Felicity Banks

Our refugee family was nearly kidnapped in front of me when they first arrived in Australia: Part 2 of 2

June 23, 2023 at 10:17 am (Uncategorized)

Link to Part 1.

Arrival Day.

At 6am I was at Sydney airport feeling less than fresh but full of a heady mix of anticipation, confidence, and the knowledge that I regularly get lost in shopping malls.

Lesson 4 for CRISP groups: Try not to have the most incompetent, absent-minded, and unhealthy person in the group meet the family at the airport by themselves. But you probably had that one worked out already.

And yeah, I’m smart. And good with plans and organisation. And VERY good at quickly making new plans. And sometimes, I’m kind of brilliant with cross-cultural understanding (other times, I fail to see what everyone else in the fully English and monocultural conversation is talking about… that’s part of the magic of being autistic). But I’m quite bad at negotiating systems that are made by other people. Like, for example, airports. And Sydney.

Due to my fibromyalgia, I’d had Chris drop me at the domestic departures terminal, because I was confident that as soon as I explained to someone that the Afghan family of six had no English and no one to meet them people would leap into action to help.

My phone is dying. It sometimes spontaneously mutes one or both people during a phone call (or just hangs up) and it’s having a lot of difficulty connecting to the internet. But I finally connected to Sydney airport’s free wifi and started live tweeting (except I live-tweeted on FaceBook, because shut up, that’s why. And yeah, I know they want us to call FaceBook something different now, but I’m a rebel).

When we were told the family was coming to Sydney, not Melbourne, they had already left Iran but would be transferring at Dubai. I immediately sent this to the oldest son:

Two blue ticks means they have received the message. We didn’t have two blue ticks yet.

Also, our handy-dandy banner is too big to fly back to Canberra so that was no good.

As soon as I knew about the Canberra flight, which was booked AFTER the family left Dubai, I sent:

Plus a message for them to show to airport staff to tell staff the whole situation and ask them to call me.

But there was literally no way for them to know that someone in Iran had arranged for them to fly onwards to Canberra. I wasn’t 100% certain they even knew that we (the Castle of Kindness) knew they were coming via Sydney instead of Melbourne (we’d discussed the Melbourne plan with them in detail).

So, tweets:

This is a photo of the same sunrise in Canberra, taken by Suzie Zarew Photography on Thursday 22 June and shared here (and with the family) with her joyful permission.

You’re not allowed to turn phones on in Immigration, as I discovered later.

When I was living in Indonesia (age 18, for six months) my Indonesian friends were terribly offended when I wanted to wear thongs to church rather than socks and sneakers (in the tropics). Hence my concern. (I have loads of knowledge about Indonesia, and sometimes it helps with other nations. A bit.)

A lot of immunocompromised people (very much including me) overheat extremely easily so it was worth the risk of mild offence.

Lesson 5 (or so; I’ve lost count) for CRISP groups: The two hour estimate we were given for a refugee family to get through immigration is more like an average.

Lesson 6ish for CRISP groups: Probably worth finding out if non-flyers are allowed on the transit bus. I forgot I might not be allowed and just walked in with them. I’m sure you can go on the train instead—but you’d have to pay for everyone which is a huge hassle if they don’t speak English, and presumably also massively overpriced.

lol

7:30am

They didn’t get kidnapped at this time.

Lesson 7ish for CRISP Groups: Some of your group will not respond well to a sudden crisis. Some will thrive on it. Try to figure out which is which and plan accordingly (eg make sure a ‘pro-crisis’ person is at least semi-available that day/week as a backup).

Reader, it was not fine. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Because I had the car seat in my house, ready to pick up the Afghan family at 10pm in Canberra. Remember that plan? It was a good plan. I put it in the backyard so someone else could fetch it while my family was in Sydney.

Actually everyone in the world starts off being bad as distinguishing people of another race. The less people you meet and interact with from another race, the longer it takes to get better at it. Does that make it more or less racist to be bad at recognising people? How big a role does your society and environment play? Do feel free to discuss this matter in the comments.

Having trouble clicking on that link since it’s a screenshot? I got you.

