Participated in the My First Jesuit Refugee Services Journey into Exile Simulation with Students Yesterday. Very, Very Powerful

For several years, I've known others on campus offer simulation of the refugee experience, but I've never participated or (to be honest) had interest in a simulation. Yes, I've experienced the Holocaust simulation and still can feel the impact it had on me, but with refugees (because of the work I do and the intimate storytelling that has been shared with me) I never felt like it would be healthy to make a game out of it. The intensity is too severe an the diversity of story is too complex. 

So, yesterday, Jésuites du Canada came out our Honors course and ran the simulation. We were each given an identity and walked through a variety of circumstances and possibilities. This wasn't in a museum or in an assembly...just a classroom. I was an Afghan teenager with no family, no money, and a love of Arab hip hop and gaming. As decisions were made to send this person here or that person there, I was overlooked: Those who were moms with kids or elderly or transgendered seem to have more needs that I had as a teenage boy. I coasted and watched as the plight of everyone went forward. At one point, I was killed because I didn't have money to pay these men to move me to a safer place. They used me as an example for all the others. 

It's sort of hard sitting in a newly built building with all its luxuries and with young people whose family can afford Fairfield's luxury discussing the realities of displaced people worldwide. It's sort of unfathomable and hard to digest (yet it's abundant, growing, and likely to be an ongoing crisis until something is done about it.....but what?)

Of our room of 24 people, only one made it to their destination in the Western world. Out of every 100 who try, that is the likelihood they'll reach the goal. 1. This is why so many who are given asylum in the United States feel they hit the lottery if selected.

But that doesn't fix the borders. Nor does it fix the travel by boat....the mothers having to leave children behind to save the one in her arms. It's something. And it will continue to be something until all nations have economic stability, jobs, and a flow of opportunities to their people. As one man state in his interview, "it was either taking a chance on a better life or being shot  in my home nation because it's a no-win situation." 

We went through the simulation without our shoes, which made the experience a little more vulnerable, although not much. 

It's one of those things that, even in simulation, is hard to believe: the numbers, the odd chances, the violence and cruelty, and the hatred of nations turning their backs on the desperate.

So much wealth held by the few. So much struggle by a majority. I don't mean to be cynical, but it's only going to get worse, especially as Westerners willfully ignore geography, global history, and what the books of faith (Bible, Torah, and Koran) teach.

And so, I have to admit, the simulation does what it's supposed to....it lurks on the brain with every other thing one tries to do.

There has to be a better way.