A Day in the Life of Nora
Nora is a 23 year-old woman from Syria living in an informal settlement. She started working at 13 and married when she was fifteen years old, having her first child the following year. Nora works in agriculture where she plants and picks fruit and vegetables to help support her family before returning home to care for her children.
Nora’s day starts very early: she wakes up at 5 am to pray. Nora says: ‘Praying is very important to me, I pray five times a day. I ask Allah for a lot of things but the most important is to keep my children healthy and safe’.
Nora then starts making breakfast for the family and children. Then she gets ready to go to work, puts on a long covering dress, covers her face with a scarf, and wears a hat before going to work in the fields.
Nora first started working in farming when she was 13 years old. She didn’t stop after getting married. Now she works even more to support her family. Nora plants and picks fruit and vegetables from 6 am until 11 am, goes back home for a break, and at 3 pm, she returns to work for another 3 hours. Nora says: ‘I make 1 JOD per hour and I usually give the money to my husband who looks after it’.
Nora’s mother taught her how to do housework when she was 13. Now, she is in charge of all the household chores, she raises the children, takes care of her husband as well as his family. Any spare time she spends doing the laundry.
Nora says: ‘My husband supports me with the house chores sometimes. He is supportive and very helpful and understanding’.
Nora is a very good cook. She learned when she was a child. First she started by making simple meals like fried potatoes, pasta, and rice. In her tent kitchen she cooks on a portable stove on the floor. Nora says: ‘It’s the part of my day I really enjoy, although I don’t always feel like doing it. After coming home from work, I feel very tired, but I don’t have a choice or else my children won’t eat’.
After returning from the fields, Nora spends all her time with her children.
Nora bathes her two children every day. They love playing in the water during the summer, especially when her tent gets very hot without any air conditioning.
Nora got married at 15, she had 5 miscarriages in one year. After getting treatment for it, her first child was born when she was only 16.
Nora goes to sleep at 10 pm almost every day. She gets her children ready for bed, feeds them and change their clothes. ‘I don’t get to see my friends like I used to, we only meet at weddings, or Eid celebrations. We all have families to care for and barely have any time for recreation’.
