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We were just four lost souls, without a clue in the world of what we were doing, standing in the middle of a harbour surrounded by customs officers and other important looking people. We did not know why we were here or what we were meant to do but the one thing we did know was that we were in Australia and safe from our troubles from our past lives. We weren’t forced to come here; we were given a choice out of a list of countries, all very distant from each other and definitely far away from our nightmare, Pakistan. We had all looked at each other and distinctively placed our hands onto the most isolated country, Australia. ‘So this is where we had chosen, I think to myself’.

We must’ve looked strange standing here, four very different looking people from four very different cultures. I glance around at my fellow companions; Asmal, a young, short, funny boy with distinguished cheek bones and a very strong accent that matched his Middle Eastern appearance. The second in our group was Jirad, a tall African boy with the slightest signs of facial hair, always complaining and easily the most difficult of us to please. There was William, a smart Korean boy with extremely slight facial features, dark-as-the-night-sky hair and small reading glasses that sat high up on his nose. He was the smartest and most sensible one of us who was always thinking of what to do next. Then finally there was me. I was probably the least foreign looking out of the group of us, average height, Southern-Italian olive skin, dark hair and a mild accent with almost perfect English.

We gathered our few belongings and headed out of immigration and into the general direction of the hostel we were to stay our first night in. The hostel provided accommodation for a month whilst we got our own place to stay before kicking us out on to the streets to become one of the many homeless refugees. As we were leaving I caught many looks aimed towards us, looks of disgust and repulsion with a matching upturned nose to accompany them. I hand our money to the taxi driver and he mutters something I don’t understand. Gee I hate how these Australians talk. It’s so hard to understand, with their ‘G’day matey’ or ‘Oi over here’. It sounds so impolite and improper.