Introduction

Sandra, an energetic woman in her early thirties, sat facing me. We were in one of the support offices of the West End Refugee Service (WERS), located in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK. Posters offering various services and phone numbers were pinned on boards on the wall, while an old desktop computer sat neglected in the back corner. Sandra gesticulated wildly as she talked, occasionally dropping her hands to the white table top and stretching them out before her. She seemed comfortable here, impervious to the impersonal nature of the office. It was not like the other offices which housed permanent members of staff; those were cluttered with knickknacks, personal photos and hand-scrawled notes. Instead, this ‘desk’ was a table, and all it contained was my open notebook, a recorder and occasionally Sandra's hands.

She was discussing her life and some of her experiences thus far. I laughed with her as she related her most ridiculous moments – my eyes filled with tears as she related her sorrows. As she told her story, I sensed that it was coming to the present day where her situation remained unresolved. She was a refused asylum seeker in the UK, at the mercy of friends and acquaintances (as well as a few charities) to meet her basic needs: food, shelter, clothing. She explained how she was given accommodation in Newcastle as an asylum seeker, only to be evicted when her application was refused. Now she lived with an older British woman who attended her church. I expected a rather bleak conclusion, given the difficulties she had faced and continued to face for the foreseeable future. She surprised me, however, when she glanced out of the window at the overcast autumn sky and turned back to me with a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “I’ll tell you the truth,” she began thoughtfully. “This journey is one of the most weirdest things I’ve ever – I don't know when it's gonna end, how it's gonna end, but – it's like most of the days is really, really good,” she declared. I stared at her, taken aback. “It's by the grace of God that I have managed to still kind of like, have a smile although all of this crazy crazy things are happening, ya know?” She paused a minute, reflecting.