Polio drops

As if Syria needed any more demons in its midst, there has been a recent outbreak of polio, and over 500 children are suspected to be infected with it. Officials at Za'atari are worried the disease will come into the camp via the 300 new arrivals they receive each day from Syria, so UNICEF has just funded and implemented a mass vaccination scheme which they asked me to photograph for the New York office this week.

I left home at 7am. Having gone to bed late as always, I hoped the dwarves might wake a little later than normal but at 5.30am a small creature in blue pyjamas crept into my room whimpering: 'I want to go to Grandma and Gran Gran's houses. I want to go on the sleeper train and make blackcurrant jelly.' I think he'd had a dream about the brace of beloved Grandmothers. I explained there wasn't much I could do about it right now, but did he want to come and sit in my office while I got my camera kit together? His face lit up. My den has a metaphorical no entry sign around 1 metre up the door. The Lozenge sat on my swivel chair drawing with my coloured pens and said: 'Now I can be a weal offith worker.'

Then Rashimi awoke with a high temperature and understandably in a bad mood. I left St Grace with the duo, a thermometer and a large bottle of Calpol, hoping I'd chosen the right lenses. They stood in their usual position on the window ledge and waved me off until I rounded the corner.

We arrived at the camp where the warm wind picked up the dust and whipped it into our faces as we followed the health workers on their caravan to caravan polio vaccination trail.  Every child under 5 needed to have the drops put in their mouths, and as a caravan was vaccinated one of the team, in a dramatic black hijab, pale blue UN vest and bright red nails, set about spray painting 'OPV' in paint to match her nails on the exterior. This meant the tent or caravan had been vaccinated.

I was relieved to be behind a camera and not responsible for even one of the 500 wailing children, who were summoned, purposefully gripped and administered with a few of the drops on the tongue.

We met some lovely families as always, and a cameraman and I hung back and interviewed one family about their lives in the camp for a film he was making. Unfortunately, by hanging back, we were separated from the rest of the group and therefore from the translator, so I found myself in the position of translator which is laughable considering one Jordanian lady recently complimented me on my: 'really sweet broken Arabic'. But since the cameraman had only a few words up his sleeve, and I seemed to have at least one more sleeve-full, the rule of relativity applied. We got by and made some more friends, including a very together seeming family who had planted a vegetable garden in the dust in front of their caravan. The mother of the family was 16, pregnant with her second child, having married at 14.

The camp is so huge now, and the rows of caravans and tents so similar looking I could not have found my way back to see the family I made this film with a couple of weeks ago, but I wished I could have gone to see them as they are so nice and we developed quite a rapport in the time we spent together.  I spoke to the cameraman about the early marriage debate, since it's always the first story journalists from outside want to report. But it's really a non-story, since many girls back in Syria would have been marrying at this age anyway. The fact that girls like Manal (not her real name) in the film below, think that there are opportunities for education in a refugee camp, that they would not have had at home, is an interesting angle - but not one a news agency would want as might look like good news.

https://vimeo.com/77582844

I got back home in the late afternoon to find rather a hot and floppy Rashimi who said: 'Lie. Lap. Peppa.' And we did just that. I was rather relieved to lie down on a beanbag by that stage in the day myself. And although Peppa Pig wouldn't have been my first choice, I saw a muddy puddle for the first time in three months.

The Lozenge had his Arab dressing up day in lieu of Halloween at school, but nothing would have convinced him to put on the red and white headgear. 'I will be a doctor, and only a doctor.' So a doctor he was.

There is still a small lion teddy on the swivel chair in my office. A reminder of our early morning antics which seems like longer than a week ago.

J gets back for the weekend this evening, which cannot come quick enough. It also seems like years that he's been away.