Episode 1 The Refugee Camp: Our Desert Home

This programme contains some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting

I've come to a wedding... with a difference. CHEERING

I don't know who's covered in more of the stuff, the bride or me.

It's taking place in a refugee camp in Jordan, in the Middle East,

and is home to 80,000 people,

who have fled the bombs and bullets or Syria's civil war.

But what was supposed to be a temporary camp has now become

a city the size of Bath,

complete with nine schools,

11 hospitals and clinics,

two supermarkets,

as well as playgrounds and sports centres,

and it's all been built in just the last four years.

SINGING And it's nothing like you'd expect.

It's a tough place to be and no-one would choose to live here,

but, as you can see,

they're making the most of it because,

even in the most difficult of circumstances, life has to go on.

Like any other city on earth,

Zaatari has births, deaths, marriages and everything in-between.

And in this series,

I will be exploring it with A&E doctor Javid Abdelmoneim.

How often are you changing the dressings in a week?

He'll be meeting the children recovering from the injuries of war.

That big wound there is in the vicinity of a nerve.

Journalist Ben Timberlake, a hostile environment expert,

will find out how you feed tens of thousands of people

who are far from home.

90,000 loaves of bread come out of here in one night?

So you've got the most important job in the camp.

Meanwhile, I'll be meeting the army of workers that provide

the essentials of food, shelter and water in a desert.

Absolutely amazing.

He's got it all up here. Who needs computers?

The Syrian civil war has led to the biggest humanitarian crisis of our time.

And we'll be getting under the skin of this unique metropolis,

a place of huge logistical challenges,

incredible, human stories...

To discover how the spirit and ingenuity of the people

who live here have turned this refugee camp

into somewhere they can call home.

Welcome to Zaatari.

Four years ago, there was nothing here except desert.

Now Zaatari is home to 80,000 people,

one of the biggest cities in all of Jordan.

It's in the far north of the country,

just a few miles from the Syrian border.

It's my first day here

and the obvious place to start is on the high street.

This is not what I was expecting at all.

It's my first time in a refugee camp

and maybe this isn't a typical set-up.

Over 60% of people here have lived in Zaatari for more than two years,

which has helped to create a strong sense of identity

and community in the camp.

From a collection of tents in the desert,

Zaatari has grown organically as more and more refugees have arrived.

It's now made up of 24,000 homes

and covers more than five square kilometres.

Dominating the camp, there are two key roads -

Saudi Street and the main drag,

which the locals have nicknamed the "Champs Elysees".

Just trying to get my head around the scale of it. It's huge.

It seems to just go on and on and on,

and it's business after business after business.

Since Zaatari was established,

almost 3,000 small businesses have sprung up here

as refugees have used whatever money

they've brought from Syria to set up shop.

Somebody's selling spices.

Oh, that smells amazing.

Telephone repair shop,

second-hand TVs in the satellite shop,

toys, torches, socks, clothes, shoes and boots,

bicycles, kettles, nappies...

You name it. I mean, this is... This is just...

This doesn't feel like I'm in a refugee camp at all.

Zaatari is run and paid for by the Jordanian government

and UN's Refugee Agency, along with over 30 different charities

at a cost of £10m a month.

But it is the refugees that have given the camp its character

as they've tried to replicate life back in Syria.

Oh, wow. This is quite interesting.

Now I was not expecting to see ballgowns here!

Assalaamu Alaikum. Salam.

When do Syrian women wear these dresses?

Wow. I had no idea that this is what women wore on their wedding.

They're very glamorous. They're very revealing.

That is incredible.

You know, it's silly to think that I was surprised that

a wedding shop would exist in a refugee camp

cos, of course, people need to get married.

And maybe there will be a wedding I could gate-crash.

HE LAUGHS

There are more than ten weddings in the camp every single week.

Though no-one would choose to marry here,

just as no-one would choose to live here,

it's a sign that people are getting on with their lives.

There's a falafel place just on about every corner here.

Check out how fast this guy is.

