DEATH threats from a political faction forced ‘Kumar’ and his wife to flee their homeland – without their two children.
They’ve since welcomed another into the world and have been living in community detention in Dandenong for nearly three months.
“Living in the community it’s much easier than in the detention camp, but with limited access to resources and the uncertainty of what will happen tomorrow, life is very hard.”
In his own words, Kumar takes us behind the wire and inside the mind of a detainee.
IT WAS early morning – 4.30am, 1 February 2014.
One of the centre security officers (CSOs) opened the door without knocking and shone the torch-light onto my face.
I answered him, “two”, because we have head counts twice a night – once at 11pm to midnight and the second one at 4am to 5am.
But he was not happy with my answer. He put the light on my wife’s face anyway and banged the door very hard as he left.
After that I was unable to sleep but I stayed lying down until 6am.
At that time I was thinking about my past.
I always feel sorry for my wife and children because, due to me, they are facing such a hard time.
I can’t explain what it is like waking up each day with a heavy heart and to see the person whom I love suffering and know I can’t help her.
Two days ago was my son’s seventh birthday. We had spoken to him and with our daughter (by phone).
She is just starting to speak but the questions that came from them were so hard for me to answer.
They asked me “why can’t we be with you?”, “don’t you love us?” and “why are other kids with their father and mother and we aren’t?”.
These questions were still playing in my mind and I was feeling totally helpless. So I got up and went outside.
There were very few people about because it was Saturday and kids were not going to school.
I saw Mr S. He was sitting in a chair with a cup of tea and watching TV in front of the dining hall because each day at 6.30am on SBS they have news in his language.
I went there and watched the news with him. On the news there was nothing important. We didn’t have anything to talk about.
He went to his room to read his holy book so I came back to our room and read some Bible verses.
But I don’t know – I was not feeling peaceful. I was feeling that there was a big stone in my chest.
I went to the client kitchen and made breakfast for my wife because she had just got to sleep properly. I went to the computer room to use the internet.
I answered some of my friends’ mail, read news from back home and got information about cricket.
I used to watch Test match cricket for days but these days I can’t stay watching it for more than 30 minutes.
Even reading for more than 30 minutes, I can’t do.
It was almost 9am when I came out of the internet room. Where to go? What to do?
A few kids were playing in the grounds. I was watching them.
One of them is an abnormal boy from Burma. He came up to me and gave me a high five. It made me happy.
I felt that he has some bond with me because he feels scared with other people.
One single man came and sat with me and he asked me “are you happy?”.
I looked at him and shook my head.
That man came with us from Darwin. He had problems with his wife and now they are separated and his wife is in the community.
He had one son but he can’t meet with his son. We sat together and kept watching the kids.
Mr S came and said “let’s go for activities” so we went for gardening.
The gardening area is small and we were more than 100 people, so there was also not anything to do. We just gave water to the flowers.
After that we went to art and craft class. But there was nothing – just some colours and 20 to 30 pieces of paper but the people were more than 100.
Without doing anything we stay until noon in that activities room because otherwise we will not get signed off.
That will mean we will not get any points and that means we can’t buy anything from the canteen.
At 12.30pm we went to the dining hall for lunch and at 2pm we went to the area where we often sit with Mr and Mrs S.
We were joined by two other ladies – one from Pakistan and one from Burma.
But we don’t have anything to talk about because we have been together for more than four months. We know each other and the conditions of each other very well.
But we don’t have any other options to kill time so every day we gather together.
We usually feed the pigeons every day at 3pm to 4pm.
At 5pm we gathered in the same area and had a cup of tea.
Sometimes we talk about our experience in other camps, sometimes we talk about officers and make jokes about them to try to make ourselves happy.
Sometimes they bring people from the airport and keep them in a special compound.
They are mostly Indian, Malaysian, Chinese and English. These people are also our topics of talk.
At 6.30pm we went for dinner. After dinner, Mr S and I usually go for a walk for 30 minutes and Mrs S comes with a Pakistani girl.
After that we are joined by other people. They share their experiences of the day and we share ours.
It doesn’t make any changes in our life, but still we do it.
We all don’t know why we are doing this, but sometimes it makes us happy. I think that’s why we do it.
Again at 8.30pm I went to the internet room to check the mail and answer my friends. I came back at 9.30pm.
Everybody was sitting there and trying to find anything that might makes us laugh, even for a minute, and many times throughout the day we tried to forget our present conditions and try to make ourselves happy.
We separated at 11pm and went to our rooms with one good thought – that next day we were going to church and Mr and Mrs S were going their temple.
But we were unable to get to sleep.
I was lying in the bed at 11.45pm when the SCO came for the head count.
I don’t know when I slept.
Kumar’s country of origin and the name of the detention centre has been withheld for his protection.
