By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
PAM Mamouney stood next to her daughter at the Turkish-Syrian border with tears in her eyes.
Pam’s study tour to Turkey, on which she was invited last year by the Australian Intercultural Society, had brought her outside a refugee camp on the border where displaced Syrians picking peppers in the fields approached the Westerners with dirt staining their garments and sorrow written on their faces.
There was Pam, a 79-year-old volunteer from Berwick, fighting the good fight a short walk from Syria.
The small group of tourists, including Pam, the Casey Multi-faith Network Vice-President, gave the refugees what money they had.
“We were all crying, we felt so sorry for them,” Pam said of meeting the refugees.
“It was so moving. One said his family were killed in the bombing in Syria, it was so moving to talk to them.
“At first they were very shy then the men came over and the women came over. They had dirt on their long dresses.”
Last week Pam, a practising Mormon who belongs to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, shared her story with members of both the Casey Multi-faith Network and the Berwick Probus group.
In September she embarked on the tour of Turkey with her daughter, Sue Frost, and a group of six or so other dignitaries of different races and religions, including Jews, Christians and Muslims.
Pam said she was asked to join the tour by the Melbourne contingent of the Australian Intercultural Society, with the aim of “building bridges between Westerners and Muslims.”
Pam, who asked her daughter to accompany her on the 13-day trip, said it was an incredible and insightful tour, and hoped she was able to give back as much to the local community as she took away.
“It was to teach Westerners to break down barriers,” Pam said.
“We learnt about schools in Turkey where teachers are educating young men and women and helping to break down radicalism.
“Education is the key.”
As upsetting as it was to see the Syrian refugees who had fled from a homeland torn apart by civil conflict for the last several years, Pam said the Turkish people were treating the refugees well.
But that does little to negate the ruin Syria has become. When stepping off the tour bus, on the Turkish side of the border, Pam was warned to look out for landmines.
In her diary, Pam’s daughter Sue writes of their brief but telling journey to the border, as the tour headed to the Turkish city of Harran.
“We went past a refugee camp with all the refugees from Syria down to the border, kids running up along the bus trying to sell you water, the scene brought tears to my eyes,” she wrote.
“We literally just drove by slowly then headed back up to Harran. We stopped about five minutes up the road where some Syrian refugees were picking peppers, our guides started talking to them.
“Some women didn’t come over till the end, we got photos with them and gave them some water and some of the nuts we had with us and some money as well.”