How many can you make in a day? How many falafels?

7,000 pieces? That's pretty impressive.

It's very hard for refugees to work legally in Jordan,

but, in the camp, the authorities turn a blind eye.

Around 60% of the working age population earn some income,

either from a business

or by working for one of the charities that operate here.

It's enough to give Zaatari a sense of normality,

until you look a little closer.

It's taken me a while to grasp, on the face of it,

this is a completely normal high street.

But, actually, there isn't a single building that's got a first floor.

It's a clear indication of the fact that Zaatari isn't an ordinary town.

And the people here may have escaped war,

but they have no citizenship rights in Jordan

and aren't allowed to leave the camp without a permit.

I keep having to remind myself that everybody who lives here

is here because, just six miles in that direction,

there is a war raging in their country.

After five years of this brutal civil war,

Syria is in ruins.

Civilian areas have borne the brunt of the fighting,

with thousands of schools, hospitals and houses turned to rubble.

A quarter of a million people have been killed

and more than five million have fled.

Of those, a million have made the journey to Europe whilst the

majority have stayed in neighbouring countries.

Now thousands of Syrians are trying to build new homes

and new lives here in Zaatari.

So, when you step off the main road, this is what it's like.

It's not Tarmac-ed at all. It's just the raw desert underfoot -

very dusty, very sandy -

and then there's just rows and rows of these pre-fabricated caravans

that everyone lives in, really.

It's all very samey, it's all very monotonous, it's all very basic.

When people first came here in July 2012,

they were initially living in tents.

But as temperatures range from below freezing to over 40,

the tents have been replaced by 24,000 portakabins.

I'm on my way to meet someone who has turned his portakabin

into one of the most distinctive homes in the camp.

What is that?

That's the first swing I've seen.

CHILDREN SHOUTING Someone's having fun.

Assalaamu Alaikum.

-Hello, hello, hello!

-Oh, hello, hello!

Did you build this?

What else have you built?

I'm fascinated by your house.

Can we have a look inside?

He's got yoghurt, he's got cheese, and that's butter.

Yeah.

And that's because this is really cool.

So it's like a fridge.

Yeah.

If you're bald, you've got brains.

SHE LAUGHS

So you made a gym?

You ready?

SHE GROANS

HE LAUGHS

THEY LAUGHS

'As well as being a handyman about the house,

'back in Syria, Ziad made a living by selling fruit and veg.'

Oh, wow! ROOSTER CROW

Of course you'd have a garden.

Ziad, this is incredible.

Hmm.

Mint.

What was your house in Syria like?

How does it feel to have had to leave it all behind?

So just how bad were things in Syria when you left?

'Like everyone in Zaatari, Ziad has left everything behind,

'but he is doing all he can to turn this small patch of desert

'into a new home.'

Ziad, what type of tree is this?

Lemons.

We're planting a lemon tree in the desert - fantastic.

It's a bit rocky.

To have a herb garden in the desert is not an easy job.

SHE LAUGHS

You're going to call it Anita?

HE LAUGHS

I hope it gives you nice, big, juicy lemons.

Well, that was totally unexpected.

I'm amazed at Ziad's ingenuity.

He's obviously the Mr Fix It who can build absolutely anything.

Even in a desert, in a refugee camp, humans have the ability

to turn a little corner of it into their castle.

But despite Ziad's talents, it's hard to imagine anyone

surviving here without the help of the authorities,

who provide the building blocks of life in the camp.

There's just so much to get your head around about this place,

how it was set up and how it's run.

So I'm off to meet the guy who's the top dog here,

who's in control of the entire camp.

Assalaamu Alaikum.

-This is one of the imams.

-Ah, Assalaamu Alaikum.

Hovig Etyemezian, from Lebanon, is the UN's manager on-site,

and knows how hard it is to establish a camp like this.

I think every camp has different stages.

At its inception,

usually it's difficult moments where you have thousands of

refugees crossing the border, traumatised, in need of assistance.

So at the beginning, it's usually a little bit more chaotic.

