Life in refugee camps
Stories and art about children's lives in refugee camps feature in two books in this collection: Donkeys can't fly on planes and The Remarkable Threads of Life. These stories are linked to different histories of people’s forced displacement from their homes in South Sudan and Bhutan. The refugee situation in both of these countries has directly affected multiple generations of people. Many of the children who wrote these stories have lived in refugee camps for long periods of time. All of the authors have come to live in Australia, and this is where they and their families were living when they wrote these stories.
More details about South Sudan and Bhutan can be found here.
Donkeys Can’t Fly on Planes
In Donkeys Can’t Fly on Planes stories and art focus on daily life in refugee camps, encounters with animals as well as living with a lack of food.
Sunday Garang’s story ‘Steven the Donkey’ allows readers to see an embodied history of life in the Kakuma Refugee camp from Sunday’s point of view. She discusses the lack of food available in the refugee camp and what starvation feels like. Sunday’s mother ‘would try to make us feel better’ when they were going to sleep hungry, telling them ‘There is food growing right now while we sleep. It will be ready soon’.
Sunday created the donkey that features on the cover of the book, and in the story readers learn about the relationship between humans and animals and the freedoms and regulation of children’s movement and work.
The Remarkable Threads of Life
The stories in The Remarkable Threads of Life tell of young people’s experiences in refugee camps - including soccer matches, adventures with friends, school as well as religious and cultural ceremonies. Some of the authors describe the difficulties and limitations of having to live in a refugee camp. Narayan Kanal wrote that it was ‘liveable because there was nothing outside of that for us’. Asis Magar described ‘Life in the camp’ as ‘more than disappointing’. Meena Gurung wrote that ‘living conditions in the refugee camp were horrible’ and Karuna Guragai noted that ‘We were surviving but had no hope for the future’.
Another author, Bhawana Majhi, wrote about the day they left the refugee camp to come to Australia. As the time to leave came closer, ‘my family looked nervous and miserable’. The emotions of those leaving and those staying are expressed. When the family is about to depart the author ‘said goodbye to everyone, thinking to myself, “After this, how is my life going to change?”’ Arjun Guragai wrote about friends from the refugees camp and how ‘I speak to them on the computer now’ because they all live in different countries around the world. This is expressed as a loss by this author who says ‘Sometimes I wish I had stayed in Nepal so that I could still play with my friends. I miss them.’
This map shows where the children created the books.