bodies, while a separate article by Anders Johnsson reviews the origins of the current Executive Committee and its mandate.

Elsewhere, some additional background information on and analysis of the role of EXCOM can be found in:

Jackson, Ivor, "Some International Protection Issues Arising During the 1970s and 1980s with Particular Reference to the Role of the UNHCR Executive Committee," Refugee Survey Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 1 (2008) [abstract]

Mason, Elisa, "Resolving Refugee Problems: An Introduction to the Executive Committee of the United Nations High Commissioner's Programme and Its Documentation," Journal of Government Information, vol. 27, no. 1 (January 2000) [abstract]

Sztucki, Jerzy, "The Conclusions on the International Protection of Refugees Adopted by the Executive Committee of the UNHCR Programme," International Journal of Refugee Law, vol. 1, no. 3 (1989) [abstract]

Warner, Daniel, "Forty Years of the Executive Committee: From the Old to the New," International Journal of Refugee Law, vol. 2, no. 2 (April 1990) [abstract]

[Picture credit: "UNHCR: 2009 Executive Committee Meeting," UN-NGLS]

Tagged Publications and Web Sites/Tools.

By Ayesha Saldanha

The American poet Walt Whitman said, “After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on – have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear – what remains? Nature remains.” In this post we hear about two women with a great love of nature: a nun who has found her home in the convent garden, and a city-dwelling mother who has brought her dreams of a village garden to the balcony of her apartment.

Ruba Anabtawi has interviewed Sister Angela, a nun with a special love of plants. She was born in Lebanon but is now with the Rosary Sisters in Beit Hanina to the north of Jerusalem:

أنجيلا نهرا، أو نجلة كما كان اسمها قبل الترهبن، قاومت رفض العائلة لفكرة ان تصبح راهبة بأن أصرت على موقفها ورتبت أمر ترهبنها بدايةً في لبنان، حتى جاءتها الموافقة ودعيت من قبل الفاتيكان لابتداء مسيرة الترهبن في القدس، وكان ذلك أوائل التسعينيات. […] أنجيلا التي ترعرعت في قرية طرزا الخضراء والمحاطة بالحقول، لم تطور آنذاك روابطاً واضحة مع النباتات، ولكن حين وجدت نفسها في دير الرئاسة، حيث ستكرس معظم وقتها في هذا المكان، وعلى الرغم من صعوبات البداية والبعد عن الأهل، إلا أنها وجدت في النباتات إحدى الغايات إضافة إلى تكريس وقتها لخدمة الدير عبر الإشراف على الراهبات المسنات وإدارة جزء من شؤون البيت.
“النباتات بهاء الأرض، والدين معنى الحياة”، هكذا تربط أنجيلا بين النباتات والرهبنة. Angela Nahran, or Najla as she was known before taking orders, resisted her family's rejection of the idea of her becoming a nun. She insisted, and arranged to take orders at first in Lebanon, until the approval came and she was requested by the Vatican to begin her journey as a nun in Jerusalem. This was in the early nineties. […] Angela grew up in the green village of Tourza surrounded by fields, but at that time she did not develop a clear connection to plants. However, she found herself in the convent, where she would devote most of her time, and despite the difficulties at the beginning and the distance from her family, she found plants to be one of her purposes, in addition to devoting her time to serving the convent by looking after the elderly nuns and managing part of the household's affairs.
“Plants are the glory of the earth, and religion is the meaning of life”. Thus Angela makes a link between plants and taking orders.

Sister Angela

So how did this connection to plants develop?

