Brother and sister Mohamed and Hanaa Hamdin will share their experiences of leaving Sudan to live in Egypt and Australia at a Refugee Week Dreams of Freedom exhibition on Friday night.
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Mr Hamdin who was nine when his family left Sudan, said he remembered living in a mud hut with a verandah made out of sticks, they cooked on coals and had a big bed that they slept on sideways.
"We lived in pretty much one room that was made out of clay and every time it rained we had to put it back together again," Mr Hamdin said.
"When I left I remember we were pretty poor in a way and the reason we were leaving my mum and dad told us was to lead a better life.
The language was a bit difficult at the beginning and there was just such a lot of different nationalities
- Mohamed Hamdin
"My parents were always just trying to keep us safe and find the best place they could."
However, he said at the time the family was happy to be together and while living in Sudan he didn't know any different.
He said his father grew up with 12 brothers and three sisters and some extended family members still lived in Sudan and Egypt and many others moved to the United States.
Mr Hamdin was 14 when he arrived in Australia but said before that the family spent the intervening years in Egypt where he didn't not go to school.
"I was always out in the street playing games in the street like soccer," he said.
"In Sudan I did go to school, up to year three."
MAP: Sudan where the Hamdin family originally came from ...
He said once in Australia he attended an intensive English course at Fairfield but said it wasn't much help because a lot of people in that area also spoke Arabic.
"The language was a bit difficult at the beginning and there was just such a lot of different nationalities," he said about his first impression of Australia.
"I'm that sort of person I just like to meet people, it was easier for me than the rest of the family and it took me a year so I could have a basic conversation."
Younger sister Hanaa has not faced the same education restrictions having been born in Egypt and arrived in Australia when she was three years old.
However, Hanaa grew up hearing her family tell stories of Sudan, which is still home for her parents, and she said her mother travelled to Sydney to buy the food they were used to eating in Sudan.
We lived in pretty much one room that was made out of clay and every time it rained we had to put it back together again.
- Mohamed Hamdin
Hanaa has attended three high schools and four primary schools in Australia and is currently in year 12 at Orange High School and has submitted an early entry to study business and law at the University of Western Sydney.
She will follow in the footsteps of older brother Monzir who was the first to attend university.
The siblings who are from a family of 10 children, eight of whom were born in the Sudan, said they had moved around a lot since arriving in Australia but enjoy living in Orange.
"Orange is one of the places where we feel really welcome, everyone makes us feel as part of the community as well," Mr Hamdin said.
He said he has a child from a previous relationship and is now in a happy relationship in Orange.
Hanaa said her teachers at Orange High School were helpful but she found some difficulties in fitting in in Orange because of cultural differences and more people coming "from an Australian background" rather than Africa.
She said she visited the Sudan once in 2013 and would like to go back one day but Mr Hamdin said he wouldn't want to live there again.
However, both siblings acknowledged the current strife in the country where they've said people are again being raped and murdered and bodies are being thrown in the river.
"At the moment they cut the internet so people couldn't say what happened," Hanaa said.
The Dreams of Freedom exhibition will feature pillowcase designs drawn by Orange children on Harmony Day.
The initiative was coordinated by the group Mums 4 Refugees and the pillow cases will be given to refugee children.
The event will include a reading by My Two Blankets illustrator Freya Blackwood, Anna Noonan will discuss the Central West chapter of Mums 4 Refugees, the Orange Social Justice group will give an update on what it is doing, Mohamed Bangoura will give an African drumming performance and Orange City Council will sign a new Refugee Welcome Zone declaration.
The exhibition opening will start at 6pm at Orange Regional Museum.
To book phone 6393 8600.
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