The Unknown Conflict

In the middle of the greates desert in the world, more preciesly at 27.674N and -8.148W, around 387 meter above the sea, a people with a long nomadic history lives. Stucked in 135F they from day to day, waiting to get their land back. They are forced to stay at one place, only with their tents and small simple brickhouse, and they have been there for the last 31 years.
Nearly 200.000 people lives in these 5 camps in the south-western part of Algieria, most of them are women and children because the young men has to go to the military or has died in the war - a war against Marocco that ended with a ceasefire in 1991.
According to the International Court in Hague neither Marocco or Mauritania has the right to the land in Western Sahara, still the who lived there cannot return. Most countries do not regonize Western Sahara as a country, not even the Nordic countries.

The history of the area is long, it started out with Arabziation in 11th century where also Islam had its influence in the area, therefore all the people in the camps today are muslims, however with a slightly touch of their own old history as nomades.
In 1884 the Spanish claimed their rights to the area. From 1910 and onwards there were many uprisings, where the Saharawies fought against both the French and the Spainards. In 1973 after a long fight, the Spainards lost control on the countryside and in 1975 they gave up and left the country. Franco was dying and the people in Spain had to get rid of the "conflict area" as fast as possible, so they didnt have a plan for the area when they left.
In the end of 1975, Mariutania and Marroco attacked what was called "Spanish Sahara" (Today, Western Sahara). That was even though the UN had decided that the area belong to POLISARIO (The organization that the Saharawies were in)
The Saharawies had been fighting the Spainards for many years and now they got attacked from two sides again. Many people fled to the eastern part of the country, however constanct airial bombings with napalm forced the refugees to escape into Algeria.
The Algierans allowed the refugees to put up some tents in the middle of the desert, today the tents has developed into 5 towns.
In the 1980's the Maroocans started to build was today is known as the Wall of Shame. A long wall, longer than the Chinese wall, splitting Western Sahara into two. Today there are still minefields in great parts of the area.
In 1990 a ceasefire was agreed on and there was a plan for a referendum in 1991, however it never came because of discussions about who had the right to vote. James Baker (former Secretary of State in the US) tried to get a new referendum through in 2003 but failed and tried later on with a Baker Plan 2 that also failed.

I spent two months in the camp where I stayed with a family, together with my co-year Max and a girl from Mahindra college (Alissa). We stayed in a very simple "house" (room) with mud-brick walls. Every family has their own tents, both as a reminder of their nomade culture, furthermore it is also used as the "fine room". Every family is around 20 people and they have two small "houses", a tent and a little kitchen that surrounds the courtyard. Behind you find the "toilet and bath" which is basically just a hole in the ground. Some families, like the one we stayed with, had a guest toilet (a whole surround by ceramics). The showers is a bucket of water, of course the water is freshly taken from the dwell.
It is the women who does most of the housework, the men eat, drink tea and relax, nevertheless it is not a patriach system, but strongly controlled my the Mother in the house. It is not uncommon that the kids gets beaten, the older kids just beats down the "age group". Still the respect from the kids towards some of the adults in the camp is still very little (or non-exsiting), we tried 2-3 times that small kids were throwing small stones after us when we walked in the streets.

Our students that we taught were very eager to learn. Mostly because they dont have anything else to do in the camp or because their families members already had studied in Cuba or in Algeria. The literacy rate amongst the Saharawis is more than 90%, that is one of the highest in Africa and far higher than Algeria and Marocco. The reason is that Spain still have som guilt, so they send some students to Spain every summer. Furthermore, Cuba is taking a lof students in every year. The best students are "taken" from the camps when they are 10-11 years old and then they spend 12 years in Cuba where they study at university.
It was very difficult to teach my students in the begining. Most of them were women, hence they were totally covered, every their eyes. That meant that I first of all couldnt sepearte who was who and second, I couldnt hear what they were saying because of the cover in the front of their mouths. My students were used to a very different teaching than the "Hippie kind of style" that I am used to from the Nordic school system, so instead of games they wanted to repeat every single word 200000 times. Still when asked for the 20th time: "What - is - your - name?" the answer would be: "My are from Sahara"......

The food in the camps is a whole chapter for itself. Most of it comes from the World Food Program (WFP) however, they also grow some of their own vegetables. The food is simple but also very tasty sometimes. A big dinner would normally start out with tea and dates. Then they would have slaugther a camel (for weddings for example) or a goat. To the goat their will be french frites and white bread. Of course you eat with your fingers, even though the tourists can get cuttlery.
Water is very prized in the camps and there are 5 different kinds of it. The water from the dwell is used for cooking, showering, and to wipe yourself with after you have been to the toilet. The water from some big tanks outside the camp that is pumped up from the ground that is used for drinking. Then they have special tea-water that they use for the tea. This water is pumped up from the underground, but only at some special places. Then there is the bottled water for the tourists. And finally the water that falls from the sky and destroys the house with flods.
Did I tell you that they also have a soft-ice machine in the camps?!

Politics is discussed widely in the camps, most of the times it is the same story all over again you hear. "The Morrocans are bad, we are good. Tell the rest of the world.", but sometimes you get different stories. You hear about the people who tries to do everything they can to get a passport to the west. People who complain about the way that SADR (The Saharawi goverment) is run (for example that it is all the time the same people from the same tribe getting the post posts.) Still, I felt that almost everyone in the camp would be ready to go and fight again if a war broke out again.
After 31 years in the desert they still believe that they will get their land back....even though no one knows about them.....