World Refugee Day

It's World Refugee Day today. I worked at The Salvation Army's Immigrant & Refugee Centre in Toronto for 2 years and loved it. It was an awesome job, and I truly appreciated the joy of being surrounded by newcomers to Canada from almost every country imaginable. There will always be a special place in my heart for refugees. I cannot imagine the pain of being forced to leave your home due to violence. Although now I live in a country where this is happening on a daily basis...

Today we went to an IDP (internally displaced persons) camp here in Joburg. It was eerie to drive by the thousands of tents in one camp on our first night - to see that scene in South Africa. But they've been set up all around the country due to the xenophobic attacks here. We went with the local Salvation Army to serve lunch, and my French really came in handy, because we met many Congolese and Burundians who had been victimized. John was giving out the apples and oranges, and being the health-nut that he is, allowed people to come through 3 - 4 times to get their fill of fruit! They told us horrible stories about being chased, thrown out of combis, kicked out of their jobs and their homes, being beaten, some even being burned alive. There are plans to repatriate them, but the problem is that many of them came to South Africa to escape violence and war. We even saw one of our Zimbabwean neighbours in the camp. He had moved to South Africa to try to survive and make a life for himself, but then he faced this hatred. Stacey was telling us that one woman who gave birth during the attacks named her child Xeno. He will never forget. This is the rainbow nation with 11 official languages, and a huge victory over apartheid in its recent history, but the huge inflow of illegal migrants has caused competition for housing and jobs with poor South Africans, and therefore this hatred erupted. Let's pray for harmony. One thing that did amaze me was that in the camp (and in Stacey's English class yesterday) when people heard we were living in Zimbabwe, they said "sorry!" and showed pity. Just like when I was in the IDP camps in Northern Uganda last year, the people in this terrible situation felt sorry for US!

On a cheerier note, we did go ice skating last night - which was random and fun. Trinity (the very cute two year old that we're staying with) skated on her own, to the delight of her Canadian mother as well as Zulu father. I was impressed too. Ice skating is so magical and romantic - as long as you can stay on your feet and get hot chocolate afterwards! It was an awesome night.