8:35am

It actually wasn’t, at least not in this specific instance. My flight to Canberra cost the exorbitant price of $388 due to being bought within 24 hours of departure, but the Afghan family’s flights were all paid for at the Iran end (perhaps someone at that end received CRSA’s request that they come to Canberra rather than silly old Melbourne and it simply took them fourteen days to make the arrangements). All seven seats were changed to another flight for free.

But we’re also paying bond and the first few weeks of rent for them in Canberra. Now THAT is expensive.

Hah! I just looked and someone really did donate money around 8am. Noice.

And thank you Chris, who stopped the car at Sutton Forest ready to turn back around.

*

Hey, want to hear about another fun mini-adventure we had on the way?

Carol called a rental company to ask about hiring a minivan and they said it was $160 a day and there was one available in Queanbeyan. They also said that if we rented it for two days and brought it back after one day we’d get a partial refund. And they have a system for paying tolls in Sydney too. Great!

So Chris managed to hitch a lift out to Queanbeyan from his work… where they told him he also needed to deposit a few hundred for a bond, and insurance was much more than they’d told me it was.

Which was all fine except they ALSO absolutely refused to accept payment from Carol (our treasurer) over the phone. And although Carol had already transferred a chunk of money to my account, it hadn’t arrived yet, so we didn’t have enough for the minivan.

So instead of having a vehicle for the airport, we had no vehicle…. and now Chris was stranded in Queanbeyan (which is interstate and generally considered by Canberrans to make the Afghan family’s rental home look like a palace).

BUT that turned out to be a good thing, because we never used a minivan after all that. But as soon as we missed our flight I was calling people about minivan hire rather than having to take a few minutes to sob quietly to myself in utter despair first.

*

Back to the main story…

And everything was happy and peaceful forever.

30 minutes until we miss another flight.

The older son recognised me instantly and walked over. He’d already sent me this:

(Huh. Later in the day he referred to a gate as “Gate 1C”. So he was picking up words along the way. He will do so well here!)

We all exclaimed over one another with great love and I used my one phrase of Arabic (which is also the one phrase almost all Muslims know) to greet them, and the little one was greeting me in Arabic and I understood and she understood me and it was so good!

Mindful of the time, I gathered them up with the skill born of many hours of mime work (with other refugees) and indicated that we needed to get going.

But half the family was already dispersed among the crowd. NO WHY!?!?!?!

25 minutes until we miss another flight.

Ali explained that his dad wanted to talk to “a friend” before we left. I went and joined the huddle in the midst of the ongoing arrival chaos, and met a woman whose name I can’t remember. She spoke fluent Farsi and English with a slight accent and skin tone that suggested she was probably from Afghanistan herself (twenty years ago). She asked me who I was and I pulled up the Castle of Kindness web site on my phone (which for some reason didn’t show the link to CRSA, presumably because of my phone being too old and cranky) and started to explain the Castle of Kindness, CRSA, and CRISP. She said she needed to make a phone call but was clearly protective of the family. I was impressed that the family had made such a useful and passionate friend on their plane ride over. There was a girl a similar age to one of refugee family’s kids who clearly knew her, and there was a man around somewhere too.

Someone told me that the Afghan refugee family wanted to settle in Sydney, as they have friends there. I explained calmly that one of the key aspects of the CRISP pilot (and one that’s important to the government) is that most of the CRISP families are settled in regional areas (and yes—embarrassed sigh—Canberra counts as regional). So although the family was welcome to settle in Sydney, they needed to live in Canberra for twelve months first.

It was just a teensy misunderstanding, probably because of the flights changing. Except it wasn’t teensy after all.

20 minutes until we miss another flight.

In the confusion, it took far too long to realise that the friendly girl-child belonged to someone else and the man and woman I spoke to were NOT new friends made on the plane but two staff members of an extremely important refugee advocacy organisation that I’ll call HELP because although they did everything right I don’t want to draw any possible negative attention to them (that would be very bad for everyone). They are the government body that meets refugees at the airport in Sydney, arranges their accommodation and food, and looks after the family for 12 months.

Sound familiar?

Yeah, they’re precisely the same as the Castle of Kindness group… except they have a government contract, hundreds of trained staff including expert translators, and their staff are paid employees who are not permitted to form casual friendships with refugees (much as a teacher cannot form a close friendship with a student—the power imbalance is too hazardous so professional distance is important).