حبُ أنجيلا للنباتات تشكّل بعد أربع سنوات من مجيئها إلى القدس، حين كانت ترافق رئيستها في جولاتها في بستان الدير، فتعلمت منها أسس الرعاية بالنباتات، وشغف العناية بها، ما حدا بانجيلا إلى الالتفات أكثر إلى الطبيعة من حولها، لتنشأ بينهما علاقة خاصة وتعلق شديدين، فاق اهتمام الراهبات الأخريات، ما جعل صيت أنجيلا يعلو بالدير، فتارة تُرى تزرع الشتلات، وتارة تُشاهد ترعى النباتات المنزلية فتمسح الغبار عن أوراقها وتلمعها فتتألق في الأروقة، عدا عن سقايتها لها وتشذيبها لأغصان الأشجار، مع تشجيعها الراهبات الاعتماد على ثمار الأشجار المحلية وتوصياتها للبستاني بعدم استخدام المبيدات الكيماوية ومتابعة الأشجار في أوقات غيابها، إضافة إلى دورها في إدخال شتلات أشجار جديدة. كل تلك، هي بصمات أشاعت أصداء مقولة انتشرت في الدير وخارجه:” الأشجار بزمن أنجيلا تعمّر ولا تموت”. Angela's love for plants was formed four years after coming to Jerusalem, when she accompanied her Mother Superior on her tours around the convent's garden. She learnt from her the fundamentals of looking after plants, and a passion for caring for them. This prompted Angela to pay more attention to the nature around her, to create a special relationship and a strong bond with it. The interest of the other nuns was awakened, which made Angela's reputation grow in the convent. Sometimes she can be seen planting seedlings, and sometimes can be witnessed caring for house plants and wiping dust from their leaves and making them shine. Apart from watering the plants and pruning the roots of the trees, she encourages the sisters to rely on the fruit of native trees and advises the gardener not to use chemical pesticides and to look after the trees when she's away. That is in addition to the role she has played in introducing new tree seedlings. These are all impressions that have pervaded the talk that echoes in the convent and outside: “In Angela's time the trees live long and don't die.”

In Akka, Rasha Helwa writes about her mother's garden:

والدتي شادية (أم اسكندر) لاجئة من قرية إقرث (قضاء صفد)، لكنها من مواليد قرية الرامة الجليلية.
تعمل ممرضة منذ أكثر من عشرين عامًا في قرية ساجور، المحادية لقرية الرامة.
منذ أن تزوجا والدتي ووالدي عام 1982 واختارا أن تكون عكّا بيتًا لهما (مسقط رأس والدي وحبّه الأول-بالإذن من أمي)، كانت أمي تحلم، ولا تزال، ببيت صغير في قرية جبلية وحديقة تزرع في أرضها ما تشاء من النباتات، الخضروات، الفاكهة والأزهار.
أمي، بالرغم من حُبها المكتسب لعكّا، لا زالت تحتفظ بذاك الشوق للجبل والقرية ولحديقة تفرش عليها أحلام فلاحة صغيرة - ما لي ومال المُدن؟-، أحلام ستثمر كي تؤنسها فيما بعد في غيابنا، نحن بناتها وأبنائها، عندما سنكبر ونترك المدينة الصغيرة بحثًا عن ميناء آخر. My mother Shadia (Um Iskander) is a refugee from the village of Iqrith in the district of Safad, but was born in the village of Rameh in Galilee.
She has worked as a nurse for more than twenty years in the village of Sajur, bordering the village of Rameh.
Since my mother and father married in 1982 and chose Akka to be their home (the birthplace of my father and his first love – with the permission of my mother), my mother has dreamt, and still is dreaming, of a small house in a mountain village with a garden in whose soil she grows the plants, vegetables, fruits and flowers she wishes.
My mother, despite the love she has developed for Akka, still maintains a longing for the mountain and the village and the garden carpeted with the dreams of a young peasant woman – what have cities got to do with her anyway? – dreams that will bear fruit in order to keep her company during our absence, we her sons and daughters, when we grow older and leave the small city looking for another port.

Shadia's garden

قبل عام تقريبًا، أحضر والدي لوالدتي ثلاثة أصص بلون الخشب وضعهم على الشباك المركزي للبيت المُطّل بجانبه على البحر.
لم تزرع والدتي في الأصص الأزهار الملونة؛ زرعت النعنع، الميرامية، الفلفل الأحمر، الروزماري..
والدتي، بعد سبعة وعشرين عامًا في عكّا، وجدت لها معادلة بسيطة نجحت من خلالها أن تُحضر الرامة وإقرث إلى بيتها في الطابق الثالث من بناية قديمة في مدينة يحيطها البحر، وأن تتوقف عن شراء النعنع من السوق. About a year ago, my father brought my mother three wood-coloured flowerpots and placed them on the [sill of the] main window of the apartment overlooking the side next to the sea.
My mother did not plant colourful flowers in the pots; she planted mint, sage, red pepper, rosemary…
My mother, after twenty-seven years in Akka, has found a simple equation by means of which she has succeeded both in bringing Rameh and Iqrith to her home on the third floor of an old building in the city surrounded by the sea, and in stopping buying mint from the market.