"We may be a little late, but we feel we're on top of things," added Kleinschmidt, nicknamed "the mayor" of the camp.
Oxfam Campaigns and Policy Director Ben Phillips tweeted this photo of a Syrian refugee family's new home in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley - built out of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire movie posters.
It was a Hunger Games movie poster. Now it's someone's house. Syrian refugees use whatever they can find. Lebanon. pic.twitter.com/7kPJI0usax
More than 560,000 Syrians have fled to Jordan since the uprising against President Bashar Assad broke out in March 2011. Activists say more than 120,000 people have been killed in the civil war. As the fighting increased in recent months - especially in southern towns - the number of refugees has risen.
Throughout the region, about 2 million Syrians have crossed into neighbouring countries, including Turkey and Lebanon, to escape the bloodshed. The cold and wet January weather makes conditions for them miserable as well, and similar preparations by aid workers are underway elsewhere.
In Zaatari, which is 14 kilometres south of the Syrian border, many of the refugees' plastic tents will be replaced in the coming weeks with prefabricated trailers donated by Gulf Arab states, said Andy Needham, a press officer with the UN refugee agency.
"It is the key step to keeping people safe and warm during winter," he said Tuesday, adding that at least 1,000 have been set up in the past four weeks. Needham blamed the slow pace on delays by Jordanian contractors.
Electric heaters and bottles of gas will be distributed to households soon, he said.
As Needham spoke, dozens of women and children, many of them barefoot, gathered around UN officials and pleaded for trailers. When their appeals turned into shouting, Jordanian riot police moved in quickly, dispersing them.
Refugee Bassam Qashali, 24, said some trailers were being sold on the black market in the camp for $700.
"They get sold and resold on the black market, but not many can afford to buy them," said Qashali, an ex-rebel fighter who lost his right eye to a sniper last year in Syria's southern town of Daraa. He said he has been waiting for a trailer for 14 months.
Farther west, outside warehouses run by the Norwegian Refugee Council, hundreds of men and women lined up separately to receive blankets and kits of children's clothing. UN officials checked the refugees' ration cards and entered information onto computers before allowing in small groups of people.
It was another lesson learned from last year, when refugees cramming the warehouses pushed and shoved each other and the aid workers to get the winter items.
"We planned the distribution to be organised for the camp population to feel dignity and honour," said Robert Beer, the council's program director. He called the preparations an "enormous challenge," with workers "racing against time to get the job done as soon as possible".
UNICEF, the UN agency helping refugee children, is contributing to the effort in Jordan and other host countries. In Zaatari, UNICEF is providing 35,000 clothing kits - which include scarves, hats, sweaters and boots, as well as 24,000 blankets, said communications officer Melanie Sharpe.
Residents of Zaatari are grateful for the effort by the aid workers - but they also look forward to leaving the camp for a peaceful Syria.
"We appreciate what's being done to help us get by the harsh winter, especially to keep our kids safe and warm, but we prefer to see our tyrant president gone so that we can return home," said Hussein Abu Khaled. The 30-year-old father of three said he fled the Damascus suburb of Ghouta on August 21, the day it was struck with chemical weapons.
- AP
