Learning about the Chechens

8 August 2007
Note: Do not try teaching anything the morning after a wedding. The kids are high on candy and stayed up until the wee hours of the morning dancing. There was complete pandemonium among the children. So we went to visit with the social workers first. Fascinating stuff and I will try to compile it.

There are about 170 people, and the center has been open for about a year and three months. In all of that time, only about 5 families out of 40 have received Refugee status. While at the center, there is no cultural immersion, but in the last 3 years the social workers have had some extra training on cultural differences and they are the ones whoa re the first permanent Polish contact for the refugees. The most common cultural problems are:
∑ Lots of stress from PTSD and living in the center
∑ Relationships between men and women is different from what they are used to—the social workers are women and the men are not accustomed to having women in higher positions than the men
∑ Their attitude towards time is very lax
∑ Many times they don’t care about laws and legal implications and believe that final decisions can be changed or bought
∑ At the center, many people get married easily and fight and beat up on each other
∑ Family violence is normal
∑ Authority is respected in older people—not through education or experience
∑ Clan relationships are strong, and it is important to know who is related to whom

Domestic violence
Is there any education on DV and how do Chechens react to dv?
It is difficult because of the Muslim relations—women are completely dependent on the man, and intervention is breaking power and authority and power and honor of the man, and the woman will not go to the police to ask for the violence to stop. If the police do get involved, the woman will not request for the violence to stop for good, just here and now. Talking to the husband individually is very tricky because he can get mad that his wife told the social workers about family problems. There are very rare cases where a woman will want to leave, and in those cases the social workers will prepare a way for her to leave and go to a shelter. The concept is that a woman will lose her honor if she leaves because she won’t have a husband, father, or brother to take care of her.

Can a woman decide whom to marry? There are two ways: A father will arrange the marriage of his children with another father, or it will be a love marriage, where the children fall in love but the fathers still make the contract. Divorce is very simple for me because they can simply say, “I divorce you” three times. Polygamy is practiced because with war, many men are dying and one man will marry many women (widows) to support the women and help the nation survive.

Why are there so many single men in the camp? First of all, many of the men might be married, but their wife might be somewhere else. Secondly, there are many young men because at the age of 16, the Russian military will recruit the boys, or the Chechen fighters will kidnap them at night to become fighters. For parents, their main responsibility is to keep their sons safe and so they come here to keep them alive and from having to fight.

(This part really struck me. All of these boys, Ramzan, Mohammed… these young guys that we talk to and are practicing their flirting skills with us are ones those people. I don’t know, this part makes my heart hurt.)

Asked about the wedding and the newly weds—They will probably not be living together, but she will join her husband’s family. But in this case, there is the question of if they are legally married or not. First of all, they need written permission from her parents, and also Poland does not legally permit people under the age of 18 to be married. The social workers are very worried about the psychological impact this young marriage will have on the girl.

The social workers don’t know in advance if any new people are coming to the center, and each family will only get one room. There are no free time activities arranged, mostly because Smoszewo is so far away that NGOs don’t really come here to organize anything. If someone dies while at the center, the family can have him buried in the Muslim cemetery in Warsaw (government pays) or they can send the body back to Chechnya. Most people will send it back to Chechnya because it is good for the body to be buried in the home country.

(This reminded me of Suljeman Tulovich, who killed those people at Trolley Square—his family took his body back to Bosnia, and I wondered a little bit about why, since he had killed so many people. But that is what must be done.)

Since it rained, classes were a little bit late and we ended up with complete pandemonium and chaos with the children. But, we did manage to play ring around the rosy with them and fall down many, many times. Duck duck goose, or cat cat wolf was also really fun.

The women’s English class was fun as usual, and the girls are so eager to learn. They are really good at learning English and pick up on things really quickly. I wish I were as quick at learning Russian as they are, but of course, I am not in classes either. We taught them how to tell time, to be, to have, and the family. I really like these girls so, so much.

After class, we had a special invitation to go to dinner at Hadijas’s house. She wasn’t cooking for us of course, but her mother was, and it was so good! It was potato dumplings (kind of like gnocchi) and chicken. It was strange, the women didn’t eat with us, and I guess when people have guests, the women aren’t allowed to be at the same table as men. But they did join us after dinner, and we had a really great conversation with the women about life in Chechnya for about 2-3 hours. Wow, I wish I could remember everything that we talked about! I love those women, and they are so beautiful and open talking with us. They were also concerned with the marriage of the 12 year old, and they said that it really wasn’t a traditional wedding. They told us about their own weddings, and they were both kidnapped! I guess that is tradition in Chechnya, to kidnap the bride. Of course, she could then refuse and the guy who kidnaps her will have to pay her family a fine because he took something that doesn’t belong to him. One was kidnapped by a friend, and the other by a guy whose name she didn’t even know. But, after considering it, they both decided to accept the marriage offers. I suppose that takes out all the pains of dating, if that is what you are into. They told us also about life in Chechnya—that it was a beautiful country and a bit about their families. But now, almost everyone has lost family members to the Chechen war. The husband of one of the women lost 12 members of his family. And the war won’t end anytime soon either—there are too many natural resources, such as oil in Chechnya and the Russians soldiers are making a living taking advantage of everything and everyone there. They would like to return, but they have moved here for their children,

I can’t remember much more…