Life between borders
Michele M. Gierck
Some people talk the talk. Others walk the walk. For the latter breed, taking a first step on a path they are drawn to is more important than knowing their actual destination.
After completing university and working a couple of years in social services, Francis Leong had earned a break. He also felt the need ‘to work out what life was really like outside of Perth’, where he’d grown up. Like many young Australians, he bought an overseas airline ticket.
En route to Europe, a stopover in Singapore provided the opportunity to sample from the world of refugees. Accompanying his uncle for one month in a refugee transit centre had a tremendous impact on Francis. ‘I somehow identified with where the people were at. Perhaps it was the refugee in me—I’m not sure. I felt an affinity I’d never felt before. I wanted to know more, how I could get involved.’
In Singapore, Francis heard about the Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS). Arriving in London (the destination of his airline ticket) he registered with JRS before heading off to France, working in adult education with a corporate training institute. It was the interaction with a different culture and the opportunity for educational innovation which he enjoyed most. Two-and-a-half years passed. But as Francis recalls, ‘The desire to work with refugees hadn’t diminished’.
On return to London he was offered work by JRS. ‘Maybe I am more ready now’, were his thoughts, the added educational experience tucked under his belt. Finally in 1993, his dream, the opportunity to work with refugees, became a reality.
How were his first months in Zambia living and working in Meheba refugee
settlement—home to 21,000 Angolan refugees who had been there for
21 years, and 3000 recently arrived refugees?
‘Initially it was mind blowing’, he laughs, recalling his early
days in the field. ‘But you felt one with the people. You became
one with them because of the intimacy that you developed. You became their
voice at meetings—quite literally—trying to raise simple demands.’
His admiration for those stuck between a rock and a hard place is obvious. Francis had discovered community living on a scale Australians could barely imagine. Rather than simply being the supplier of services or undertaking needs assessments, the emphasis of Francis’ approach was being ‘in relationship’ with the people—the Congolese and Angolan refugees who inspired and embraced him.
‘Bureaucracy tends to dehumanise issues, whereas our role was to humanise them’, he says.
After four years in the settlement focusing on the health and educational needs of the community, Francis moved to the capital, Lusaka, as Country Director for JRS in Zambia.
Rather than establish an office like other non-government organisations removed from the people, this one was set up as a restaurant amid the ‘energy and colour’ of the main marketplace in the centre of an urban slum. In the restaurant he could meet the people where they were—sit and chat, eat and listen to their stories and their needs. That art of listening and accompanying the people is a style he has had plenty of practice developing.
After more than a decade overseas, in 2001 Francis married Carla, his Portuguese co-worker, who also worked in Meheba, and returned to Australia. How does it feel living back in Australia?
He speaks of experiencing an ‘in-between-ness’—‘no longer belonging to the African world I left behind, nor feeling an affinity for this world which I have returned to’. He is now beginning to realise it is he who has changed, rather than Australia.
But what challenges him most is the way Australians think; their values and their fears. One senses that he is grappling with the way Australia as a community has responded to recent refugee and asylum seeker issues. He reflects upon his time in Zambia.
‘They had so little over there, but they were more accepting of strangers in their midst, despite the problems and the fears … There was a general attitude that we’re all in this together, we’re all human beings. Surrounded by poverty and suffering in Zambia, I felt more human, more in touch and connected with other humans. More alive.’ He wonders if living in Australia he’ll ever be able to feel like that again or if he will begin to see things differently.
Francis is now working for Catholic Missions in Perth, where he hopes to draw on his experience of ‘in-between-ness’ and ‘the gift of personal conversion’. He has come a long way, but the walk, as always, continues.
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