She turned her face toward the sun, let her mouth and cheeks relax; her chest constricted and contracted. Then as if burned, she whipped her head back to the two concrete metal fences separating us, grimaced and audibly sighed, as if the suns brightness - its sheer yellow burst - was too much to take in a place where one often forgets the sun still shines and provides light.
Those first sentences are complete projection - but they feel true. When I first met Margaret, I wanted to lasso the sun for her (like in the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, when George wants to lasso the moon for his gal Mary) and bring its radiance down to her and let her feel it’s warmth - thinking somehow this massive ball of burning gas could show her that she can and will leave this stark place.
Margaret is kept in the Immigration Detention Center (IDC) in Bangkok. This is where people who have overstayed their visa into the country are jailed. Thousands of people seeking political asylum through the United Nations, or an escape from lands and countries ravaged with war, political unrest, or not enough food come to Thailand. This daunting reality, and Thailand’s response to it is extremely layered and rife with intricacies. I’ll leave it to Facebook’s vernacular to describe it - it’s complicated!
Through our work at Creative Life Foundation (CLF), some of my colleagues and I visit IDC weekly. The first time I visited IDC, all I had was a name - I knew I was visiting a male from Pakistan. As I waited for him to appear on the other side of the pseudo-barbed wire fence, I was overwhelmed - all the visitors speak to all the folks being visited at the same time - in the same room (okay, it’s technically outside) at a volume that I wasn't sure was allowed outside of amusement parks and festivals.
Side-note: I just took a break to stress-eat caramel popcorn. Clearly, even typing this scene makes me anxious.
The lady across from me dressed in a brightly colored outfit put her hand on a young man’s shoulder and motioned toward me. The person standing 4 feet from me was kid, a boy - not a man. He’s small for 15. He’s probably the size of the average 11 year-old in the States. He smiled and I almost lost it - in front of this kid - with his lopsided grin who’s hand was on his mom’s back. It’s one of the only times that week he was able to see her. He’s a teenager, so he has to stay in the male rooms and is separated from his mother, sister, and younger brother.
A kid - you guys. A KID. I was only there for an hour. Who knows what we talked about. I kept thinking that I hadn't brought him enough candy. If I had known I was visiting a teenager, I would have gotten him a coke or more chocolate or something, I don’t know. I just couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that this gangly, dark-haired boy was in jail. I still can’t.
I should give you more facts about our visits - like who, when, why - that sort of information. I’m just not good at the facts. If I don’t feel it - I don’t think about it, so somewhere in this jumbled mess of stories are facts about our work - they’re just weaved around Margaret's tears, caramel popcorn, and the kid's smile.
I usually visit Mohammad. Y’all, he’s amazing. During his time at IDC, he’s learned/taught himself English and stared a micro-finance business making bracelets out of plastic bags. As I type this, he’s been in IDC 14 1/2 months. He and his family - his mother, father, and 4 brothers left their home country seeking asylum -and guess what…they got it! In a month and a half they’ll board a plan to to a new country, and new home, where they’ll all be free. They’ll get to work, and study and live together. I have been visiting Mohammad for 6 months or so - and am thrilled to my bones to see this part - the joy - the freedom that feels so close he could reach out and tackle it.
The process for applying for political asylum is arduous and long - and once a family lands in their new home - a whole new difficult journey is just beginning.
When Mohammad told me his family had been accepted by a country, I wanted to leap across the fence, grab him and jump up and down. I did actually jump and scream, i just wasn’t able to touch him or leap (I have the knees of a 88 year old). It felt- or rather, it feels- so good to know my friend, who is so intelligent and courageous and industrious will soon know liberation. He’ll get to hug his mom whenever he wants and take his little brother to the movies.
I live in the same neighborhood where IDC is located. When I walk home from the cafe where I watch Grey’s Anatomy, I often see the police trucks full of people on their way to IDC. I’ll be belting out P!NK’s new song, and stop abruptly because I’ll see several pairs of hands on the truck windows - and my breath halts in my chest.
Mohammad gets to leave soon, but there will be someone else to take his spot. Someone who knows intimately the yearning for a new life.
So we go to IDC so that families can see one another, and teenagers can drink coke on a Tuesday instead of stale water. We go because that could be us -but will probably never be. We go because there are kids, and moms, and dads, and cousins who need to get out of their rooms for an hour and remember that the sun still shines. We go because we need one another.
I think I go because I need hope; Mohammad gives me hope - his tenacity and enthusiasm - so then I get to hold it for bit and at best offer it to another.
Everyone has spunk, spark, and sass in their soul. Emma Lazarus, who wrote the poem The New Colossus which is associated with the Statue of Liberty said, “Until we are all free, we are none of us free” and Martin Luther King Jr. put in modern language with, “no one is free until we are all free.” That’s it. We long for freedom for all who thread upon this third plant from the Sun.
Thanks for reading, dear humans.
Erin
The names of the people in this post have been changed.
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