Visiting

So today I went to Broadmeadows (omg it’s soooo far!) to visit this boy, let’s call him A, who’s an asylum seeker placed in a detention centre. 

Before going there I was quite excited and nervous about this trip since it was something that’s outside of my comfort zone. Then T reminded me about the reporter in Egypt who got raped and how they’re probably all sexually frustrated teens…but I brushed it off. But when we arrived there, waiting outside the doors for 2pm to come, I started really worrying. They’re all teenage boys that hardly get any female visitors! Not only was I worried about the safety but also the language barrier since majority of them come from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran etc. One thing that made me more at ease was that I could stick to R and W. =)

When we finally got in after a lot of paper work, we met A. He’s from Afghanistan and although all the boys in there are ‘underage teenagers’ a lot of them look a lot older. I’m guessing it’s due to the hardships they’ve been through, the stress, and lack of sleep. A lot of them are on anti-depressants and can’t sleep or eat properly because their future is uncertain. All they can do in there is sleep and do nothing, so time goes by really slow. Or maybe it's because they all reported their age younger than they really are so they can be in the underage detentions...

It was a bit awkward when talking to A at first because you just don’t know what you can/can’t ask them and exactly how open they are willing to be. So I only tried to ask some really simple questions that wouldn’t illicit any bad memories. However, maybe because he has been in the centre for 14 months already, he’s used to talking about his story. He was surprisingly talkative and shared with us more than I expected he would.

The detention centre at first glance doesn’t seem bad at all. It’s equipped with a flat screen TV, 5 computers to share, nice sofa, volleyball court, small soccer court, table-tennis table and benches outside. But if you put it into perspective that over 130 boys share such a small space, it really isn’t enough. 

From this visit, it has really helped me place a face on ‘asylum seekers’ and ‘refugees’. They’re really normal people that aren’t as scary as I thought they would be. But I only talked to A, and some of the others seem a bit more ‘closed’ to strangers. But now, I can actually see and hear first hand a part of their story, which helped me picture exactly how hard it must be for them. Even though to me the detention centre may seem relaxing, but to them, they don’t want any of that, they just want to be free and leave the country they ran away from for good.

We can never have too many reminders in life of exactly how lucky we all are in Australia to be ridden of civil war, riots, violence and uncertainty. We have so many choices; a road that may lead to death is not in our maps unless we ourselves build one.  

I would really like to visit A again. But really over 4 hrs of public transport…. I guess I’ll need to wait till holidays. =(