It was a hot Sunday. I was on the Kigali playground playing football with my team members, Leon, Joshua, Fariji, Gideon, Siyawezi, and Isaac. I saw a tall man in black trousers and a yellow T-shirt in the distance. He was sitting on a branch of a short mango tree, watching us as we played. I wondered who he was and wanted to talk to him. When we took a break from our game, I approached him. After our initial greetings, I asked the man, “where are you from and what is your name?” John replied, looking down at me from his perch on the mango tree branch. “I’m John, from the New Hope village,” he said. “Why are you here?” “What are you doing under the mango tree?” “How old are you?” I continued to question him. He was here to watch football and get fresh air, he told me, and he was just nineteen years old. We started talking about the match and how the footballers were playing. I became so absorbed in our conversation that I abandoned the rest of the game to continue talking with John. Once I realized I had missed the second round of our game, I asked John to come back tomorrow and join us. I even asked him to become the trainer of our team as we did not have one and John seemed to know a lot about the game. John said he would like that, and that the reason he came here was to watch, and if possible, to play football, as it is his favorite game. We agreed he would arrive at 7am the next day, in order for us to finish our game by 9am, in time for us to attend church service. Before he left, I introduced him to the other team members and told them that John wished to play with us and possibly become our coach. The next morning, I arrived at the playground at 7am to find John already there. He was running the outer circle of the playground while waiting for the other players to arrive. We greeted each other and I began to run with him silently. When the others arrived, we appointed John to plan the number of players. He did, and then we had a training match for one and half hours. The players appreciated him for his tactical guidance and drill design. We concluded with a short team meeting, deciding on our training days. Then we shared a handshake, a sign of unity as the Wolf Team. When John said he wanted to go home, I told him, “let us go together.” I escorted him while we shared more words. This time, we talked about our training and how enjoyable it was for both of us. When we reached John’s home in New Hope village, I saw a tall avocado tree at the gate and a banana plantation in the left-back corner of the compound, close to the latrine. I saw one young woman washing utensils, another washing clothes, and a young boy reading books. John told me these people were his siblings. Excited to meet them, I greeted them one by one. They were open and welcoming with great broad smiles on their faces, for I was their first visitor on a Sunday morning . After saying goodbye and walking back home through Kigali road in New Hope village, talking about the heat and sunshine of the day, I felt in my heart, a confusion. I never saw a parent at John’s home. As we got closer to my home in Sudan village, we stood under an avocado tree before parting ways. I asked John, “why didn’t I see any parents at your home? This is the time when parents always prepare themselves for church services?” At that moment, John, my new coach and now my friend, started crying. I knew something was deeply wrong. John said it was a long story. He said he didn’t want to share it with me because it would make him remember his past life. He said it would cause him to cry and feel distressed. But then after ten minutes of silence he shared with me his story. I was his friend now. He didn’t see the need to hide things from me. Three years ago, John’s parents had to travel for work in Mbarara city, in Uganda. At 5am, shortly after they set out on their journey, they got into a terrible accident. Their driver lost control and the car knocked a rock as they drove through the pouring rain. John’s parents, along with eight other people, lost their lives. John received the message that his parents died two days later. After the death of his parents, when he was just sixteen years old, John’s siblings began to consider him like a father and mother to them. John had no job or means to support a family. All he had was the land left by his father. He decided to make bricks from clay soil around his home, and he made a chimney to burn them. He then sold the burned bricks to people in Nakivale who used them to build different infrastructure, and people outside of Nakivale who ordered them for the same purpose. This made him enough money to cater to the basic needs of his siblings. As John continued with his story, he moved me to tears. I felt as though I myself was the one going through his situation. We were both crying in deep tears. As we sat under the tree to prevent ourselves from direct sunlight, I put my hand on John’s back, offering him some comfort. I wiped his tears using my white t-shirt and took him back to his home. The following morning, I went to John’s home and found him preparing the soil by digging and pouring water on it to make it wet. I realized what he was doing
refugee
Interview with John
