Telling this story might not be easy, but I'll try my best.
With a group of international volunteers I have lived in a centre for asylum seekers in Belgium for 2 weeks.
Instead, what we have experienced during these weeks may have helped us to understand them better. There are especially some episodes that struck me during this time (they won't probably be in chronological order).
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| Just arrived... |
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| After painting the wall... |
We were a group of people from different countries and with different backgrounds - some had worked with refugees and asylum seekers before; for others this was their first time. But that doesn't matter, because having worked with someone doesn't mean you automatically understand their life and emotions.
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| The team in Namur |
There are some stories that someone simply tells you without even changing their expression, for example that of a young guy - approx. 15yrs - who told me "you are from Italy? I arrived there with a boat that was sinking..." What can you say to something like that? He is so smart and ironic and can interpret for you in four different languages (English, French, Arabic and Somali).
Or the story of this Afghan guy, even younger, who was also there on his own and arrived on foot from his country. He had problems at school, but is he getting any psycho logical support?
These people - especially the young ones who lost everything and everyone - are so resilient, and after all that sufferance are still able to smile and make jokes.
A moment was particularly powerful for us; when a very nice guy from Iraq got a positive response about his asylum application. It was an extremely happy moment with everyone hugging him the guy and him showing the "yes" letter. At the same time, it was also somehow sad, because of the cold reaction of some people - it's not difficult to understand that they were "jealous".
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| Celebrating the "yes" letters... |
For me the feeling during this time was guilt, because I am European and I have the right to pick where I want to live and work - essentially anywhere in the world...
Another important moment here was a small dinner organised by some Somali people who wanted to celebrate the positive response one of "them" got a couple of weeks earlier. We were their special guests!
There was also a workshop we organised for the women in the centre. Of course it was very very hard to get just a few of them joining us and even harder to communicate with them during the activities because of the language barrier - some spoke English, others French, a couple of them only Somali. It was really nice to write/draw each other positive messages and in the end everyone hugged and kissed everyone. The same night we received a letter from one of the Somali women that made us cry.
It was very emotional and made all our efforts to communicate during the workshop well worth. Now every we meet her, she smiles and hugs us!
And the are several small episodes like this that I could mention...
There have been sad moments as well - for example when you ask residents if they have friends here, they usually say "yeah, I know everybody here, we say hello and bye, but we are not really friends". Otherwise they answer that there is no one else from their country who can speak the same language. The latter seemed to be true especially from women, who -unlike men- do not participate in many sport activities, so interact less with one another. That is why we organised a "beauty session" with them - they were very excited about the idea!
Some other times you see sad eyes and you wonder -without daring to ask- what is going on. And then, when you do ask, the answer can be "I cannot communicate with my brother who is back home and there were bombings last night" or "I'm thinking about my parents who are still there/dead now".
There are moments when surprise is the main feeling; surprise about the possibility of communicating without speaking because there isn't any language in common - A man 'explained' us how a card game and then we played it together. He didn't say anything beside "4".
Or when you see the little sweet girls playing basketball like professionals - so much fun!
Then the welcome we received from all the residents when we returned from a weekend out made it feel like home!
There was also a 'Dinner of the World' during which residents from five different countries were cooking and there were people from the town nearby and it was such a nice atmosphere...plus all the residents were so proud and wanted to take photos with us!!!
And this is our lovely photo assistant who took so many great photographs during the dinner.
Then you look at their balconies from the river and everything seems 'normal', those look like normal flats in a normal condominium, with normal clothes hanging outside and a normal playground for normal children.
Except that nothing is normal here. They don't have a normal life, with a normal job and a normal car that allows them to go anywhere they want. These people live in a golden prison. Although the conditions are pretty good, they are very isolated from the normal outside world; they get paid €1.30 per hour if they work in the centre on the top of their weekly €7 allowance. They have to travel for hours to reach a place a few kilometres away because the centre is near a river on a very nice spot but far from the town centre and the train station. In fact, there is a very smart and kind guy who used to be Maths and Basketball teacher back in his country and is studying to become a teacher if he gets the refugee status. He has to wake up every morning at 5am to go to a school that is very close by -because he relies on poor transport connections- and comes back very late in the evening after his basketball training.
