For about 12 months, my family lived in a bamboo hut in a refugee camp in Thailand. My parents don’t talk about that time much. I think it was a bit traumatic for them – the war in Laos, feeling it was no longer safe for us to stay, having to escape from our...
The two of us had never really settled anywhere. We worked as IT contractors throughout Europe, and then whenever we had saved up enough, we would go sailing for a while. We always had boats, but in 2000, we decided we wanted to build our dream boat. Because we knew...
I went to nine different schools growing up, as my father was travelling back and forth from Australia to India for work. It was so hard to be constantly packing up and leaving, and I had many days when I would cry. Unfortunately, I experienced bullying in both...
The first time we tried to leave Vietnam, the boat sank. At that time, I was only 4, but I remember being on Dad’s back while he swam to the shore. Mum and Dad were separated, and one year earlier, she had left by boat for Hong Kong with the intention of supporting my...
A week from my 12th birthday, I waited for my mum to come and pick us kids up from primary school but she never came. The entire school emptied and I remember just standing there and wondering what was going on. Then we found out that she had been killed in a car...
When I left Pakistan, I was so hysterical my father had to literally hold me up to coax me onto the flight! Dad had initially applied for our whole family to come to Australia, but was rejected because of his age. However, the letter said, ‘We note your daughter Mary...
