What do you with forbidden love?

Fear of persecution brings repressed feelings. The freedom to love without fear of persecution is paramount.

So Dear Reader, am Martin a lawyer from Uganda who uses poetry to highlight LGBTQ human rights challenges and I chose to love man in a country where homosexuality is considered a crime against humanity while when dictator kills innocent civilians in a public protest for better pay to doctors and a reduction in the military expenditure, it seems acceptable.

Saying I chose seems like I stood a chance against love like I didn’t resist this overwhelming feeling at first but the more I resisted being with James the more I found my life a fake.

In May 2016 while I was in Benin as a legal representative for MTN (a telecommunications company), I got information that James’s father (A general in the Ugandan Army) found out about us so he decided to forcefully make James disappear and to this day no one has seen him. My neighbor called me in a panic wondering why military officials are asking about me at my house, they wanted to silence me before the news spreads understanding the life-threatening situation I was in. I tried to apply for refugee status in Benin but the French-English barrier and lack of resources made it impossible so I decided to go back to Uganda despite the risk. When I returned to Ugandan after unsuccessfully trying to put a restraining order on James ‘s father, I spent days hiding until one night non-uniformed men driving an army-issued vehicle tried to abduct me luckily during the scuffle people came to my rescue and I fled to Kenya and after two nights in Nairobi I fled to Burundi to seek help from a friend never the less the general’s homophobic tendencies in East Africa, I didn’t feel safe. So I left and started a painful journey to safety. I first stooped in Tanzania then a refugee camp in Malawi called Dzaleka.

While in the Malawi refugee camp, I decided to teach and perform modern poetry while at the same time hiding my sexuality, but terrible stories of gay refugees who were stoned to death by fellow refugees in the camp left me terrified to open my mouth. But my outrage towards these injustices was soo strong so the love for poetry and human rights had me officiating a poetry competition on Gender-based, advocating that women’s rights and LGBTQ rights. A few people started to attend my class on LGBTQ rights. But after a week people started talking and I realized my confidential testimony during the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for refugees) interview about my sexuality had spread. While sleeping on a cold cemented floor of windowless building where newcomers spend years waiting for decision from UNHCR on refugee status, I heard people speaking Swahili plotting to punish me for being gay, the same feeling of emptiness had once engulfed me when I opened my Facebook account to find a message from my sister saying how my own father wanted to behead me a for loving a man. I was simply traumatized that my own father who once praised me for taking myself through law school and having good work ethics now wanted to behead me. One night at the camp a debate on LGBTQ rights got out of hand when I was slapped to the floor, yelling and shouting soon befell me ordering me to stop polluting Christian minds, I knew what this meant so I packed my bags the next morning and left without saying goodbye. I decided to hitchhike through Zambia to the Namibian refugee camp called Osire, thanks to the good truck drivers on that route.

With just a few days in that refugee camp, I met other Ugandans who had been beaten, fingers cut off at the refugee camp by pure racial discrimination and Police blamed them for starting the violence. I later found out how other refugees in the camp envied Ugandans for their English knowledge and accused them of being favored. One night as we were asleep, the hut was set on fire but we managed to escape. We run as fast we could, anything we had became payable to the taxi drivers to take us through Police checkpoints, as by law in Namibia if a refugee is caught outside the refugee camp without a pass they are automatically sent to prison for 4 months. Here I was running, trying to find a sense of safety better than being burnt or stoned to death in a refugee camp and for a moment there, I thought going back to Uganda might be better than this situation.

As we traveled I remember being so frightened at the idea of a Police officer finding our way to South Africa, but after paying off smugglers we managed to get into South Africa through the Orange River. We gave up everything we had. A family that traveled with us had two young boys one was 2 years the other 8 months. They gave up food given to them by UNHCR as an aid to the young ones. We walked through the Orange River separating South Africa from Namibia at exactly midnight on boxing day of 2016, with water up to our necks and none able to swim while the river at full current, creatures never heard of cried for prey at the edge of the river a farmer chased us in his car with a gun pointed at us, I couldn’t help but wonder who I was and what I had become, how I had lost my whole life in an instant but what worried me more were the little ones who were on the journey with. But we all survived and am now writing to you from Durban South Africa, where my bachelors degree in Development Studies, Diploma in Human rights Law and legal practice, Certificate in American law and modern poetry performances all don’t matter until I get enough money to verify them at the department of education which now documents me uneducated and unemployed.

