Syrian refugees marry far from home but close to war

A young couple who separately fled Syria’s brutal civil war got married Friday in Jordan, hundreds of miles from where they grew up.

Ahmad Khalid and Fatheya Mohammed, both 21, come from Hasakah in northeastern Syria. He arrived with his family four years ago, and she came this year. Four months ago, they got engaged. And on Friday, in a settlement of about seven tents nestling between Syria's southern border and the northern Jordanian city of Mafraq, relatives and friends gathered to mark the couple's union as their country continues to fracture.

More than 4 million Syrians have streamed out of their country since March 2011, the United Nations reported this year. Jordan has taken in more than 630,000 of them. Thousands of refugees have left registered camps in favor of a bit more freedom, eager for any semblance of their pre-war lives and a chance to find work to provide more for their families.

The wedding was "very humble and low-profile," according to an account by Muhammed Muheisen, a chief photographer at the Associated Press who went to the settlement and witnessed the special event.

Muheisen spoke with the groom as he finished getting ready with the help of a friend. Earlier, Khalid had asked for his mother's blessing.

Khalid wore a pink shirt and a striped tie. There was a slight burn on the shirt's right sleeve, the result of an old iron that burned the fabric. Muheisen said there wasn't much talking between the two friends, "but I could see that they were both very excited.”

Once he was dressed, Khalid left in a four-car convoy to bring Mohammed back from a nearby salon to the settlement, where they were greeted by relatives and friends. They walked out of the car to a tent decorated with a blanket. Behind the tent, women were cooking chicken and stew.

They sat on chairs outside as about 20 close family members and 40 other guests gathered around them. People then came to congratulate the newlyweds, saying, "Mabrook, mabrook." There was dancing and singing, with traditional Syrian music flowing from a small speaker nearby.

“He was so happy. She was so shy, and she looked kind of lost,” Muheisen recalled. The photographer spoke with her briefly; she kept mostly to herself. “I think she was hoping for something different,” Muheisen said, like a big traditional celebration with family and friends.

He didn’t pry, as it was an intimate affair. They invited him to dinner, but he politely declined. It was getting late and the roads back to Amman, the Jordanian capital, would get dark soon. Before he left, he watched people pin modest Jordanian bills to the groom’s shirt and the bride’s rented dress. “It was very, very humble,” he said.

On the drive back, Muheisen replayed the afternoon's events in his mind. The newlyweds were happy, but it wasn't "complete," he thought. "There was something missing — the stability.” Maybe that would come with time.

Around then, he remembered something the groom had told him. “I wish things were different,” he recalled Khalid saying, “but at least we are having our wedding. At least we are doing something.”

Source: The Washington Post