Thank you for sharing this powerful story with us. Could you tell us about what inspired you to write it? The title of my story is, “Safe Passages.” The reason I chose to write this story is because, although I added some parts, it is based on how I experienced challenges during the entrance in Nakivale camp, and how my arrival in Uganda was a solution to many of my family’s problems. What messages do you hope your readers will take away from your story? I would like readers to learn from my story about how war can destroy people’s lives through the loss of people’s properties and livelihoods. My story is not a fiction but the real life of what children like me are experiencing in these war torn countries. And I want my readers to understand how hard it is and to feel that they are advocating for peace across the globe so that no more children can endure these circumstances anymore. What, from your perspective, is the point of storytelling? Why do we tell stories, what do they do for us, and what purpose do they serve? The point of storytelling to me is, I gain new knowledge from it. Sometimes we tell stories to have fun, and sometimes we tell stories because we believe that there is a lesson in stories we tell that people can gain from them. Some stories make us enjoy and others make us remember the hard times we have experienced. Then they give us some hope. Did your story change over the course of your participation in the storytelling workshops? How? Yes, because it opens the thinking capacity of my brain and it makes me enjoy sharing my story. I changed my story by selecting words that can be globally understood and revised passages to make them strong and touching. How does your story offer an alternative path, point of view, or way forward? How does it speak to the possibility of an otherwise? It speaks about the challenge I experienced with me and my family, and how Nakivale camp of Uganda brought us a hope for living when we stepped foot in it. My story also offers perspective on how wars are affecting all aspects of childrens’ lives from education to social life and even their safety to go on living.
Safe Passages, by John Fadhili
It was a bright morning. I was lying in bed in a room built of uncooked bricks. Nothing but a plastic sheet for protection. My mother, my little brother and my sister still heavy with sleep in the rooms beside mine when my dad’s frantic voice pierced through my dream, “Pack all your bags!” he yelled. “We must go!” I couldn’t imagine what could make dad scream like that. I leapt out of bed and went outside in the compound to see what was taking place. Shocked, I looked upon a sea of bodies. The space was quiet, lifeless. People had already fled. I moved nearer the dead bodies, and saw familiar faces. One was a boy I studied with from nursery school, up to grade four of primary school. I remembered carefree days playing football and sharing lunch with this boy, whose body now lay limp on the ground. I was terrified to see someone dead from gunshots. I was scared to see children orphaned, women and men widowed, most of the village properties destroyed. I first became aware of the war between M23 and the government of Democratic Republic of Congo when I was only nine years old, but I never thought it would hit so close to my own home. We were forced to make a decision to flee the country we had invested our lives in, since the war was still taking place and had no sign of stopping. I went to my bedroom to pack all my necessary things. Tears flowed down my cheeks, soaking the collar of my shirt, my heart sick with sadness as I spotted a toy car given to me as a gift for my first birthday by Peter, another friend who was now dead. We gathered outside once everyone had finished packing their things. Still morning, my family and I took a hidden route. We did not know our destination. We had no choice but to leave for the fear of being killed in the violent attack. Although we didn’t know where we were going, we knew we had to keep moving forward together. We walked all day and night. We shared what little food we had, along with stories of our past and hopes for our future, as we navigated unfamiliar forests. After walking for hours, we met some people on our way who were bushmen. We tried to communicate with them, hoping they might help us. But they did not understand what we were telling them because they didn’t know the language we were using. Realizing there was no time to improve our communication, we humbly continued on our way. We walked all day without stopping. When it was evening, we all decided to have a rest for the night before continuing our journey early the next morning. We slept in a terrible condition. We had no blankets or bedding, and my mind was racing, haunted by the images I’d encountered mere hours earlier. The next morning, we woke up and thanked God for waking us although we slept in a bad condition. My father told us to remain in one group as he was going to go ahead to scout the way. Surprisingly, he came back running, calling to us in a loud voice that there was a lorry picking up people to take them to Nakivale Refugee Camp. We rushed toward the lorry and arrived in time to board. I stepped foot in Nakivale among the maize and banana plantations in the inky dark of a cold, still night. I still live there with my family today. I am grateful. Safe passages persisted. An awful day survived, in my now distant home. This story was peer reviewed by: Liam Hancock