Although the camp seems safe and well organised,

Zaatari used to be a very different place.

In the early days, crime was rife, and there were a couple of

riots every week, as residents fought for better conditions.

Now, thanks to a local Jordanian police force,

and the maturing services, the situation has got better.

How much of the way Zaatari has developed and become what it is,

how much of that is down to the people themselves,

the Syrian people that are here?

I think, most of it, the refugees take the credit.

Because what happens in camps is that refugees try

to replicate a resemblance of what is a normal life back home.

In a camp set-up.

It is also not a secret that we have a highly skilled Syrian population.

We have the doctors and the engineers and the teachers

and the carpenters and the welders and all of them are trying to

make the best out of a situation.

What does Zaatari say about the Syrian people?

Life in a camp is a very difficult life. It's a life of dependency.

But the Syrians are not waiting for a hand-out,

they are pushing the boundaries.

They are trying to, within the realm of possibilities,

have a decent life.

You can see that, that's all around us.

With 80,000 people living here, Zaatari is now full.

But a few refugees every month still move into the camp,

because they have a medical need to be here.

As a doctor himself, Javid Abudul-Monim is heading to

one of the camp's hospitals to find out what they have to deal with.

Which patients do you envisage coming in this ward?

We'll put a patient with a spinal-cord injury here,

and another one next to him.

There are 11 hospitals and medical centres in Zaatari.

They all treat the usual health issues that you'd find in

any city of this size, anywhere in the world.

Except this one.

It's run by the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres,

and looks after patients recovering from injuries of war.

-So they're all trauma victims?

-Yes, they are all blast injury.

Recently, we are receiving more spinal-cord injuries than before.

-So they come with paraplegia, hemiplegia, sometimes quadriplegia.

-Gosh.

We received patients who couldn't move anything but their face.

-It's really difficult. They are young people.

-It's a lot of input.

One third of the hospitals in Syria have been destroyed,

and half the country's doctors have fled.

So many injured Syrians end up leaving their homeland for treatment.

Every week, we receive five to six patients,

today we are receiving seven.

When they come, they're weak, they are hungry, they are cold.

So we have everything ready for them, we welcome them,

and give them what they need.

There are 40 beds in the hospital,

looked after by ten foreign and Jordanian doctors.

They oversee the rehabilitation of patients here.

But major surgery takes place at hospitals elsewhere in Jordan.

So I've just been given a list of the admissions this afternoon.

Seven patients.

The first two are related, it's an aunt and niece.

The niece is only ten months old.

Her mother died in the very same explosion.

The next three are 22, 21 and 20-year-olds,

all with spinal-cord injuries.

And the last two are orthopaedic - one with a thigh bone fracture,

but also a head injury and a left arm broken.

And the other is a right above-knee amputation,

so a whole list of blast injuries.

Patients arriving here come from other hospitals

closer to the front line.

They've already had the emergency treatment that in many cases

will have saved their lives.

But many more operations could lie ahead.

It's complicated surgery.

Infections deep in bones, metalwork inside and out, nerve damage,

vessel damage, skin grafting.

It's really high-end surgery, it's not simple stuff.

Even in Britain, this would be tough.

Tomorrow, I'm going to meet some of the patients,

to find out exactly what they need.

Most refugees arrived into the camp

with hardly any possessions or money.

That means the vast majority rely on food aid.

And feeding tens of thousands of people is an enormous challenge.

Hi.

Do I need to get the whole outfit on as well?

Ben Timberlake has come to a bakery in the camp,

run by the World Food Programme.

I feel like I'm scrubbing up for an operation,

rather than making some bread.

Head baker Nibal Sawahla - a baker from Syria who's worked

here for three years - is going to show me around.

It's absolutely huge in here, and dusty.

And incredibly hot as well.

These bags of flour,

how many of those do you get through every night?

Wow.

And how many pieces of bread does that make?

90,000 loaves of bread come out of here in one night?

So you've got the most important job in the camp?

Bread is a staple of Syrian life.