As community supporters, we (the Castle of Kindness) have minimal training, no consistent expertise beyond speaking English and living in Australia, and we are encouraged to be the first true friends of refugees arriving in Australia. The whole point of community sponsorship is to be a community. (And to cost the government little or nothing, so Australia can take more refugees.) During the lead-up to this meeting, the CRISP coordinator told us over and over not to focus on practical details (other than those that are absolutely and immediately vital) but to build a relationship with the family first.

That turned out to be absolutely crucial in a way no one could possibly have predicted.

The Castle of Kindness has been preparing to welcome this family for months. So has HELP. There had been some kind of administrative glitch somewhere and the Afghan family was stuck in the middle while we discussed their fate.

HELP had short-term accommodation prepared (a LOT nicer than ours) in Sydney, with food already there and transport arranged and a twelve-month plan laid out to settle the family in Sydney.

They had already met ‘our’ Afghan refugee family as they stepped off the plane (because they’re an official and well-respected organisation and are allowed to help people through immigration) and been their only support for several exhausting and overwhelming hours in the pit of bureaucracy that is immigration. When the older son had told me his dad was talking to “a friend” it was a simplification but it was also somewhat true. These two HELP people were the first genuinely friendly faces they saw in Australia.

And the family wanted to live in Sydney. Like most immigrants. The dad explained that there is a vibrant community of Afghans in Sydney (while I had been super proud of finding three whole Afghan families interested in meeting the family in Canberra).

And the most important aspect of the CRISP program—more important than being a friend or being helpful—is that we must empower the family at every opportunity short of robbing banks or assassinating certain politicians.

If they wanted to live in Sydney, and had the full support of HELP, that was clearly a better option for them, even if it broke the three week-old kitten that is my heart.

And I might never see them again.

And the rest of the Castle of Kindness—and all the people that donated time and money and cleaning and moving furniture and toys for the toddler and clothes for the adults—would never even get to meet them.

Here is an artist’s impression of my heart, in that vulnerable and slightly furry moment:

But the right decision was obvious. And suddenly the tables turned. HELP had wanted to check I was legitimate. Now I had to check they were. I still had a duty of care to make sure the Afghan family really was safe and happy… without us. Without me.

And yeah, it was personal.

I don’t remember ever seeing ID from the HELP people. I’m sure they had it, and I’m equally sure I didn’t think to ask for it. But in the confusion they’d probably already shown it to me. I was talking to the woman; the Afghan dad was talking to the man; I was trying to update the mother and older son about what was happening using a translation app on my phone, and so on.

I wanted very badly to sit down.

But now that I’m home I know that at that stage those HELP people could have been part of an international slave ring (all you really need is two bilingual people and a bit of sass—at that stage I didn’t know that they must have been vetted to have gotten into the immigration area. Uh, probably. I think we established earlier that I don’t really know how airports work.)

But by now HELP had had plenty of time to observe me, and the results were… not good.

10 minutes until we miss another flight. But that doesn’t matter any more, does it?

At a writing conference, people can guess my preferred genre just by looking at me. I always wear ankle-length skirts and dresses. (When I was given my beloved recumbent bike I had to buy pants to ride it.) On a good day I’ll wear a corset too. Why YES I write fantasy and steampunk for young adults (and one picture book for refugee kids to read with their parents in various languages, which is in my store here). I am what the Enneagram personality thingy calls an “Individualist”. I prefer to call myself a “delicate flower” which is particularly amusing given that I’m morbidly obese and nearly six feet tall. But it certainly describes my health.

Also, sweaty. Remember how I mentioned that would be important later?

Also, dishevelled.

Also, there is half-erased writing all over my left arm because when I was organising stuff after the flights began to rapidly flicker in and out of existence it was the simplest way to keep things in my head (or near enough) long enough to sort them out. (One bed was broken, could we replace it in time or would the older son have to sleep on a mattress on the floor? Who would transport the new bed if we got one? Did the family have a microwave? Did we ever tell them the unlock code on the phone we bought for them?)

Also, there are several bandaids on my wrist and hand. Enough to make people think, “Why is that grown adult wearing so many bandages? Was it just a funny accident or something more sinister? Are they slightly uncoordinated or is something very seriously wrong with them? Could they be dangerous to others?

