A Night in a Refugee Camp: Heifer Ranch

Our home for the evening, aka the refugee camp.

Several of us went to the Heifer Ranch last weekend to spend a night living as a member of the communities Heifer works in around the globe. Between our group and a college class from Kansas, we populated four of the areas where Heifer works: Guatemala (the irony of this was not lost on me...), Urban Slums, Thailand, and a refugee camp. If you haven't heard me talk (or bitch) about it yet, (you probably have) I was in the family of refugees with three classmates. 


Everyone draws numbers to determine what "family" they will be in. Each family receives a basket of resources that corresponds to the real-life situation in the country they represent. Guatemala got the most resources during our stay- including water rights. The refugees got nothing. Thailand got wood rights, so everyone had to trade with them to get wood to cook. As an extra kick to the refugees, one of us had to have a (fake) broken arm. Lucky ol' me got that role- I wasn't allowed to use my dominate arm/hand to do anything. Let's go ahead and sum that one up as a fail- I kept using it out of habit.


One person in each family has to be pregnant- and they don't discriminate- boys can end up as the preggos! They have to carry a water balloon wrapped in a cloth for the evening, give birth at some point, and barter to find powdered milk to ensure the baby's survival until the morning. If the baby dies (luckily everyone took good care of their's on our trip!) you'll end up a) wet and b) having to mourn the loss of your child for 20 minutes- no talking!


Speaking of no talking- the refugees aren't allowed to talk to any other group. Clearly for me this was a problem. Me- not talking? What! The premise is that refugees are displaced people that do not know the local language. We ended up using a lot of charades to try to communicate, but could at least understand what the other teams were saying- in a real situation, that would not be the case.

The Urban Slums

Once everyone received their resource basket (or not..), we dispersed to lodgings representative of our situation. The refugee camp was a wooden structure- with a wood floor!- with tarp wrapped over it. I would say it was a bit nicer than a typical refugee camp. The four of us in the "refs" family arrived, set up our sleeping bags, and promptly had nothing to do. It was odd. You know how they say "with power comes responsibility"? Well, we were the exact opposite. A couple hours prior, we had all been complaining about the papers and readings and everything else for grad school, and now here we were, prohibited from reading or talking to other people, with no resources to manage. It was oddly freeing. 


On one hand, we had nothing to cook, so we did not need to worry about trading for wood, dividing resources, or cleaning dishes. However, the uncertainty of not knowing where our next meal would come from was a bit haunting. Still, we knew someone would take pity on us and that we would readily have access to any food we want the very next day. I tried to dig down into the mindset.

Our lavatory.

We ended up begging some food from our Thailand compatriots and a bit more from the Guatemala family. We ate standing around one plate, eating with our fingers. Then we went to sleep- once dark hit, we again had nothing to do. We did have flashlights and managed to get a little bit of wood from the Thai to make a fire, but our typical "stay up late" attitudes were doused by the reality of living on daylight's schedule. The hardest part was getting through the night. I think I slept about 2-3 hours, maybe. It was an abnormally cold night for April and we weren't exactly prepared. The next morning, the Urban Slums had to make everyone breakfast- a gruel of watered down oatmeal- then we all had chores to do. Again, the refs barely had anything to do because we didn't have animals or gardens.


So what did I learn from the refugee camp experience? While I know there is only so far Heifer can go to represent realities from across the globe on a ranch in Arkansas, the experience did make me THINK. For me, the busy grad student, the idea of taking away my control was intriguing. It allowed me to not worry about school work or when to fit x, y, and z into my schedule. But for a real family in a refugee camp, the lack of control would be a daunting task to take on each day. There would also be so many other elements to consider- like thousands of other families fighting for the same resources you are begging for, or violence and harassment of women in the camp, or what about the noise level when you're trying to sleep? Something so simple that we take for granted, yet could mean the difference in getting enough rest to go search for work or resources the next day or not. Malnutrition and starvation add to the list of threats to survival.


The visit was a good refresher course for why I'm studying public service in the first place. It forced me to step away from being bogged down in coursework and my grad school bubble and took me back to the reasons why I have this passion to do good; it even helped me feed the flame. So all jokes aside, it was an experience worth more than one cold night on a ranch. 


If you want to learn more about what Heifer does or donate to their work, go to www.heifer.org