So important, that the bakery opened

just a few months after people first arrived here.

I don't have a clue what I'm doing, but this is like,

welcome to the Great Syrian Bake-Off.

What is this?

OK.

After being mixed, the dough is ready to be shaped into loaves.

Go on!

The weight of each loaf has to be precisely 65g.

Uh-huh.

So you adjust that one.

Now, shall I check?

Bingo!

So all of those little,

tiny balls of dough are now being squished into something

that's much more recognisable as Middle Eastern bread.

Despite the effort that goes into getting every piece of bread

just right...

..it doesn't always go according to plan.

OK, cool.

This is the final bit,

they're going into the oven right now and being baked.

How long do they spend in the oven then?

Five seconds? That's nothing!

It's like the magic of finding out

where little baby pitta breads come from.

How many does every person in the camp get?

How many pieces of bread?

Are they good to eat now?

That's actually very, very good.

Once the bread has cooled, it's packed up.

So the room that was empty about ten minutes ago,

is suddenly starting to fill up with these crates of bread.

All of the people working in the bakery are refugees who live in

the camp, and earn a small wage for their efforts.

After a long night's work here, do you go home and eat more bread,

or are you completely sick of the sight of it?

LAUGHTER

The workers continue through the night.

And at 6am, the bread is ready to be distributed around the camp.

Smells so good in here!

Freshly baked bread, and it's really warm.

The final job of the shift is to load the bread onto the trucks.

All right, here we go.

Last one. We're done.

Now, this truck's going to go to one of four distribution points,

where the residents of the camp will turn up with their vouchers

to receive their four loaves of bread.

I'd better get going.

Now you can see that the camp is coming to life.

Little girls with their rucksacks on going to school.

These women have got their bread.

Carrying it on their heads.

Seeing all these people ready to collect their free bread

is a reminder just how reliant people are on aid.

This is the distribution point, you've got men on one side, women on the other.

-Assalaamu Alaikum.

-Assalaamu Alaikum.

Run by the world food programme,

refugees have to bring their ration cards, showing how many people

are in their family, and therefore how much bread they're entitled to.

How many families are you collecting for?

One, two, three, four,

five, six, seven, eight!

Eight families!

You're going to carry all this bread home?

So this young man, he's got...

Six. So that's 24.

So that'll be one of these, because it's got 18.

And an extra six. They you go.

He's very chatty... Are you all right?

-No, no, no.

-There you go. THE BOY PROTESTS

What do you want?

He's obviously got a problem with my service here.

Things are starting to quiet down,

but they're not going to stop for another hour and a half.

They've been at it from seven till ten in the morning,

and they won't finish until all the bread's gone.

Altogether, more than 300,000 loaves are given out in Zaatari

every single day.

But people can't survive on bread alone.

Residents are free to buy whatever they want

in the various shops on the high street, if they've got the money.

But I'm heading to one of the two supermarkets in Zaatari,

to see what other support people here receive.

When the camp first opened, people were given a food ration box

with the basics - salt, sugar, rice, pasta, lentils.

But as it became obvious they were going to be staying here

longer than they thought, to allow people to feel more normal

and to give them some choice, they decided to change the system,

and now each person in a family is given a £20 food allowance.

So a family of five get £100 per month to spend at two supermarkets

in the camp. One of them is Safeway.

Oh, wow. It's a proper supermarket.

You presume that in a refugee camp things would be quite basic,

but you've got vegetables, fresh fruit, dates, olive oil.

It says here, "Made in Jordan."

With much of the produce home-grown in this country,

the supermarket is one of the ways in which the Jordanian economy

benefits from the arrival of refugees.

It's just like any supermarket in the world,

where they even try and push products on you by samples.

What are we sampling here? What is it?

What am I about to eat?

"Chicken Luncheon," oh, gosh.

Is it good? Let's try. I have to smell it.

Mm. It's like Spam.

The prices are a little bit expensive.

Things in here are not as cheap as you think.

Just under £3 for all those eggs.

So your £20 per person isn't going to go that far.

