A poem by Rita Ngarambe
The days are so bright the heart is filled and overwhelmed with joy, I have walked into what most call a promised land.
Just like the Bible stories at Sunday school how the children of idealists crossed over and left their burdens so did mine, at least I thought.
When I crossed over the border, leaving behind the country, smokes of burning cities, homes of my neighbours, the dying children in hunger and warzone land, I felt relieved, having not to process how I have left all my families behind with no promises of if they will still be around.
But I made it to a strange land claiming refuge seeking comfort, hoping I will see my loved ones once again.
This, this is a life of a refugee, you seek a home in a house, hoping to create hope and become whole out of a broken shell. And your dreams of freedom and natural existence lay in the facts you can prove.
This is the stories of women who ran away from paedophile men, girls who escaped a human trafficking system, young men and boys who run away from fired bullets of the hungry politicians at war for treasure and riches of the land.
These women, men and children’s hopes come back alive at their arrival in the new countries but then a new unanticipated nightmare starts.
The system breaks you. Some spend 1825 days trying to prove their lives worth, why they deserve to be protected while living their tremors every time asked to tell their stories.
Mental health sickness introduces himself to you, depression, becomes the uninvited visitor at your doorsteps.
A mother’s hope to re-enrol their child into school turns into 5 years in immigration appointments, appeals and visitation to lawyers.
A Refugee’s life is where one’s hopes go to sleep and the light starts being deemed, the cry for the human race to prove their right to exist in peace becomes impossible to archive, this is where greeting conversations of good morning sound like an insult when one’s soul has been broken.
Where a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster all that lives in them, Where waves of goodbyes become the morning tea, daydreaming of the happy family dinners, the grandparent’s voices besides the kitchen sink become a dream, your high school classmates turn into imaginary friends.
This is where life ends with hopes for a new rebirth, magical existence an erase of memory and hopefully a new beginning.
THIS IS THE WALK, THE LIFETIME DISTANCE OF TWO SEPARATE BORDERLINES.
Rita Laurence Ngarambe is a humanitarian and youth leader who was born on September 25th, 1997. She also serves as Queen of Emancipation Month Canada. Born to a Burundian father and Rwandan mother, she has shown interests in various aspects of charity work and has participated in activism work for women’s rights since the age of 16. She has worked with women and children who were survivors of sexual-based violence and the 1994 genocide against Tutsi. She has also worked for hand in hand with organizations that fight against homelessness in Toronto. She has hosted events to contribute and help people affected by natural disasters by creating spaces where all youths of positive minds and change-makers can come together to join forces to work towards positive causes and that help support the community and thrive for better humanity in love and unity.