I don’t have much time at the internet cafe today, so I can’t catch up on my picture posting, but let me paint a picture for you of yesterday before I forget.
One hour late for our appointment with the director of ARESTA, we arrive at a busy train station and rush off to a taxi stand, leaving our professor behind to organize the other students at the photo exhibition. Fred, our ARESTA contact, takes in a van (group) taxi to some location in the middle of place-white-girls-shouldn’t-be. We *think* we’re going to Home Affairs to learn about refugee policies in South Africa, and there’s a sign on the brick wall that says “Home Affairs: Refugee Center.” 2 other men meet us and we all shake hands as we walk down this alleyway. I thought there were quite a few people loitering around, but felt safe because Fred was so confident in where we were going. As we turn the corner, near the very back of the property, to the left we see a giant dilapidated warehouse- something you might expect chickens at those massive chicken plants to be kept in. This one, however, is full of people. We estimated later, about 1,000 people crammed shoulder to shoulder in this warehouse, standing in “lines” waiting for Home Affairs officials to let them in. We continued around the back of the building, and from the very back, you could see all the way into the warehouse- all eyes on us. As we continued into the building, passing a line of portable toilets covered in filth, we entered this open cinderblock warehouse where rows upon rows of people were sitting waiting. ARESTA wanted a count of how many people where there. The answer is, 170 women, 42 men, and 58 children. All of them were sitting there waiting to see an immigration officer who would ask them questions and determine whether or not they met the requirement for refugee status, and therefore aid, in South Africa.
They come here by the tens of thousands- just to this city- and they sleep outside on the street in order to be the first in line because only some of them can be processed each day. If they are denied the first time they see an immigration officer, they can appeal, but it could be months, or even years, before they get their turn in line. In the meantime, they are not able to work, apply for aid, or even study. Idleness is the name of the game, and I can’t tell you in words how truly profound the experience was. Not only from the contrast of the government building setting I expected us to be in to the old drafty warehouse I was standing in. It’s bitter sweet- I enjoy the passionate conversations about refugee issues that I can engage in with the ARESTA staff, but the tragedy, vastness, and undeniability that sat staring at me in that room forced tears from my eyes. What’s worse, you can’t process paperwork to get refugee status if you’re unaccompanied and under the age of 15, so refugee children without parents end up on the streets. The in between people with no country and no home. They are neither here nor there, and they have no one to help them- no social workers, no placement programs. How could South Africa have such a gap in their aid work? Unfortunately, as 100,000 refugees flow into the area every year, only 50,000 of which can be processed during that time, children simply slip through the cracks.
It’s not a happy picture I leave you with today, but it was such a different picture of the refugee situation that what I experienced at Kiziba in Rwanda. What can one person do for all these lost souls…