 

So I want to start up a restaurant to end my begging days and get financially sustainable.

 

I applied for refugee status at the Department of home affairs where the interviewing official asked me and in her own words “why didn’t you stop these games of homosexuality if you realized that your life was in danger” as the interview went on again she asked “who introduced you to this game of homosexuality.” My application was later rejected for refugee status with statements on the decision letter that I might be a criminal evading criminal proceeding in my country and my country has not said anything about my gender and therefore refugee status rejected. I was an asylum seeker permit that expires in 3 months and can be renewed but this permit does not allow me to open a bank account or even get tax identification number in case I am to seek employment yet the document allows me to work and study. I have lived as a beggar from 2016 to now.

 

I, therefore, decided to start up a restaurant so as to boost my income and reduce my begging but most importantly, I want to use the restaurant to teach most people about black foreigners on basis of Xenophobia, Homophobia, and Racism. I want to tell stories of African countries while serving breakfast to factory workers and lunch to school children and recite poetry to the public once in a while. Poetic stories to influence change and create a more favorable ground for social inclusion.

 

What do you with forbidden love? Do you tell yourself to stop with fear of persecution? And fully leave who you are or hide and repress your feelings even when your partner shows his love through gifts and parties. Well, I chose to live under the sunshine with the hope that one day I will be with the one I really love. There is nothing worth fighting for like a vision that one day you will be free to love the person you know is right and crack the biggest joke in the universe without fear of persecution. So Dear Reader, am Martin a lawyer from Uganda who uses poetry to highlight LGBTQ human rights challenges and I chose to love man in a country where homosexuality is considered a crime against humanity while when dictator kills innocent civilians in a public protest for better pay to doctors and a reduction in the military expenditure, it seems acceptable. Saying I chose seems like I stood a chance against love like I didn’t resist this overwhelming feeling at first but the more I resisted being with James the more I found my life a fake. In May 2016 while I was in Benin as a legal representative for MTN (a telecommunications company), I got information that James’s father (A general in the Ugandan Army) found out about us so he decided to forcefully make James disappear and to this day no one has seen him. My neighbor called me in a panic wondering why military officials are asking about me at my house, they wanted to silence me before the news spreads understanding the life-threatening situation I was in. I tried to apply for refugee status in Benin but the French-English barrier and lack of resources made it impossible so I decided to go back to Uganda despite the risk. When I returned to Ugandan after unsuccessfully trying to put a restraining order on James ‘s father, I spent days hiding until one night non-uniformed men driving an army-issued vehicle tried to abduct me luckily during the scuffle people came to my rescue and I fled to Kenya and after two nights in Nairobi I fled to Burundi to seek help from a friend never the less the general’s homophobic tendencies in East Africa, I didn’t feel safe. So I left and started a painful journey to safety. I first stooped in Tanzania then a refugee camp in Malawi called Dzaleka. While in the Malawi refugee camp, I decided to teach and perform modern poetry while at the same time hiding my sexuality, but terrible stories of gay refugees who were stoned to death by fellow refugees in the camp left me terrified to open my mouth. But my outrage towards these injustices was soo strong so the love for poetry and human rights had me officiating a poetry competition on Gender-based, advocating that women’s rights and LGBTQ rights. A few people started to attend my class on LGBTQ rights. But after a week people started talking and I realized my confidential testimony during the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for refugees) interview about my sexuality had spread. While sleeping on a cold cemented floor of windowless building where newcomers spend years waiting for decision from UNHCR on refugee status, I heard people speaking Swahili plotting to punish me for being gay, the same feeling of emptiness had once engulfed me when I opened my Facebook account to find a message from my sister saying how my own father wanted to behead me a for loving a man. I was simply traumatized that my own father who once praised me for taking myself through law school and having good work ethics now wanted to behead me. One night at the camp a debate on LGBTQ rights got out of hand when I was slapped to the floor, yelling and shouting soon befell me ordering me to stop polluting Christian minds, I knew what this meant so I packed my bags the