Yesterday was world refugee day. It has been over 20 years since I was last considered a refugee, and yet I cannot help the memories and feelings that keep flooding back everytime someone mentions refugees or when people ask “but your accent?” when I didn’t even know I had one.
Yesterday I asked my Mom to send me a childhood picture of mine. Because I knew she had one… The story of why I nolonger have many childhood pictures is of some unbelievably unseriousness on my part. Bless her heart she did not just send one but 4!!! All of them of me below the age of 4. But 3 of them were not clear and I pointed this out. Her response “Be grateful there are pictures. Do you realise these were taken in the camp?
Yes, I lived in a refugee camp with my grandmother and uncles for a couple of years. I don’t remember much from those days. I don’t remember the hardships my parents and their peers speak of when they relive their days there. I do remember asking so many questions (yes, the curious person I am did not show up recently).
This reminded me of a of a note I wrote on world refugee day a couple of years ago to myself and hopefully to anyone else who may come across it and has been, or is a refugee.
You could be born in the best hospital in that country
You could go to the best schools you can get in
You could learn the language of the land and speak it like a native
You could work, invest, pay all your taxes (if you’re allowed to, that is)
You could even change your name and your children’s names to fit in.
It won’t stop young children and their parents from referring to your child and your family as refugees…(yes, using it like any other title) as if you didn’t already know, which I didn’t fully grasp then but they started conversations with “hey, little refugee…”. (Could this be why I still don’t like it when people do not use my name 🤔🤔??)
It won’t stop your children from asking you questions you have no answers to.
It won’t stop you being locked out from some opportunities simply because you are not a ‘local’
It won’t stop your neighbours, workmates, and your children’s classmates from telling you all to “go back home” even when they know you wish to but cannot.
The taunts may make you feel bitter, sad, angry and maybe even hopeless.
Or they may make your spirit and will stronger instead
You may do your very best and still have the nugging feeling that you will never belong
You may feel the need to send out a prayer that just for a day or a few hours everyone around you would forget you are one.
And yet;
A stranger may take your child’s ‘foreign’ hand along with their own kid’s and walk them both to school
A teacher may recognise your child’s giftedness and not try to stiffle it.
A neighbour may notice your battle and include you on family holidays
Older refugees may take it upon themselves to tell the young ones the stories of their ancestors; teach them their mother tongue.
And maybe, just maybe… You may one day be able to return home
It may be barely recognisable
It may not have the right amenities anymore.
But it will be …..
HOME
Where you can finally lay your head without fear
Where you can finally bury your parents’ unearthed remains in honor of their request to take them with you if you ever went back
Where you and your children can speak the mother tongue freely,except most do not know it and have to learn.
And hopefully, when another finds themselves in the same space
You will remember
What it felt like to be lost, unwelcome and ‘strange’
And you will open your home and heart to them and theirs, just as someone did for you in what may now feel like another lifetime
Or if no one did, as you wish someone had.
Or maybe, you will share your story, and communicate hope to many others.
Because truth is;
Some people will not understand; and it’s not their fault.
Some things can only be truly understood by personal experience.
Some people will be willing and able to help; let them. And thank them.
The return home may happen during your children’s lifetime. Teach them now to love their country of origin. To be curious abot their roots and grateful for refuge in a foreign land. Teach them that this is not “normal” even if it is common.
And if this season does end for you; do not forget so easily where you have been such that generations down the road will find themselves in the same position.
Yes, yesterday was world refugee day. But while we may take 1 day to recognise them, many are refugees for years, for generations. Some we may come across. They may have some crazy stories, or none. They may seem bitter and angry, they are just hurting and grappling with their own identity..or lack of.
Like you, they desire a good life for themselevs and their families. If you are in a place to make any decision concerning them, be humane. Take time to hear their stories, their hopes and dreams. If it is in you, encourage them and do not in any way treat them like 2nd class humans.
Belinda K 