The Steps of a Refugee - Essay Example

The Steps of a Refugee We hear a lot about wars and refugees, but war is difficult to imagine because it’s so removed from our reality. Until, one day last year, that reality changed. Last year our church adopted a family that fled from a brutal civil war, one of those somewhere else wars we always heard about on TV and knew nothing about. Leaving was not pleasant for them, but the alternative was something called “ethnic cleansing.” (Merriam-Webster) This is their story, told a year after they arrived here.

I replaced their names with Husband, Wife, Son and Daughter because their ethnicity is irrelevant to the needs and challenges of refugees. Their experience is representative of many refugees who come to the US, no matter where they come from. There are more than 43 million forcibly displaced persons worldwide. (UNHCR) We call them refugees and this is the story of one family. ______________________________ I do not remember the point at which I knew we must become refugees. We could hear reports of the killings and knew it was only a matter time before the rebels arrived in our area.

After much discussion, we decided that fleeing to the US was the best choice, in spite of the difficulties, because we wanted a better future for Son and Daughter. I knew the war would destroy the country and tens of thousands would flee to [neighboring country], overwhelming the resources and saturating the labor market. Opportunities for work to support the family would be limited. Wife was anxious about shelter and safety in the camps and we knew we would be forced to live in a refugee camp, perhaps for years.

We knew years would pass before our country could recover and offer the possibility to return, so any relocation to the US would be permanent. Therefore, we left as refugees, but we arrived as legal immigrants. Before we came, we had contact with a family from our country that lives here [waves to friends] and they introduced us to many kind people when we arrived. It was a good thing they did, for we were very much overwhelmed. We did not speak English more than a few words and everything was very strange.

We were frightened, wondering what we had done and if we had made the right decision. Today we are here to give thanks for all the help we received. Many kind people helped us in the first difficult days to register for emergency State aid, get social security numbers, state ID cards and introduced us to others who could help. The local school system created an IEP for Son and Daughter that allowed the school to hire a bilingual tutor for teaching them English. We did not know it at the time, but the leaders here at this church had heard of our situation and decided to help us get a home, transportation, employment and language training.

Because of that, within a few weeks we had moved from our friend’s home into a place arranged for us by all of you here. We are thankful we have jobs and are now able to pay rent for this house, which we would not have been able to get otherwise. We had no references, no deposit money and no credit score. Someone else donated a car to the church, which you provided to us and helped us get our drivers licenses. It is hard to find work without a car, but with no credit score and no job, nobody gets a car loan.

With a way to get to work, I found a job washing dishes and Wife found work cleaning in a nursing home. We were blessed with matching hours so we could get to work on time and not be fired. In the evenings we used Rosetta Stone with a computer someone from the church gave us, and three times a week we attended English classes at the Piedmont college. A few months ago we decided to get a connection to the internet so Son and Daughter could learn more at home. It was only then we managed to make contact with friends from home.

After communicating with people from home we learned what it would have been like if we had gone to [neighboring country]. Instead of a house, we would have been living in a shack in a refugee camp with poor sanitation and only a health clinic with a few doctors. We do not have health insurance here and health care is difficult, but it would have been much worse there. It is difficult to find a job here, but there, it is impossible. Here, our children are in school but there Son would have had to join a gang to survive… and Daughter… [shakes head]… life is not easy but we are blessed to be here.

We had friends who went to the refugee camps to escape the violence and died there because of the violence in the camps. Never is there enough food, the water is bad, there is no work and always there is crime or disease to take the lives of loved ones. In the camps, there is no hope and no opportunity. Here, the problems were different. We did not speak your language and everything was so strange and we knew nothing about the way things worked, but with your help, we have begun to live again.

We have come here today to say how much we thank you and how much we appreciate all you have done. We were hungry and you fed us. But you not only gave us a fish, you helped us learn to fish for ourselves in this new country of ours and provided a fishing pole, a line and a hook. Thank you again. Work Cited Ethnic Cleansing. Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online. n.d. Web 23 March, 2011 Statistics. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. n.d. Web. 23 March, 2011