Pakistani? Afghani? Does it matter?

None of us at the party that night will ever forget the way in which a couple of young boys showed adults how to behave with dignity, and I suspect Merlin will hold that night dear for the rest of his days.

DIMIA allowed Mazhar to have a first birthday party, however, just two days before the party a thief broke into the house and stole all the money and valuables, as well as phones and belongings of the older children.

I rushed down to the house that day to find Roqia distraught and flat out on her bed with sickness, declaring the party would not happen. Samina (another daughter) had made beautiful invitations, Ali was all organised to come over and cook the food, the decorations had been bought - what to do?

The family had a conference call with Ali and decided the party would go ahead regardless. It was amazing to go to the house on the night and see the work they had done to make the house beautiful.

Decorations adorned the kitchen, the passage, the dining room and every space the children could find. There were balloons, ribbons, cards and everything any family could want for the first birthday of a much adored and spoiled baby boy.

With the help of donations from a caring public, Ali and Roqia had made a banquet fit for a king. When I offered to help Ali cook he chased me off with a spatula saying, "This is my party, I will cook, you just enjoy yourself". So I did.

We all did. After much negotiation with DIMIA for permission to hold the party, the department had agreed, but only with two conditions. The first was that only 20 people were allowed, including the family. The second was that there be two guards at the house for the entire function. I don't know what they thought we would do: run off with the children maybe?

The guests Ali and Roqia chose to invite included a magistrate, his wife and their lawyer daughter; Father Greg O'Kelly, headmaster at the children’s school; Jeremy Moore (the Bakhtiyaris’ lawyer) and his wife and youngest son; Dale West, the head of Catholic Centacare and his two daughters; Mr West’s Deputy, Pauline Frick and her two youngest children; and various carers and their children and grand-children. This gathering was a respectable bunch in anyone's language, so the paranoia of DIMIA was very misplaced.

In the end the guards remained discreetly in the background while the guests and the family enjoyed the only normal Bakhtiyari family gathering for their entire four years in Australia. It was a bitter sweet occasion, and little did we know that it would be the only time we would celebrate with this family we had all come to love.

Dozens of photos and videos were taken that day with some of them being sent to The Advertiser a few days later. But the very next day the guards bundled poor Ali back to Baxter like a criminal, with young Mazhar oblivious to this cruelty being inflicted on his father.

It needs to be stated clearly that Roqia and Ali adore their children. All they ever wanted was a free life for them away from the wars and dangers of Afghanistan and the precarious existence of Afghan refugees squatting in Pakistan.

When Mazhar was tired and cranky I would make Roqia howl with laughter as I scooped him up in my arms and took him all over the house and grounds pointing at things and saying, "what's this Mazhar" or looking at photos and saying, "who's this Mazhar?" until he calmed down and went to sleep. After they landed back in Afghanistan I got a message from Roqia that he was walking all over the village with the Afghan children pointing at things and saying "what's this?". My legacy to this baby boy I loved like my own grandson.