The journey

How different it must be. Remember the plane touching down after the long flight, the excitement of seeing again the children who had set up home far away who had become, roles reversed your guide and protector whilst you acclimatised. The luggage collected, the happy faces, the bustling crowd of people also expectantly waiting for friend or lover to come through the doors of "Arrivals".

Sorting out of the luggage the biggest fear is that it won't fit into the boot. 

The excited chatter as questions are asked, of people left behind had they come to the airport to see you off, had the dog settled into its new home, what was it like leaving the home behind but you must see what we've done to the cottage how nice it looks.
The drive from the airport through the suburbs, streets laid out differently, houses also looking different how far are you from town is there a bus service. Rounding the corner into the street, a street you knew by the address, a destination of many many letters and now made real as the car pulled into the drive. It looks loverly you've done a great job of the garden, come on in and let's get the kettle on.

How different for the refugees having walked hundreds of miles, coaxing their families on, not many days to go, hopefully we will have some food in the next village. The clouds darken and the wind whips up as the temperature drops, what sort of shelter will we find to sleep tonight. 

The children are startled by the upheaval, their faith in their parents diminished by the sight of their worried faces as the adult protest between mother and father become more acute.
The dawn breaks and its started to snow their shoes are wearing thin and beginning to leak.
The socks are wet and the feet begin to become raw with the constant friction and the lack of being dry. Another day, another slog, another pitiful urging of the young and the old who were not meant to experience such conditions as this.
And at the end of the journey, no smiling faces  only bureaucrats with questions. No friendly homestead, no warming tea, no sense of security only a tent one amongst many in a neighbour-hood of despair, a sense of anticlimax, a rumour city where the grapevine says that this is it and perhaps, after all their effort they will be sent back to where they came from.