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Dubai: The thundering roar of warplanes had fallen silent for a few hours and the children had settled into a deep slumber.
As quiet fell across the dark October morning in 2004, Jasser Salem decided to do the inevitable and flee Palestine. He had to find peace and bring a semblance of normalcy to the lives of his wife and four children.
As he tiptoed out of the house, Salem had just one thought racing in his mind - it would be a long time before he would be back to these green lands of Tulkarem. As his wife bid him goodbye, Salem fought back tears. "I saw my daughters sleeping, I had to stop myself from crying, so my wife would not see my tears. I wished things had not changed."
Salem knew exactly where he was going, the one place where he could earn a living for his family. He was on his way to the UAE.
That winter day he was running away to escape the creeping hand of poverty, but it had not always been like this. "We had beautiful agricultural lands that had been worked on by family members generation after generation. We used to grow oranges and olives, we exported fruit and vegetables ... Following the Palestinian uprising in 2000, the little land that we had left was literally being stolen before our eyes," he said.
His fortunes took a dramatic turn for the worse when there was a renewed wave of Palestinian protests against the Israeli occupation. On September 2000, a popular peaceful protest was met with bullets and firepower from the occupying Israeli forces. "Nablus, my hometown, was the hardest hit. Money was running out. The business was in shambles."
Distant dream
Salem, an engineering graduate, soon found hope in the form of a job offer by a friend in the UAE. "Leaving my wife and daughters behind was very traumatic ... I feared for their security and welfare, but had no choice."
Four years on, his family has survived and he says he is indebted to the UAE. His wife and daughters joined him in Abu Dhabi last September.
"Our problems have not disappeared ... all our savings have vanished. But with the hope that I call the UAE, we are not defeated, yet," Salem said.
Palestine is a distant dream today. The only home that the Salems relate to is the one-bedroom rented apartment in Abu Dhabi. "It's not the palatial house that we once lived in, but it's home and we are happy," Salem said.
For 24-year-old Sumi Ahmad, happiness is her six-year-old daughter in Bangladesh. Sumi was 17 when she was forced to marry a soldier in the Bangladeshi army. Things turned for the worse when he eloped with another woman and deserted her when she was pregnant.
She soon found herself at a recruitment agency that provided jobs in the UAE. She left her one-year-old daughter with her mother and moved to Dubai to work as a housemaid. Five years later, she still has not gone home. "For my daughter I am only a voice that sends her money and gifts on birthdays and holidays. Sometimes she gives me options of either coming back home or sending more chocolates," she says.
She said security and better currency exchange rates have helped her stay. "If I hadn't moved, I would never have earned enough to support my daughter," said Sumi. She's seeing better days, she added, especially when compared to life in Bangladesh, what with the present political turmoil and lack of job opportunities. "I was lucky to have got a job in Dubai," she says.
Two stories, two lives, two families managing to live, grow and seek happiness in a country that gives them the opportunity to dream.
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