next morning and left without saying goodbye. I decided to hitchhike through Zambia to the Namibian refugee camp called Osire, thanks to the good truck drivers on that route. With just a few days in that refugee camp, I met other Ugandans who had been beaten, fingers cut off at the refugee camp by pure racial discrimination and Police blamed them for starting the violence. I later found out how other refugees in the camp envied Ugandans for their English knowledge and accused them of being favored. One night as we were asleep, the hut was set on fire but we managed to escape. We run as fast we could, anything we had became payment to the taxi drivers to take us through Police checkpoints, as by law in Namibia if a refugee is caught outside the refugee camp without a pass they are automatically sent to prison for 4 months. Here I was running, trying to find a sense of safety better than being burnt or stoned to death in a refugee camp and for a moment there, I thought going back to Uganda might be better than this situation. As we traveled I remember being so frightened at the idea of a Police officer finding our way to South Africa, but after paying off smugglers we managed to get into South Africa through the Orange River. We gave up everything we had. A family that traveled with us had two young boys one was 2 years the other 8 months. They gave up food given to them by UNHCR as an aid to the young ones. We walked through the Orange River separating South Africa from Namibia at exactly midnight on boxing day of 2016, with water up to our necks and none able to swim while the river at full current, creatures never heard of cried for prey at the edge of the river a farmer chased us in his car with a gun pointed at us, I couldn’t help but wonder who I was and what I had become, how I had lost my whole life in an instant but what worried me more were the little ones who were on the journey with. But we all survived and am now writing to you from Durban South Africa, where my bachelors degree in Development Studies, Diploma in Human rights Law and legal practice, Certificate in American law and modern poetry performances all don’t matter until I get enough money to verify them at the department of education which now documents me uneducated and unemployed. So I want to start up a restaurant to end my begging days and get financially sustainable. I applied for refugee status at the Department of home affairs where the interviewing official asked me and in her own words “why didn’t you stop these games of homosexuality if you realized that your life was in danger” as the interview went on again she asked “who introduced you to this game of homosexuality.” My application was later rejected for refugee status with statements on the decision letter that I might be a criminal evading criminal proceeding in my country and my country has not said anything about my gender and therefore refugee status rejected. I was an asylum seeker permit that expires in 3 months and can be renewed but this permit does not allow me to open a bank account or even get tax identification number incase I am to seek employment yet the document allows me to work and study. I have lived as a beggar from 2016 to now. I, therefore, decided to start up a restaurant so as to boost my income and reduce my begging but most importantly, I want to use the restaurant to teach most people about black foreigners on basis of Xenophobia, Homophobia, and Racism. I want to tell stories of African countries while serving breakfast to factory workers and lunch to school children and recite poetry to the public once in a while. Poetic stories to influence change and create a more favorable ground for social inclusion.

PTSD AND MDD—-Depression

did not choose to be depressed, to be anxious, to be paranoid. I just found myself in a position where i cannot sleep because every time i close my eyes i see and feel every moment of time in a prison cell full of water so i wake up suffocated. I have spent 8 months sleeping in my shoes because everyday i feel like running away like it has just began. I see my dead friends every morning smiling and saying hi. I hear the same voices of those who were in the next prison cell near mine being tortured i hear them call their mothers and shout out their lungs without breath. Some faces that i met that remind me of some people i completely switch and go silent. I have had a severe loss of appetite that i remember one day in February that i spent 3 days without food but did not even notice and when i thought about it, God it scared me to death. I know i will never have my life back, i know my past will always haunt me. My doctors call it PTSD AND MDD, i have Suicidal thoughts like all the time but i promised a few people i will not do it so am still holding.
So what do we do, well people like me are many with going mental health challenges but the beauty of us is that we keep holding on to anything. And what makes us calm and happy is a very little definition of life like a rainbow in the morning, climbing mountains, putting seeds in the ground and wait to see our own creation. PTSD will never leave me and maybe its my way back home.