Displaced Persons 1 of 3

His name was Mohammed Chaleb. He was twenty-one years old, unmarried and a farmer. He had a head wound and was disoriented.

I am not even sure if he was a real person.

But for ninety minutes last Friday, I was him.

Crossroads is a one-of-a-kind organization. They started out collecting clothing and furniture from those with excess to give to those in need. Things quickly grew and Crossroads now sends out several cargo containers worth of goods every month.

Then CrossRoads set up an international, state-of-the-art website that matches up those in need with those with excess so that a company in Taiwan with excess office furniture can connect with an orphanage in Zambia who is in need of desks. This on-line clearing house was so successful, that when the UN needed something similar, they contracted with Crossroads to design it for them. Not bad for an organization that started out in an Australian couple's spare bedroom in their Hong Kong apartment fifteen years ago.

Crossroads also does a lot of work with refugees here in Hong Kong. Another service that Crossroads provides is the chance for visiting groups to get an insider's feel for what it's like to be a refugee. They started running these simulations a couple of years ago and they have been widely successful. In fact, Crossroads was invited to an economic summit in Europe last year where luminaries such as Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines participated in the very simulation I was about to take part in.

The Headmaster at our school is a pretty extraordinary guy. In addition to being a crack administrator, he is quite the visionary. While some heads of school might plan a faculty picnic to kick off the school year, Ben Norton signed up our entire staff for Crossroad's refugee simulation. Several years ago, he was the first headmaster to bring his teaching staff to Cross roads. Several area schools have since followed suit.

So last Friday, after a brief explanation and a short history of Afghanistan, I was handed a small, laminated i.d. card. I was to be Mohammed Chaleb - a soon-to-be displaced person. I was also given a bandage to wrap around my wounded head. All the women in our group were given headscarves. We were given a few minutes to get comfortable with our new identity.