World Refugee Day

World Refugee Day’s theme this year is Hope.

In Hagadera, Ifo, and Dagahaley camps this morning, refugee students, community members, religious leaders, and elders organized themselves in the swirling sand to perform traditional dances, dramas depicting life in the camps, and Somali songs and speeches of freedom. Young men held up prepared signs for BBC News stating, We are Muslim. We are not Terrorists.

Beyond the performers, sign-holders, and barbed wire, hundreds of refugees scrambled to secure a viewing spot. Little barefoot boys in beat-up blue jeans hung in the trees, straining for a better angle. Veiled women and girls stood toe to heel like an inexperienced squadron of terracotta soldiers. Half- naked nappy-haired babies wailed. Elder men clad in kikoi carried canes and bristled tangerine beards. Women with henna'ed fingernails, hands, arms and feet swayed, squinty-eyed in the sun. Cleft lips, wrinkled chins, deformed hands, glass eyes. Waiting, breathing. Police officers forced the surging audience to sit down by shouting, Fariso!

Afterwards, I was bombarded by the usual pulsing crowd thrusting letters into my palm, pleading for a durable solution.

In the middle of the encircling mass, I asked, What do you hope for?

Peace, they answered without hesitation, and in the second breath, a Chance to Return Home.