Reflections from one of our refugee students, telling her story anonymously.

It's extremely difficult to leave your past behind and say goodbye, when is it part of your life. For some people it is difficult to continue, but for others it is a challenge that they are prepared to face. Going from one place to another, at times fleeing for your life and with fear behind you is difficult. While trying to forget what made you run away from home, leaving your family and friends behind and everything you own. It is hard knowing that you have left everything and everyone without knowing when or if you will ever be able to return.

When I was eight years old, my journey around the world began. It was a Sunday morning when everything happened. I lost a part of myself that day, due to an assassination attempt on my family, the father of my friend Carol was killed. He was shot and killed after taking the shots in front of my house. That day my father should have been the one who died, not hers, but by a miracle he was spared. This was a miracle; however, it was sad to see Carol mourning and suffering for her father. She shed many tears on her father's body, as the police covered him with a white sheet in the middle of the street. When I knew what happened, it was like someone had poured a bucket of freezing water on me, I was frozen with fear and sadness. Knowing that my father should have died and not her father, I was ashamed to see her face again.

Sometimes I think, what would have happened if the dead body had been someone else? Many questions come to my mind, but the same question that haunts me every day, what would have happened if my father had been the dead one? What happened that day caused my friend to leave town. It ended our friendship but every day I still think of her and what she went through that day. I know it is going to be very hard for her to build a new life without her loving father.

For a long time, I blamed myself for everything that had happened, at the same time I hated my father for not making good decisions. In those days, if you went out, nothing good would happen in the neighbourhood. My parents had to leave the country because of so much violence. A new life was waiting for me in Ecuador. When I found out about my parents' decision to move to Ecuador, my world fell apart. My family, my dreams and my friends would be left behind, but the bitter memory will follow me for a lifetime.

Although the place where it all happened was far from Ecuador, something was still missing in my life. I did not know what it was, but I was sure I wanted to find what I was missing. When we arrived in Guayaquil, one of the largest cities in Ecuador, my mother's family helped us a lot. They welcomed us with joy, for a few days I felt out of place, but with their love and patience everything got better. In Ecuador, I learned that in life nothing is easy, if you want something you have to make an effort because some people will make your life impossible. It is your decision to let yourself be stopped by those people or to continue with your head held high. Ecuador can be beautiful and interesting, but life as a refugee can be exhausting and stressful yet it can teach you many lessons in life. Living in a country with a culture that is different from yours is a real challenge and you must live your life knowing you are a refugee.

A few months after arriving in Ecuador, I found out that my parents were applying to be refugees abroad. I can say that I was not surprised by the news, you could see it coming from far away that they desired to leave Colombia. For two years that we were in Ecuador, we found many people doing the same process as us. Some of them had been in this process for years, others like us, just a month. In this process not everyone was chosen. It was sad to see so many faces of disappointment and despair when they were not accepted. We were all waiting for an answer, looking for that ray of hope. To be told that you were not chosen in less than a minute, it was difficult to believe, we lost hope immediately.

When they tell you that you are possibly going to New Zealand, my thoughts began to fly, where was New Zealand? What will my life be like in New Zealand? Will I be accepted in New Zealand? Is New Zealand part of America? Most people thought that New Zealand was part of America, I was thinking the same at some point. When we looked for where New Zealand was, I was surprised, first because it is very far from our beloved country and that it does not have wild animals. When they finally talked about New Zealand in a class, I felt privileged, because the teacher said that not everyone could come here. I was happy because in this country you don't have to worry that a snake will bite your foot like in Colombia or that a crocodile will eat you up. For the first time, I felt happy about this process.

When someone was chosen, their opportunity to leave everything behind and begin a new life, starting from scratch was already a given. At the end of our second year in Ecuador, we received the long-awaited call. When the UNHCR (who were the responsible people in our process) told us that New Zealand had accepted us, we did not believe them at first, but when we received the confirmation letter, we did believe them. When we broke the news to my whole family, the emotion was so great that we all began to cry. When my dad heard the news, he looked like a kid in a candy store, he couldn't believe it. At that moment I did not think that I was going to leave my family, that I could not take them with me, it was tragic. In Colombia we have a saying "Take me in the suitcase", but this time I couldn't put it into practice, I couldn't take any of them with me.

The day of the trip arrived, the goodbyes and the wishes for a good trip broke my heart. For my family, this opportunity was a blessing. When it was time to get on the plane, we met other families who had been accepted by New Zealand, it was good to know that we would not be alone in this journey. At that moment the fear, the anxiety of getting on a plane and seeing that you are only a few steps away from finishing this long journey, you do not feel alive with so much emotion. For the next 17 hours we flew, crossing many borders until, we arrived in New Zealand. When we got off the plane, the new environment of opportunities and new expectations began in our lives.

At first, learning a new language, living another lifestyle and not being able to express yourself was difficult. With time, patience and faith, everything changed. Sometimes when I was in school learning English I felt out of place, people made fun of me, it was almost always the girls from school, just because my pronunciation was not adequate for them, sometimes I would like to shout at them to tell them that it is not easy to learn a new language, it was hard trying to fit in. Sometimes, I would like to tell them why I am here and why I am learning English. Maybe if they could experience a little of what I lived in my childhood, they would understand, I very quickly came to realise that the thing I must do is keep my head up and not let myself be stopped by the comments of others. The phrase that inspired me so much when I thought that I could no longer go on with so many teasing at school: “I've had a lot of things to feel ashamed about and I've learned most of them are other people's problems, not mine.”

After two years in New Zealand, I think of everything that happened in Colombia as a bad dream, which taught me to leave the past behind and keep looking forward. Now my life is much better. I have so many more opportunities than I could ever have had in Colombia, my family is safe now and we have the privilege of not worrying because New Zealand gave us the opportunity to live in peace. Now it makes sense and all the effort that my parents put in when we were in Ecuador, the days when there was no money, the rejections they had from people. Ecuador was a place of learning of how to be grateful for what we had and didn’t have and that there are good things and bad things which help us to know the difference of what is truly good and bad.

My future goal is to be able to finish my studies, to be able to take my career to success and one day, return to my country and be able to help those who didn’t have the same opportunities that I had. Now I will enjoy this opportunity to live without the fear that something bad could happen in my life, enjoying every second of my life, living in the land of thousand opportunities.