Everyone in the camp gets that £20 per month from the authorities,

whether they're a baby or an adult.

It isn't a lot of money,

but crucially it allows people here to take control of their own

spending, rather than relying on ration packs and food hand-outs.

HE SHOUTS

I'm back at the hospital, run by Medecins Sans Frontieres,

to meet some of Zaatari's newest arrivals.

-Good morning. Shall we start with the little boy?

-Yes.

-All right.

I'm just going to join the whole team for the morning ward round.

Nine years old,

the patient was injured in Syria and that caused the left eye loss.

-The plan is getting the prosthetic eye.

-The prosthetic eye.

While he waits for a prosthetic eye, Mohamed is living in the

hospital with his father sleeping in the bed next to his.

Identical, huh?

Do you remember that day, Mohamed?

In some respects, Mohamed is one of the lucky ones.

More than 15,000 children have so far been killed during the conflict.

In the ward is another boy, also called Mohamed,

also permanently affected by the war.

His current problem is his tib fib fracture.

Mohamed's leg was severely wounded when

he was hit by shrapnel eight months ago.

-It's an open fracture, soft tissue defect.

-It's open as well?

-Yes.

Soft tissue defect, so a really awful injury.

So, doing the best to save the leg at all costs, rather than amputate?

-Yes.

-How he sustained the injury initially, it was a blast?

OK.

When you're out and about inside Zaatari camp itself, life feels

calm, it feels safe, people are getting on with things,

and it's easy to forget therefore that there's a war going on

just a few miles away.

But in here, in the rehab hospital,

you meet people who have lost limbs, people who are really being

affected by that violence, victims of war. It brings it home.

Mohamed's bones still haven't healed and he needs

regular painful changes of the cast on his leg to prevent

the open wound becoming infected.

HE SHOUTS

How often are you changing the dressings in a week?

We change the dressing twice weekly.

When he's cleaning in there, he feels electric nerve pain

coming down here.

And that big wound there is in the vicinity of a nerve

-which wraps around your knee.

-MOHAMED GROANS

He's lost that nerve, he can't lift up his foot any more.

That's something that cannot recover, so he's

permanently paralysed, in the sense that he can't lift his foot up.

The dressing change is a two-man job, and Mohamed's father,

who lives in the hospital with him, often helps.

He feels that the bone moves and that's what's painful when

the whole leg was lifted, without the support of the plaster of Paris.

So, the bones aren't likely to heal now unless he has a bone graft,

so the plaster there now is really just to stop the bone ends

rubbing and causing him pain.

It's as raw as having two broken bones rubbing against each other.

HE CRIES OUT

Mohamed will have to wait until the risk of infection in his leg

is clear before he can potentially have a bone graft to heal the break.

It still gets me to see this many of this type of injury in one place.

Everybody here has this type of blast injury caused by violence.

Look how many patients are in wheelchairs. That's not normal.

That's when it hits me, that it's something big going on,

something quite extraordinary.

Every one of the 80,000 people in Zaatari has a story about the war.

The home they've given up, the friends or family they might

have lost, the future that was taken from them.

But people here are also trying to build a new future.

In Indian culture, they say the darker the henna,

the more your mother-in-law loves you.

THEY LAUGH

She's got it on her nose! Hang on, hang on, we need a tissue.

She can't be having henna on her nose on her wedding day.

'I've met up with 18-year-old Montaha as she prepares to get

'married to someone she's met in the camp.'

Tell me about your husband-to-be. Tell me what you know about him.

Have you spoken to him? Have you had a conversation?

What did you like about him?

Like most of the people in the camp, Montaha is from

a very conservative part of Syria, where arranged marriages are common.

Do you think if you were still in Syria you'd be getting

married now, at 18?

What did you want to do? What was your dream?

Montaha's wedding is in a few days' time.

Javid is off to meet her husband-to-be,

20-year-old hairdresser Moussa.

Wow, what's this room?

Cool.

Come and look in here.