There is another guy who has a very difficult past and spent his life in different countries in Africa. He is such a knowledgeable person, who can speak about the Northern Irish conflict, the South African one or global politics. What he told me is that the hardest thing about living in the centre is sharing the room with people who cannot write their name because they are illiterate. He said "my parents taught me that education is the most important thing in life. I told the staff that they should allocate rooms to residents depending on their educational level". He couldn't understand why people fight for milk at tea time, if there is enough milk for everyone...
And then there is this lady from Afghanistan, who is so beautiful and sweet, but with very sad eyes. She lives in the centre with her children. Her husband, who is a famous doctor back home was threatened to death, that's why she and her children had to flee.
And this was the Refugee Welcome demonstration in Brussels. Good crowd!
One day a volunteer and I went cycling with the Iraqi guy who got the status and he never stopped saying how happy he was to go cycling together: "I'm so happy! It's such a nice day!"
There have been sad moments as well - for example when you ask residents if they have friends here, they usually say "yeah, I know everybody here, we say hello and bye, but we are not really friends". Otherwise they answer that there is no one else from their country who can speak the same language. The latter seemed to be true especially from women, who -unlike men- do not participate in many sport activities, so interact less with one another. That is why we organised a "beauty session" with them - they were very excited about the idea!
And the we had the workshop "music with your hands" by Adan.
Some other times you see sad eyes and you wonder -without daring to ask- what is going on. And then, when you do ask, the answer can be "I cannot communicate with my brother who is back home and there were bombings last night" or "I'm thinking about my parents who are still there/dead now".
There are moments when surprise is the main feeling; surprise about the possibility of communicating without speaking because there isn't any language in common - A man 'explained' us how a card game and then we played it together. He didn't say anything beside "4".
Or when you see the little sweet girls playing basketball like professionals - so much fun!
Then the welcome we received from all the residents when we returned from a weekend out made it feel like home!
There was also a 'Dinner of the World' during which residents from five different countries were cooking and there were people from the town nearby and it was such a nice atmosphere...plus all the residents were so proud and wanted to take photos with us!!!
And this is our lovely photo assistant who took so many great photographs during the dinner.
Then you look at their balconies from the river and everything seems 'normal', those look like normal flats in a normal condominium, with normal clothes hanging outside and a normal playground for normal children.
Except that nothing is normal here. They don't have a normal life, with a normal job and a normal car that allows them to go anywhere they want. These people live in a golden prison. Although the conditions are pretty good, they are very isolated from the normal outside world; they get paid €1.30 per hour if they work in the centre on the top of their weekly €7 allowance. They have to travel for hours to reach a place a few kilometres away because the centre is near a river on a very nice spot but far from the town centre and the train station. In fact, there is a very smart and kind guy who used to be Maths and Basketball teacher back in his country and is studying to become a teacher if he gets the refugee status. He has to wake up every morning at 5am to go to a school that is very close by -because he relies on poor transport connections- and comes back very late in the evening after his basketball training.
There is another guy who has a very difficult past and spent his life in different countries in Africa. He is such a knowledgeable person, who can speak about the Northern Irish conflict, the South African one or global politics. What he told me is that the hardest thing about living in the centre is sharing the room with people who cannot write their name because they are illiterate. He said "my parents taught me that education is the most important thing in life. I told the staff that they should allocate rooms to residents depending on their educational level". He couldn't understand why people fight for milk at tea time, if there is enough milk for everyone...
And then there is this lady from Afghanistan, who is so beautiful and sweet, but with very sad eyes. She lives in the centre with her children. Her husband, who is a famous doctor back home was threatened to death, that's why she and her children had to flee.
And this was the Refugee Welcome demonstration in Brussels. Good crowd!
These are really interesting story you're telling us, with the hope your example will be followed, or, at least, meditated on.
ReplyDeletekeep on staying human!