THERE’S NO SHADE . Your head throbs. Your skin is tight. Your sleep is black, dreamless. Others on board are kind to you, and you are weak with gratitude. And still it is not over.
THE SKY BURNS bright-blue. The air is oddly quiet. The waves slap the hull.
There is no engine noise.
The engine’s dead. You’re just drifting.
IN AUSTRALIA, THE headlines blare on.
Labor has lost control of Australia’s borders.
More riots feared at Villawood Detention Centre.
Stop the boats.
THERE’S NO MEASURE of how far you’ve drifted, where in the ocean you are; blue sky and blue sea blur into a blinding, endless whole. There are no flares, no radio to signal for help. There is no food, and not enough water left.
You’d sooner throw yourself overboard and drown than die agonisingly of thirst.
The sun sizzles your skin. The salt makes you burn and itch madly. Jamilah is unconscious. If I jump overboard to escape this hell, will I take her with me?
And still it goes on.
YOU ARE RESCUED by the Australian navy. Through your weakness and your pain, you feel a huge bubble of triumph rise inside you. People all around you are sobbing with joy and giving prayers of thanks.
When the navy ship is close enough, smaller dinghies launch from the big ship. A uniformed navy officer with a square chin and kind blue eyes helps you and Jamilah onto his smaller craft. You shake his hand and offer your thanks.
You’ve truly been saved. Relief washes over you. All the risks we took, you think, and all the decisions we had to make were worth it. We survived.
But you thought too soon. They aren’t planning to take you to safety at all.
POLICE FOIL ANOTHER Islamic terrorist bomb threat, scream the headlines.
Pacific Island detention centres to be reopened.
‘That’ll teach them,’ say the mums and the dads in Australia, satisfied. ‘Teach them that they can’t come here illegally.’
Stop the boats.
Stop the boats.
Stop the boats.
YOU ARE SEPARATED from Jamilah. She is taken to a detention centre on Christmas Island, which is part of Australia, but you are sent to Nauru. This one little island is its own country, not part of Australia. Nauru. You never even knew it existed. Maybe the rest of the world doesn’t know it exists either.
In Nauru, there is nothing to sleep in but stifling hot army tents. There is white shale rock underfoot, and wire fences encircle the camp.
You are frantic with worry. Why can’t I be with my sister? When can I go to Australia? All the other asylum seekers here seem to be adult men, although there are a couple who look young, like you.
‘I don’t think I’m meant to be here,’ you try explaining to the staff. ‘I’m not an adult. I’m only fourteen. I need to be with my sister!’
The staff say they’ll look into it, but then they rush off to the next crisis, and you never hear back from them.You only hear rumours from the other men that the law has changed, Australia is trying to keep boat arrivals out, and you might be here forever.
They can’t keep me here forever! you think. Australians are good people, and they have fair laws. They wouldn’t let this happen.
Yet all around you come the sounds of hasty construction, as the contractors struggle to get the detention centre ready for hundreds more refugees yet to arrive.
THERE IS ONE staff member here who seems to want to get to know you. His name is Mark, and he works for the Salvation Army. He says that the database here has you listed as eighteen years old. He’s frustrated because he can’t get any of his superiors to admit that there’s been a mistake.
‘I have to get out of here,’ you tell him. ‘I have to get my family back together. One day, I want to be a journalist. I want to bring down al-Shabaab!’
I need freedom, you think, day and night. You thirst for it, as badly as you longed for water when you walked out of Dadaab. I can’t reach any of my dreams if I don’t have freedom.
You write a poem and give it to Mark the next day.
F
REEDOM FOR
E
DUCATION
Born in endless war
Searching for food inside a gun
Poor people die.
What I have seen stays in my memories.
Growing up in such hard life
With no rights for young or old.
Learning is filled with fears.
Just knowing education is best.
Day and night fight
That is my home
All I have known
Where I got grown
The world is full of lessons.
Out of the darkness
I have come the farthest.
Among the hardest
We survived
Arrived
In a peace-full world
But I heard them say
We send them to Nauru
That is what they say.
That was their answer.
I need freedom to forget the past.
We need freedom,
A chance to learn,
Not to be returned
To face death.
We patiently wait.
When will we be free?
Is the beautiful day far away?
With pain-full words I say:
Give us a visa.
Look at our situations.
Imagine our problems.
Everyone needs freedom.
Mark takes your poem and reads it thoughtfully. The next day, he reappears.
‘I put your poem up on my Facebook page,’ he says. ‘It’s going gangbusters. Seven hundred shares already!’
Mark has to explain to you what ‘Facebook’, ‘gangbusters’ and ‘seven hundred shares’ mean before you understand that people are reading your poem. Hundreds of people, whom you’ve never met. People who vote. Australian people.
If the government sent you to Nauru because the Australian people wanted it, couldn’t they bring you to Australia if the people change their minds? You ask Mark.
‘It’s complicated,’ he says.
The very next day, Mark tells you that he was nearly sacked for posting your poem online, so he won’t be able to do it again.
But he’s shown you that your words have power. You just have to keep getting them out there, somehow, any way you can, and maybe one day they’ll get you out of here, too.
AS THE WEEKS drag by, Nauru begins to feel more and