They've gone as far as getting face creams and perfumes,

some jewellery, hairbrush...

Every last detail. It's really cool.

Tell me about your bride, though. Where did you meet?

The cost of keeping this camp running is huge,

at around £320,000 every single day.

I'm heading to the outskirts of the camp to see how one of the

biggest challenges is dealt with - getting water in a desert.

Originally, water was being trucked into Zaatari at great expense

and when it became obvious that people were going to be here

for quite some time, they had to come up with another solution.

This is it.

So they dug three boreholes within the camp and this is one of them

that's tapping into a water table 450 metres deep.

There we go.

There we go, that is water coming straight out of the earth

and it's warm, because it's coming from so deep down.

The water is filtered and chlorinated

so that it meets the standards of tap water across Jordan.

With no mains delivery system in the camp, it has to be trucked

to individual tanks that directly feed the Portakabins.

But first, every truckload has to undergo some vigorous testing.

He's the most hydrated man on camp!

And now this is the chlorine test.

So, they put a little tablet in and then he'll look at his chart,

along the side, to see whether it falls within the right numbers.

-What do you think?

-This is good.

-Yeah.

'Then it's just a matter of getting the purified water

'to Zaatari's residents.'

Assalaamu Alaikum. OK. The water's going to get delivered.

Another truck coming back to base camp to fill up with more water.

There's 55 of these trucks and each of them does about four trips a day.

OTHER TRUCK HONKS

I mean, just running these trucks is about £1 million a year.

It's dawning on me the importance and the difficulty

of getting water to Zaatari.

I mean, look around - it's just deserts.

Every individual gets 35 litres of water a day.

It may sound like a lot, but that's for drinking, cooking,

cleaning, washing, flushing the toilet, everything.

In the UK, we each use five times that.

When the truck arrives at its destination,

it's met by a team of local Syrian residents

whose job it is to allocate the water in their area.

Here we go. No messing about - the pipe's already in.

It's up to the local water team to know who needs water, when.

Where is this water going? Who is this for?

But how do you know that? What, have you memorised them all?

What about this one, then?

Absolutely amazing. How do you remember it?

How long have you been doing the job?

Two months?! Is that all?

It's brilliant. He's got it all up here. Who needs computers?

It's done.

22,000 litres of water, gone like that.

The water system may be effective, but it's financially unsustainable,

so there's a new plan in the pipeline,

and stage one has just been completed.

Wow.

Wow, that's quite some view.

It's amazing.

This is the highest point in Zaatari.

I'm standing on one of three reservoirs that have been

built to service the whole of this camp.

It's enormous, and it has to be,

because this will hold 1,500 cubic metres of water

that will be coming directly from the borehole and this will

provide 30,000 people in this area with water.

In about a year's time, every single household in Zaatari

will have mains-connected, running water.

I've come back to the MSF hospital.

I want to catch up with Mohamed and his father, Abu Abdullah,

to find out more about how he was injured.

How's your leg?

The day of the injury, Mohamed, can you remember what happened?

Abu Abdullah, were you with them in the car that day?

To add to the physical and emotional trauma that Mohamed has suffered,

he's now spent eight months living in hospital,

unable to go to school and live like a normal child.

But hopefully that could be about to change.

Are you looking forward to making friends?

A good student, Abu Abdullah?

And what was your best subject?

LAUGHTER

I really hope you get to go to school, and will you let me

come to school with you on your first day if you get to go?

Mohamed will find out tomorrow whether the medical team

feel that his leg has healed enough for him to go back to school.

Over half of the population in the camp are under 18

and the nine schools that cater for them split their days,

with girls studying in the morning and boys in the afternoon.

But not all the kids in the camp go to school.

Ben is off to meet two of the estimated 3,000 children

who have jobs here in Zaatari.

-Salam.

-Hello.

Mohamed, all right, good stuff.

Mohamed and Hafez work in a bike shop owned by Mohamed's father.

Mohamed only works in the mornings,

before going to school, but Hafez spends the day here.

How old are you guys?

