On Friday, August 6th, the teachers of ICS went to Crossroads in Tuen Mun for a “team-building activity”. The secondary school teachers all went in the afternoon, after a morning of prep work and meetings etc., so we were not in the best places emotionally and physically for a strenuous day in the sun. The last time I went to Crossroads was 2 years ago, when I first joined this school and we went for the ‘Paper Bag’ simulation. I won’t describe it too much just because you may be interested in doing it yourself, and if you were a student of mine even last year, you’ll have heard all about it already anyway. It was, in short, very powerful.
We left school at around 12, and arrived after about 40 minutes on the bus. Because it had been raining the whole night before, we thought it would be an awful, muggy day. However, it wasn’t too bad. At first, we had traditional African food with our hands as our utensils – daal, white rice, and scuma wiki (a mixture of beans, potatoes, and squash. Scuma wiki is the food made of cheap ingredients to help a family’s income last for the week, hence ‘wiki’, pronounced ‘week-ee’.
After a time eating, we drank sweet, fizzy drinks from plastic bags and then moved up to a room where we were briefed about what we would be doing for the simulation, which was called ‘Refugee Run‘. The briefing was emotionally affecting as DJ, the man whose family began Crossroads out of their family home (more details about which can be read here), really got involved and drew us in as well. I felt tears tingle in my eyes as I heard about the warfare in Afghanistan in a real way for the first time – it truly affected me, and as callous as it sounds, I finally realised that the brutality of the country’s past has permeated every facet of Afghan society: woven in the very fabric of life, and in every Afghan…
After the briefing, towards the end of which the women were given headscarves to wear and an ID to hold, we were walked to the room where things would begin. As we sat, the head of the village we lived in came in and urgently whispered that there was no choice but for us to escape, as the soldiers were “coming for us” and my heart began to pound in my chest when all of a sudden the lights went out and the soldiers stormed into the room and screamed at us to lie face-down on the floor. People who were sitting together were wrenched apart and pushed into the other room, to navigate around the landmines and to arrive in slightly less danger at the refugee camp.
The camp itself was another sort of danger: you never knew what the guards were going to accuse you of next, or set you up with, and in the end, when I finally came across my mother, I joined her tent and was taken in. The leader of the tent saw an opportunity, and helped us all escape to a room off the side of the camp space. Upon which a man came in and said, “You have successfully escaped from the refugee camp, but you have all been sold into slavery and prostitution. You have lost the game.” and I felt like crying – all that planning and fear, only to face a horrifying, unknown future? Our leader herded us to the back of the room, where I belatedly noticed there was a door, and we snuck out through the door to the balcony, every bit prepared to climb down if one of the guards caught us, and we stood packed closely together, waiting for our fate. After around 10 minutes, one of the members of the group opened the door gently and went to see what was happening, and came back telling us that the simulation was over. The relief I felt in my heart travelled to my knees, which felt weak, and we slowly walked to the main room, where debriefing was happening. It was a 45-minute simulation for us, but a 12+ year nightmare for many. I feel changed, somehow, and I commend to you the work of Crossroads International, which is “Where Need Meets Resource”
This is an engaging video about one man’s experience of the simulation.
If you’re interested in finding out more about the plight of refugees around the world, click here. If you want to know more about the need for legal advice to refugees in Hong Kong, click here. If you want to read an article about the work Christian Action does, as well as what a typical day in the life of a refugee in Hong Kong is like, click here. For an older look at the situation, dated 1967, click here.
