Tag Brisbane
8 years ago, I was feeling depressed because my pet had died, and a friend introduced me to an online game to take my mind off things. My first session, I’m ashamed to say, was 12 hours long. I actually spent an hour just creating my character! Then I became part of a guild, which
My parents lost a baby in the Gulf War because the hospital was attacked. After that, they fled Iraq to Libya, where we lived a relatively peaceful life until 2011, when everything turned upside down. One day it was a protest, the next it was the Arab Spring, then the sky started raining bombs. My
I was born in El Salvador and had a very happy childhood, but when the civil war started in the 80s, my family migrated to Miami, Florida. Six years later, we returned, but found it hard to get used to living there again, as the war had not ended. My parents then found out that
I didn’t come from a wealthy background in Nepal. My father had to get a loan to pay for my flight and my first semester at university, and when I first arrived, I stayed in a house in Sydney with 28 others. Then I moved into another place with some friends, and all our furniture
(2/2) When we first arrived in Australia, no one in the neighbourhood came to see us, which really shocked us. In Africa, when you are a new person, the neighbours always come and welcome you and bring you some food or drink. And although there was plenty of food to buy at the supermarket, we
(1/2) In the Congo, I was a pastor, a politician, a teacher and a trade unionist. So when my people, the Kasai tribe, started being persecuted, I was one of the most visible targets. Eventually, I had to flee, without my family, to the border of Zambia, where many Kasai people were living. One day,
I came to Australia as a refugee from Afghanistan, so my level of education wasn’t very high when I got here. The first school I went to was Milperra, which is a school mostly for migrants who speak English as a second language. It’s a great place, because when you go there you’re all on
I was working with Filipino intelligence in Bangkok when I became close to an Australian, Tina. They viewed my friendship with her as a security risk, so I was given a choice to either ‘terminate the liaison’ or to go back to the Philippines without her. Instead, I married her! At first, it was quite
Bahá’ís are not allowed to study in Iran, so when I was 19, my brother and I left to study in India. Soon afterwards, the revolution took place in Iran, which meant that it became hard for people to travel in and out of the country. My father was so worried about being separated from
(3/10) Then, Daraa. It started when children in that town wrote on a wall, ‘It will be your turn soon, Doctor.’ Intelligence arrested those children and tortured them and took off their fingernails. They were around 10 – 14 years old. Then, the people in Daraa went to the street and asked for their children,