Someone told me (perhaps they read it somewhere) that refugees are forced into cement shoes and told, “Now you have roots.” But being held down isn’t roots. They are told not to move, to build a life for a year, two years, to learn a culture they may soon leave behind. But the knowledge that you haven’t been accepted hardens the soil. This in-between country hopes you will leave, and so do you. In the meantime, they keep you in holding pens. You aren’t meant to mingle with locals, to get by too skillfully in this land. You aren’t meant to take root through your cement shoes.