You are not! You're a tiny bit younger than that, surely?

Eh?

LAUGHTER That's an amazing answer!

-Yes.

-You're very lucky, then.

Most of the bikes in the camp were donated by the Netherlands.

Just like everything else here, they're a tradable commodity

and a good-looking bike is quite the status symbol.

-So, guys, this looks like a pretty amazing bike to me.

-Yes.

-Yeah?

We've also got a... Ha-ha!

This is properly pimped, here, and it's got diodes on the back.

Let's see this again. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You see? Look, there's a little light just under here.

You've got one of the best-looking bikes in camp,

but you've also got the leather jacket,

you've got the cigarette, is that all part of the look?

And why do you bring your bike here?

It's midday, and the afternoon school shift is about to begin,

so Hafez and I are walking Mohamed to class.

So, guys, how much do you earn a month at the moment?

That's about £50.

And how much of that do you give back to your family?

And what do you guys want to do when you grow up?

What are your plans for later?

With money tight, many children have to bring cash into the family home,

and a third don't go to school at all.

When was the last time that you actually went to school?

So is it better for you and your family for you to keep working?

Have a good day at school, yeah?

'It isn't just Hafez's future at stake.'

With 4,000 schools back in Syria destroyed,

millions of Syrian children are no longer studying.

ANITA: It's the day before the wedding.

Moussa, the groom, is on his way to do what most Syrian men do

just before their big day.

THEY SING

He's heading to the barber's to spruce himself up,

and he's taking Javid and all his mates along.

Yeah, it's a bit like a stag event, isn't it?

When you watch them bundling him down the road like that.

It's really nice.

Moussa, what are you having done today?

Just like a stag back in the UK,

part of the fun is in stitching up the groom

and over here, it's all about hitting him.

Why are you so keen to hit him?

But you guys who aren't married, see, you have to be careful -

if you stitch him up too much, when it's your turn,

he's going to get you back.

While the boys banter, further down the Champs Elysees,

it's time for the bride to get a dress.

Anything that you see that you like?

This one?

It's a nice one. She's gone for classic white.

I quite like the pink, myself, but it's not about me,

it's not about me.

Montaha is with her mother and soon-to-be mother-in-law.

So, now you've got a new daughter.

Well, she's very beautiful.

The tradition in Syria is that the groom's family pay for the wedding,

including the bride's dress.

How much of a say are they going to have in the choice?

Montaha will be hiring two wedding dresses -

a classic white dress for her wedding day

and a colourful one for her henna party, a women's-only celebration

that happens the night before a wedding.

Come on, come on, show us. She's nervous!

She's so nervous, bless her!

Come on out, my love. Come and show us.

How do you feel? How do you feel?

Oh, yeah, hoik it up.

VOCALISING

Very important question here, Montaha.

Is there any dancing at the wedding?

Can you move in it?

Yeah, she's moving in it.

LAUGHTER

It's... You've got to be able to...

If you can dance in the dress, we're good to go.

Yeah? Yeah.

Is it taking you back to your wedding day?

What would you have met each other if you were living in Syria?

Come on out.

Come on out.

I think it's gorgeous. How do you feel?

-Is this the one, do you think?

-Yes.

Back at the barbers, Moussa is getting some serious pampering...

before his beating begins.

Look at the hands being warmed up here. Look at this. Uh-oh.

Gently, gently. Do it gently, huh?

Oh! Ow!

Is it my turn?

You, you!

UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING

The real party starts outside the groom's house...

where Moussa will be making the most of his final night as a single man.

It's the day of the wedding.

But before we go, Javad is joining Mohamed,

who's also got a big day ahead of him.

How you doing? Good? All right, then.

Having lived in hospital for the past eight months,

Mohamed's finally getting back out into the wider world.

He's going to return to school.

He's definitely got some speed on,

so he's definitely keen to get to school right now.

Hurts his leg a little bit, this rough road.

So he's just asking his dad to slow down a bit.

Look how big the school is. Huh?

Oy, oy, oy.

