A Few Of My Favourite Things

Hey there,

So I haven't written since Baxter... I always do this! Get home and can't quite bring myself to write about it. This time was really not much different to the other two times I've been, except that we had the camera crew there, and I got food poisoning (great!). Whoopty doo!

The title of this post, however, is not intended sarcastically, because while we were away, I got a FANTASTIC phonecall! I found out that the two Hazara boys in Maribyrnong had finally been released from detention, which was very exciting news, even if they did ring me at 8am to tell me. My yelps of joy woke up everyone sleeping in my little room at the Port Augusta Big 4 Holiday Caravan Park!

We got home from Baxter on Wednesday night, and on Thursday night I went over for dinner to the house that the 2 lads are staying at with a friend. One of them was a chef before he was detained, and he had been promising for ages that as soon as he got out he would cook me a massive Afghani feast... Well, let's just say he wasn't kidding!! He made 4 amazing dishes and this beautiful special spiced rice and we all sat on the floor with our shoes off eating until top buttons were popping all over the shop.

It was so great watching him in the kitchen - he knew exactly what he was doing, and he was damn good at it, and I realised how crappy it must be to be in detention with no possible way of distinguishing yourself from the next guy. Regardless of who you are outside detention, your personality, experiences, talents, foibles or favourite past-times, you are just a face on a list of ID numbers. So it makes sense that as soon as people get out of detention they often want to reassert themselves - reactivate their characters and the things that make them THEM, rather than just another detainee in a system. I love watching people coming back to life again :)

J x