Review: Salam Neighbor

Salam Neighbor is a documentary that focuses on Syrian refugees in the refugee camp, Zaatari, located in Jordan. This refugee camp has about 80,000 refugees living in it and this documentary explores the unknown inside of it and brings awareness of the problems that occur in the life of a refugee. Two Americans go to the camp and use the same resources that the refugees are given and they learn about and live for a month in Zaatari. While it is great that these two Americans are focusing on bringing awareness to the world about the difficult lives of refugees, it also makes me wonder how this is impacting actual Syrian refugees. Since both of the Americans got resources like a tent, boxes of food, blankets, etc., just as a refugee would there were then less resources for Syrians whose lives actually depended on the resources and space. I understand that to get the full attention of the audience they have to live as if they are refugees themselves but I can’t help and think the food and tent could’ve gone to a needier recipient.
Seeing this documentary did help show me how difficult this lifestyle would be. The Americans had plans to spend every night in the camp but once they got there and set up their tent, the camp security came around and told them it was too risky and extremely unsafe for them to stay unprotected throughout the night. There had been a lot of violence leading up to them coming and with some Syrians knowing they were Americans, security was worried they would be robbed. I understand that the safety of these two Americans is extremely important and it would be a tragedy if anything bad happened to them while they were trying to do a good thing but I also think about how the people living in the camp feel every night when they go to sleep. Another difficult thing to convey since the two people were American and only staying for one month is how difficult it is to find work within the camp. The documentary showed some people working but they sometimes had to leave the camp in order to find a job and not everyone had the means to get themselves to and from work. This was a factor that was not fully explored since it would’ve been hard to portray and show people what life was really like for refugees. Having people who are of Syrian descent might have shown a better perspective just so that they wouldn’t be at risk of staying in the camp and if they were able to stay longer a normal life could’ve been better portrayed. Staying longer would however cause actual refugees be limited more to the resources they need so it’s definitely a debatable topic.
One of the most amazing aspects of this documentary was seeing how kind and caring the refugees were to these American people. It could have been because they were on camera but I do believe that these people have the desire to help people in any way they can and want to give their families the best life possible. I could never imagine living a life such as this and it was great seeing and learning about the lives of Syrian refugees. Bringing awareness to topics like this is very important and overall the Americans did a good job at respecting the lives the Syrian refugees lived and wanting to help them.