From a hut in Ethiopia to a new start in New Zealand

BY BRONWYN SELL

KEBRIBEYAH - The words "New Zealand" are new to Somali refugee Bilad Abdillahi Gilaal, but they will soon take on an important meaning - home.

Bilad, her husband, Nur Salad Yusuf, and their eight children are leaving the tukul (hut) in an Ethiopian refugee camp that has sheltered them for eight years to settle in a distant land of hope. Their second-youngest child, Halimo, a thin 9-year-old with a shy smile, has a bowel disorder which restricts her to a liquid diet. Here that means watery oatmeal, milk and water.

At Kebribeyah refugee camp, 670km by dirt road from Addis Ababa, there is no chance of treatment. In New Zealand, Bilad and Nur hope, Halimo will have a future.

"The words 'New Zealand' are just new to me," Bilad says through an interpreter. "What New Zealand is to me right now is a green country - everything is green."

In this hot, dusty place where the riverbeds are dry and drought has killed this year's crops, green is life.

There is another strange new word for the family - "Hamilton" - the mecca where their pilgrimage will soon end, about a month before mine does.

I tell them it is a city with a big river in the greenest part of New Zealand, and that my family lives there, and suddenly the fairytale land becomes real.

They flick greedily through a collection of scenic photos I bought at a souvenir shop before I left to work as a volunteer in a camp run by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Ethiopia five weeks ago.

Bilad shrieks at a photo of the Beehive. "It is too high! I might fall off!" Their first impressions of their new home are snowy mountains, deserted beaches and glittering cities.

I hope I'm not overselling the place. These images are beautiful, but New Zealand has its problems - among them its treatment of refugees.

Although we rate among the top 20 donor countries to the UNHCR (giving $US1,626,923, about $3.8 million, in 1999) and we are one of the few countries with an established resettlement programme, the UNHCR has concerns.

"Despite its enthusiastic support of resettlement, the Government of New Zealand spends relatively little money on post-arrival integration services such as English-language classes and employment support programmes," it said in its 1999 report.

"The lack of proactive integration services may create the impression that refugees are a burden and not a benefit to the country."

Aside from the inevitable culture and climate shocks, language will be the biggest problem for Bilad, Nur and their children, only a few of whom speak a little English. Nur's chances of work in his profession - a teacher of the Koran - will be low.

At least they will not be alone. New Zealand has accepted nearly 1000 Somalis for resettlement since 1992.

"New Zealand has been generous to Somalis," says the UNHCR acting officer in charge of eastern Ethiopian camps, Shoucheng Yuan. The family have a long trip ahead, but it will be nothing compared with their two-month walk from southern Somalia, torn by civil war, in 1992.

"We were walking over dead bodies," says Bilad. "The skin on our feet was all gone. We were just seeking a safe place."

Their home town, Lugh Ganana, is still too volatile to return to, and they are thanking Allah for a chance at life in a safe, green city with clean, running water and a hospital. "What's in my mind," says Bilad, "is to get peace, stability, and good life and a future for my daughter."