And I have a lot of visible injuries from cat scratches that are healed JUST enough to look like permanent scars from self-harm.

And two deep-purple bruises at my elbows from the hospital cannulas. Needle marks, clearly both recently and poorly made.

And with a distinct manic air.

And looking at the floor like I really wished I could just sit down on the concrete.

And moving weirdly, as if there’s something wrong with my muscles.

Well, that’s another flight gone without us on board. But who cares? Nothing matters anymore.

Ultimately HELP decided I was a threat and the family needed to be separated from me for their own safety.

HELP refused to tell me where they were taking the family. They were hesitating to even tell the family where they were being taken because I announced clearly that the Afghans would just tell me themselves where they were living. (Because I am sometimes good at getting past stupid bits of red tape, but I am never good at lying.)

The family, especially the oldest boy, knew and trusted me—so the negotiation wasn’t over even though they definitely wanted to go with HELP. They weren’t going to stick around forever, when there were two people who spoke their language insisting that I was just an error or worse.

HELP had a difficult choice because we all know empowering the family is vital, but I looked sketchy, speak no Farsi, and was making wild claims about the government and a “very new” program for refugees.

I had already called three CRSA people…. and got three answering machines. They had already been told that I’d fixed the latest disaster (missing our flight, for those who have lost count) and we’d just take a later Qantas flight. They had no reason to think anything else would go wrong—or that I couldn’t handle it.

One of them SMSed me back.

See that unredacted naughty word? I’d normally redact or rephrase but this is one of those times that swear words are specifically invented for. Apart from anything else, my contact would know that the emergency was a legitimate emergency because she’s never heard me swear before (unlike—sigh—my kids).

So while MY Afghan refugee family received top-notch translation assistance, another family was not met by the help they had been promised. It took a while, but that other family found someone who called the HELP office and the HELP office called the man and woman who were talking to me.

The HELP translators hurried away to assist the family they’d accidentally abandoned in Sydney airport (pausing only to tell me what happened, and that the mum is an incredibly sweet lady), and the family was mine again. After a brief but slightly plaintive plea from them that, “We want to live in Sydney” (“I’m sorry but legally you have to live in Canberra for at least one year—after that you can move to Sydney”), we began moving.

The family had been through the emotional wringer followed by a very confusing tumble-dry that didn’t end the way they wanted.

Yup.

And the family was starving. We badly needed to get to the domestic terminal so I tossed them some school snacks I’d grabbed from my own shelf the previous day. It’s not easy to hustle six people through a crowded airport. It was very handy knowing their names.

They asked me only one question: How long is the flight to Canberra?

That broke my heart a little.

The flight is only an hour… but it would be two more hours before we got on it.

The random prissy person was taking up two seats in a crowded bus and was mad at the mum for standing too close as she (the mum) tried to look after her family while prissy missy shoved at her from behind. It’s entirely possible she wasn’t racist but is just an all-purpose jerk.

But random #2 was great. He heard us talking and offered to translate. After all the confusion, it was very worthwhile to explain things a second and third time, because sudden major switches in plans are hard to take in. Ask me how I know.

It turns out we actually HADN’T missed another flight. The next flight with seven seats available for us wasn’t flying out until 12:30. So that was the one we would take. I have no idea if missing two flights in a row would cost money (missing one didn’t cost anything, which was nice). So I guess we’re lucky our replacement flight wasn’t the one I asked for.

We checked in the bags. The Qantas service desk lady was fantastic. Her face actually lit up when I said, “We need help… a lot of help.”

Security was tricky as our phones (and their translation apps—SayHi is best for Farsi aka Persian aka Dari) had to go through the x-ray machine and meanwhile the Afghan mum beeped with just SO MUCH metal all over her body. So she had to be wanded and frisked. She handled it with complete grace but it was extremely difficult for the security lady to mime, “I need consent to frisk you wherever the wand beeps.”

CRISP group tip number eight or so: Have a plan for security if you’re going through security with your refugees. Explain the process if possible. Also warn them that if they have metal (eg valuable jewellery) under their clothes they will get very thoroughly frisked (and honestly may end up strip-searched). Use a handbag instead, as you can keep a handbag with you.

