“We are like a garden full of flowers, some are red, some are yellow but
they are all flowers. Who would want a garden full of the same coloured
flowers?  God didn’t”. That’s how Edmond referred to the
human being.  “We are all the same, just with a different colour”. 

Edmond
a refugee from Congo
spoke to the boys on the occasion of the Refugees Day held at our school on
June the 4th.   Edmond started by giving a brief background of the
turbulent situation that sparked off the refugee problem in Congo.  His father was shot and the school where his
mother worked was bombed out.  Women and
children were not spared of the massacre that reigns when man loses all
semblance of humanity. Edmond
like so many others from the area had no choice but to leave their
country.  He narrated his arduous journey
to Kenya through Sudan living
off charity he got from Christian churches. 
Eventually he managed to get on a ship that took them to Turkey and after a 3 month ordeal he found
himself in Malta,
an island which he had never heard of.

Malta, he claimed is an indirect
victim of the African political situation. 
The dream of asylum seekers is to reach the safety of Europe
where they can work and raise their families in peace. 

The absence of peace is very
often the result of intolerance.  As Edmond said racism is
everywhere.  He mentioned how tribes hate
each other, blacks hate whites, whites hate blacks when all along ‘inside we are all the same’.

Edmond’s speech was continuously punctuated
by his appeal for love, love and love. 
It is not what you see but what is there to be seen.  That each person is a special human being
carrying with him all his suffering, all his joy and all his hopes.  In the eyes of God we are flowers in his
garden.