For some, learning the English language will be their greatest obstacle. Imagine your parents or grandparents suddenly having to leave their home and all their belongings. After years in a refugee camp they must relocate to a country with different customs, rules, national holidays, money, language and, most likely, a different alphabet. Maybe they never had the opportunity to learn their own alphabet, or to attend school, read a book or even hold a pencil. Perhaps they were sheep herders, rice farmers, or nomads, but now they must live in a city with fast cars, sirens, gangs, modern gadgets and locks on all the doors.
Depression runs high among refugees, especially the elderly.
The refugees who live all around us have stories of suffering just as heinous and heartbreaking as the Kosovars we see on television. A young woman from the Oromo territory in Ethiopia tells how one day the soldiers came to her village, dragged her brother out of the house and executed him in front of the entire family. She then was stuck in a Thai refugee camp for six years. A thin Tibetan who looks 20 years older than his age, recounts the 17 years he spent in a Chinese prison simply for being a Buddhist monk. So, to look after people from another country is essentially to look after oneself.