...the idea of having NO home, made me even colder…

It was a cold day and the idea of having NO home, made me even colder…

The family had been sent from the Traiskirchen refugee camp, 5 minutes from the Oasis, to a city about 25 minutes away where there was smaller housing for refugees.  Such a transfer is common.   Many former bed and breakfast-type housing located throughout Austria have been “downgraded” into refugee housing.   The former “vacation” site, in many cases, has been “downgraded” to refugee housing, by simple neglect.   While certainly far better than the slums seen in some big cities throughout the world, these refugee housing places are not a place a well-to-do family would choose to move in to.

When this family arrived at their “new-to-them” refugee housing, they were not impressed—likely emotionally and culturally shocked.   After seeing their accommodations, they took a taxi back to Traiskirchen to the refugee camp.  The camp said:  Go back to the housing you were given.   This family refused to go back.  They decided their only option was to request to be deported back to Iran.   They contacted a friend who contacted us at the Oasis. 

I don’t know how much they paid to get to Austria, but I’m sure it was a lot. 

I don’t know how much they were “culturally shocked” but I am sure it was a lot. 

I tried to encourage them to go back to their given “new” housing, so they could rest, and really think about their choices.  They politely refused.  They requested I take them to a local hotel and they planned to request to be deported back to Iran. 

I don’t know how quickly such a request would be granted.  How much was the hotel going to cost them?

 

Many refugees travel with very little.  This family had several large pieces of luggage.  They paid cash for the hotel and as I was helping check them in, the hotel registrar commented she remembered this family.  They had stayed at this hotel before.  All these things added together revealed to me that this family was from a well-to-do background.  Now, in  Austria, likely their expectations were that Austria would take care of them like they had grown used to living in their own country…where they probably had a good job, income, good home, and who knows what else.

As I was trying to care for them, I could REALLY feel the coldness of the day, which was near freezing.  I could sense what they likely felt--they had NO home here.  I could feel the fact that I could do very little to help them, except drive them a couple miles to a hotel and drop them off. 

What would happen to this family in the coming days?   

I don’t know.

Dan Lincoln