Last summer I was walking with a friend on the trail from the Spit to Manly wharf in Sydney. We were surrounded by vibrant green plants, and walked alongside the harbour’s blue water, on Gadigal country.
On this glorious day, my mind took me back to the journey I had travelled to get here. On Manus Island I was surrounded by jungle and its ugly brown frogs. Mosquitoes could poison me with malaria and spiders painted the ceiling with cobwebs. I remembered feeling that the Earth had conspired against me, that the Australian ministers used their unfettered government power to speak to the fences at the detention centre and make a deal with Mother Nature to keep me caged.
