Refugees Kick Me off “Their” Field

Every Saturday afternoon, I take my children to the park. This gives them a chance to play with their friends and so on. We’ve been doing this for years now. Anyway, a couple of months ago, I was in the park with my kids and their friends and some of the other parents, and I needed to go to the toilet which was a fair way away, so I crossed an open field in this public park. As I was about halfway across, I heard somebody shout out, “Boy! Off!” I kind of looked around, but I didn’t really notice anybody. I continued to walk. “Boy! You! Off!” I looked around again, and I saw a bunch of young folk hanging around in the treeline. I still didn’t really know if they were shouting at me or not. So I continued to walk keeping an eye on them. Then again, they started waving at me and shouting, “Boy! Go!” They were obviously talking to me, but I didn’t know why. I thought there might have been something dangerous chasing me or something, and they were trying to warn me. So I approached them to find out what they meant.

As I got closer, I could see there was about 12 or 15 of them, probably aged between 15 and 18, one carrying a soccer ball, and again they shouted, “Boy! Off! You go!” I replied, “Do you mean you want me to get off the field?” They just replied, “Off boy!” So I replied, “If you want me to get off, you just have to ask nicely!” I could see by the look on their faces they had no idea what I was talking about. “We football!” “Okay, I get it. You want to play football on the field, but this is a public park, and I’m allowed to walk across it.” “Boy off!” At that stage, I realised it probably wasn’t them trying to be rude, but rather they just didn’t have the English ability to ask nicely.

This is just my guess, but I guess they were recent arrivals in Australia, probably refugees from say Afghanistan or similar. Although, I’m not 100% sure as I didn’t recognise the language they were speaking. It certainly wasn’t Arabic as I know people who speak Arabic.

Anyway, I told them I’d go around the field as they were setting up their soccer match, but I gave them a bit of language advice as I was leaving. “You should use the word ‘please’. ‘Please get off the field.’” They looked at me and just kind of ignored me, and continued to set up their soccer match.

As I was walking away around the outside of the field, I started replaying what happened in my head, and the more I thought about it, the more I realised they probably weren’t trying to be rude, they just didn’t know how to ask me. But! As I was rounding the field, I cut across the corner in order to beeline it to the toilet block. Noting, they weren’t playing at this stage, they were just setting up. And then again they shouted, “Boy! Off!”. At that point I kind of lost it. “You guys aren’t even playing! You’re just setting up! I’m just crossing the corner! This is a public f**king park! I’m going to walk on the f**king field if I want to!” Of course, they had no idea what I was saying and continued to call me “boy” and telling me to get “off”.

Afterwards, I went straight to one of the other parents and told him what happened. He just laughed. He could see from a distance I was having a bit of a disagreement with the boys. But in the end, nobody got violent or anything, it was just a clash of words, a clash of broken English.

If you know me, I’m actually pretty easy-going. I’m fully of the opinion “live and let live”. I don’t care what people do, as long as they don’t harm anyone else. I’m not even that worried about refugees and the like, as long as they’re willing to make an effort to fit in. But there was obviously a line that was crossed with these boys. I don’t mind if they play soccer in the park, but don’t go around calling me a boy and telling me to get off the field, when clearly they weren’t even actively playing. So if it happens again, I’ll probably react the same way.

Look, you’re welcome in my country, but don’t tell me what to f**king do in a public park!

MUSIC
Allégro by Emmit Fenn