Everyone was way too tired to select their own food (bacon burgers are NOT a great option) so I grabbed the seven most expensive bottles of water on the planet, three fruit salads, and a plate of chips. It seemed like the food least likely to mess with their stomachs and most likely to be recognised, respectively.

The older son told me with great joy that the Turkish flatbread my godparents had provided was as delicious as the bread from their region.

CRISP group tip number nine maybe: Turkish bread and hommus for the win. Probably for a huge swathe of nations. [Edit: I found out later they don’t like hummus at all. Way to buck the stereotypes, you guys.]

The mum made sure I ate.

And now I’m getting misty-eyed again. I actually barely talked to her, focusing on the older son because he’s clearly the closest thing to a translator that we had, and on the toddler because toddlers are both adorable and exhausting.

We took group photos here, but I don’t have consent to share them so I might add them later.

This is Cinnamon, who is 100% a Cinnamon roll even though he is the author of all the minor scratches on my hands (from when I first caught him as a feral… two weeks ago).

I found out Cat was on my flight when I was gazing blearily at the board to see which gate to go to and her husband Mike (also a friend) walked up beside me and said, “I believe you’re going to Gate 1C.” He’d been watching the entire saga unfold on FaceBook.

So yeah, I happened to end up on a flight of fifty people and one of them was a friend of mine. Who was sitting in the same two rows where the Afghan family and I were sitting. I could not have organised it better if I tried.

Speaking of my organisational skills, my bra unzipped at this point. I moved behind a pillar and managed to reach down the front of my dress and zip it back up out of the family’s sight.

Then I looked up and saw Mike with a somewhat confused expression on his face. Oopsy. Well, I didn’t flash the refugees and that’s the main thing.

Another fell asleep as I tweeted that. I woke them all when it was time to go, and one raced off to the toilet—giving me one last thrill before we got on the plane because none of us had any idea where he was. But he knew what he was doing, and was quick. (So yes, I lost two of the six refugees even AFTER I nearly got them kidnapped. Shut up.)

All of them conked out before we left the ground. The toddler slooowly slipped off her mother’s lap onto the floor, and her father picked her up and rearranged her. Cat helped him prop her up against the window so she could be buckled in ready for landing.

CRISP Pro-tip #10: You cannot use the internet on a plane (or in remote nature reserves, as I have had reason to know with other refugees), which means you can’t use translation apps. Make sure you explain beforehand that they need to do up seatbelts (even for a baby, although infant seatbelts help) and lock up tray tables any time the seatbelt sign is on.

One kid utilised the tray table for sleeping and was so exhausted that rather than try and wake him and mime about the tray table (not an easy concept for a child that had never been on a plane before) I physically moved his sleeping self and locked up the tray for him. Interestingly, that is the kind of thing other refugee organisations CAN’T do. They HAVE to have consent, especially with a child. But I am not a government organisation, and if I know for certain the family would rather not be woken, I can use my discretion.

I was also grabbing the female kid’s knee and holding it in place so she didn’t get bashed by the food trolleys. So I manhandled the refugees quite a bit, really.

Carol (from the Castle of Kindness), Terry (a Castle member’s ex-husband!), and an Afghan friend of ours (also a refugee, that we mentored last year) met us at the airport with a car seat and plenty of love. And Farsi.

Basil is Cinnamon’s sister but I caught her about a week after Cinnamon so things aren’t going as smoothly with her socialisation (although I HAVE learnt my lesson and not been bitten or scratched since The Biting Incident).

I also have two adult cats.

Here’s a record of one more conversation with the oldest boy. (“You” is of course me. Uh, you get it.)

So! All this was merely the prologue. Our sponsorship journey is barely begun. Terry isn’t actually part of the group but has helped us in the past. The oldest boy has already said how funny Terry is (HOW DOES HE KNOW SO SOON??)

In the car Carol said, “I’m taking you straight home to your house, aren’t I?” and I hesitated and then said yes.

What’s that you say? You would like that GoFundMe link one more time? Sure!

Go here if you’re interested in forming or joining a CRISP group. There are loads of groups, and more all the time. If your life is boring or lacking in meaning, sponsoring refugees is very likely to fix that for you.