It's really tricky. Not easy at all.

But he is excited, he's looking around a lot.

But the ground here is really difficult

for a wheelchair and it's hurting his leg.

Having missed months of school,

Mohamed will need some help to catch up.

THEY INTRODUCE THEMSELVES

Did you like the look of the class, Mohamed?

Do you think you'll make some friends there?

HE LAUGHS

While Javid and I get ready for the celebration,

Ben is off to deal with some last-minute wedding practicalities.

Weddings here are all about food,

and I've heard that this shop is THE place to go.

Abdul Hariri works in a family-run bakery on the Champs-Elysees.

This looks incredible. Are you very busy at the moment?

Do you need any help?

What's the biggest order you've ever done?

3,000?! How much does that cost?

That's almost £400.

How many people would you invite to the average wedding here?

The dough is stuffed with a spiced mince to make little pasties,

-and then they're ready for the oven.

-Very good.

It's incredibly hot. What's the best way of doing it, then?

Uh-huh.

Like so? Yeah. Then straight out?

Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!

-Very good.

-Yeah? I can't believe that worked.

It's very satisfying work, isn't it?

Abdul has lost five relatives during the war.

But this bakery helps to support 50 members of the extended family

who are now living in the camp.

Do you think you can taste the difference between the ones I

made and the ones you made?

They're incredibly light.

They're very fluffy, lots of spice, lots of flavour. Are you happy?

Oh!

Finally, the big moment has arrived.

There's no mistaking where the wedding is, is there?

Absolutely not. Do you think they've stopped since last night?

I don't think so.

We've come to Moussa's house,

where he is still celebrating with just the guys.

LOUD MUSIC PLAYING

The groom's still on the shoulders.

A massive two-day-long celebration,

a wedding in the camp is one of the few times that people here

can really let themselves go.

Of course, there's no alcohol, but there is plenty of spray foam.

SINGING AND CLAPPING

-Ohh-ah!

-HE LAUGHS

What a way to have a wedding.

First, the bride and groom will celebrate separately

during the wedding -

until the key moment when Moussa goes to collect his bride

and they officially become husband and wife.

As long as he doesn't forget!

Is this the time? Are you going to get your bride?

Really? How are you feeling?

Yeah?

It's basically like an Indian wedding -

no-one knows what the heck is going on.

Mous... Oh, he's off!

CHANTING

He's travelling in style.

It's a short walk to the bride's house,

and Moussa's mates seem to be in charge of the chanting.

CHANTING AND SINGING

Moussa heads into Montaha's house to collect her...

SHE VOCALISES

..and then take her back to his house.

CHEERING

CHANTING AND SINGING

Moussa's two little cousins, who are dressed like mini brides.

It's amazing, they look like Disney characters.

As Moussa ushers Montaha into their new home...

..they're officially married.

I don't know who's covered in more of this stuff - the bride or me.

I think everyone's got the same idea -

they want to come in and congratulate the newlyweds.

Amazing.

She's here. Montaha!

Congratulations.

How many hours were you doing hair and make-up?

Three hours in hair and make-up.

I just want to wish you all the happiness for the rest of your life.

There is so much happiness in this room.

The marriage is done, Samir's got a daughter-in-law.

She is overwhelmed.

SHE VOCALISES

ALL VOCALISING

Although life here is far from perfect, and everyone would rather

be in Syria, that hasn't stopped people making the most of it.

This is what it's about.

Their tradition, their culture, it's just continuing because

that's what you all do, even in a refugee camp.

You can still bring joy to two families.

What better way of doing that than having a wedding? That was amazing.

Next time...

With no sign Zaatari's going anywhere any time soon,

this place is looking to the future.

You bought the suitcases.

Javid will be meeting the families making life-changing decisions.

Ben will be seeing what life's like for kids growing up here.

This is amazing.

And I'll be meeting the next generation born into this

challenging environment.

Gosh, it's just goes to show that, even in the most difficult

circumstances - I'm shaking - people don't just get on with life -

life can thrive.