[…] I used to go every Thursday at 2 pm. I had gotten to know a few people who had goods. They asked me where my shop was. I told them it was in Gaza camp 97, in the Market Street. So, they started to come to me. So, the distributors started to tell each other about me. A distributor of shoes would tell a distributor of home appliances, and a distributor of home appliances would tell a distributor of disinfectants, and a distributor of disinfectants would tell a distributor of towels. So, they all started directing one another to me. And they told each other that I pay in cash, and not by credit. Thank God, in my first year, I managed to make back my capital, and I bought my house. I bought the house for 3,500 JD98. The fact that residents of Jerash camp and neighbouring villages would otherwise need to pay transport costs to go to Jerash city, or even further, to buy the same goods offers a small margin of profit. This was especially the case ‘before the war [in Syria]’ when ‘trade was good’ and cheap goods from Syria could be bought in the border town of Ramtha99. A few residents of the camp also own shops in Tharil Saru, an area in Jerash city with craft and industrial workshops, usually registered in the name of a relative or friend holding Jordanian citizenship, or, in some cases, they have been able to inherit and renew registrations from a time when there were fewer restrictions 100. More residents have managed to open shops and workshops directly outside of the official camp perimeter along the Jerash road. Residents widely claim that ‘most of them had been in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, and then they came and opened these places; they built homes, and opened shops’ 101 with accumulated savings from their work in the Gulf. It was predominantly educated and skilled workers from Jordan who found employment in the Gulf countries (De Bel-Air, 2010), and this therefore sits well with our finding that more than one in four (27%) Jerash ex-Gazans working in trade, sales and vehicle repair have a university degree, and even more (43%) live in a household with at least one person with a university degree. Given the little income generated from many such shops, they are often staffed by the retired family member themselves and helped by low-paid or unpaid family members — sons, nephews and grandsons — who can learn and later ‘manage the shop on their own’102, thereby maximizing the profits for the family. Capturing this limited circulation of money associated with the shops and businesses relying on the population in Jerash camp, one young man explained: In Gaza camp, income is weak, so you can’t hire people to work for you. An Egyptian would need a work permit and a minimum of 200 JD per month. So, it is costly to hire them. And the shop does not make enough money to be able to hire them 103. Another man, who had opened a car accessory shop, explained that with only 400 to 500 cars in Jerash camp and customers coming two or three times in a year, ‘I would end up working two or three months a year, and the rest of the year, work is limited’ 104. Whilst interviewees explained that shops and workshop in Jerash are generally familyrun, the survey found that ex-Gazans in Jerash rarely report being employed by a family Colloquially, Jerash camp is referred to as ‘Gaza camp’. Interviewees used ‘dinars’, ‘lira’ and ‘JD’ interchangeably to denote currency. For ease of reading and consistency we use ‘JD’ throughout. 99 Female, age 39, Jerash camp, 19 January 2016. 100 Female, age 39, Jerash camp, 19 January 2016; male, age 24, Jerash town, 15 February 2016. 101 Female, age 30, Jerash camp, 17 January 2016. 102 Focus group discussion with male youth, Manshiyyeh, 10 February 2016. 103 Male, age 37, Jerash camp, 26 January 2016. 104 Male, age 29, Manshiyyeh, 26 January 2016. 97 98 ‘Just getting by’ Ex-Gazans in Jerash and other refugee camps in Jordan 91