Mobile Clinic medical day in Jenin Refugee Camp

My man proposed to me when he was in prison. It was before his sentencing, and no one knew how long he’d serve. “You might have to wait ten years for the wedding,” his father warned me, “Are you sure?” I said yes. I loved him, and I married him.
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I waited four and a half years for his release. It was hard to wait. I saw him once every six months, with a glass window between us. I remember the day he was released. It was a rainy winter day. I waited for him at home with his family. And then he came in, the man I’d been waiting for.
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I moved to Jenin Refugee Camp to live with him. I grew up in another community nearby, and it’s hard to describe the difference. Every house has someone who was killed or wounded by the military, and the houses are so crowded that I can’t walk around the house without covering the windows because the neighbor across from us can see everything from his. Everyone sees everything all the time. The hardest thing for me is not having open space. In the house where I grew up, we used to sit in the garden, talk and laugh. There’s no such thing in the camp. Most refugees don’t have land of their own.
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My two daughters came with me here today. We’re very close. A few years ago, I was diagnosed with a nerve problem. I lost control over my body. I couldn’t pick up my daughters or cut an apple. At night, I would feel like I had no body, like I was sleeping floating in the air. When my condition got worse, I was hospitalized in Nablus, and I had to leave them.
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That was the worst wait of my life, waiting to be with my daughters. For two months, my husband took care of them on his own and came to visit me every day. When I came back home, the little one wouldn’t nurse anymore. As far as she was concerned, I’d abandoned her. Our relationship has gotten better since, but to this day, I feel like she loves her father more.
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We met Jumana during a Mobile Clinic medical day in Jenin Refugee Camp.
Humans_of_the_Mobile_Clinic

Photo and interview by Yuval Abraham of (PHR-Israel)

Doctors for Human Rights (MEDU) has been collaborating since 2009 with the organization Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel) to protect the health of women and children in the Occupied Palestinian Territories –