I couldn’t believe what I saw that night – they came down the river and suddenly emerging from the bush, shouting wildly, they attacked and chopped us as if knives did cut, as if people weren’t made of flesh. It was a butchery. Worst than a pack of dogs gone wild in a meal stall. Despite the heavy rain, the next day there were flies and blood everywhere: those bodies (…) scattered as proof of such mad horror. How do I explain it to my children? How can I explain this to others? Who cares WHY we are here? Can I ever overcome my past?
What angers me most is the prejudice we suffer in a modern city like Hong Kong. Last week at a church in Kwun Tong a madam chatted happily with me for ten minutes, then she asked “What work do you do?” surely expecting I was engaged in some business. When I answered “I am an asylum-seeker”, her tongue froze with her thoughts. I could see the disgust in her shocked eyes … she didn’t want to say what she was thinking … she stared at me speechless like I’d suddenly become a ghost and we hadn’t been talking friendly before. She glanced across the room for an excuse, hastily said “Excuse me!” and walked off. She never looked at me again because I offended how she wanted her safe and comfortable life to be. I cried inside. If only she knew the fate that brought me here. How could she treat me like that? One moment she wanted to make friends, the next she wished she’d never spoken to me. Her behaviour made me sink into the floor, made me wish I’d stayed home that day. People can be more cruel with their attitude than they are with weapons. If only I could show her the rotting bodies in the heat of my village – family and friends gone forever – then I’m sure she would understand the evil we escaped. In my country we are nothing to our enemies, there is no place for weakness: either you fight and kill or you will be defeated and killed. Running away is the only option if you don’t want the blood of murder on your hands. Every day I’m crushed by this desolation, this helplessness. I never sleep more than three hours and worries take me constantly to places where I don’t want to be … looking for the meaning my life has lost … looking for the hope I will never have …
Faraj 33, East Africa