KANERE - A Refugee Free PressBy Awet Andemicael
awet@post.harvard.edu
Last year, I conducted research for UNHCR (available online at www.unhcr.org/4def858a9.html), which suggests that artistic activity often plays a powerful positive role in the lives of refugees living in camps, and can help them survive and even thrive emotionally, spiritually, and physically.
Volume 1, Issue 5-6 / May-June 2009
TORTOISE IN THE STORM.
Tortoise in the storm
From Darfur to Kivu, from the Ogaden to Kasai
From Mogadishu to Gulu, from Oromo to Bujumbura
From Tigris to Kigali.
Blistered souls moving in all directions
But in no direction
Peripatetic and in uncaring for horizon, for all is
Horizon with dark spiteful cloud
Grappling with sour memories of roaring guns,
Thundering bombs, mutilations, destructions
Tortures and massacres
Crawling on rough paths and treading through rugged terrains with cold misty nights
In isolation and quietude, uncertainty and pain
For home is no place for comparison, its distant obscene
Makes its presence more real in its unreality
As the silent night comes to console the laddered soul
But there is hope, hope for the living
The meandering river at last collapses on the bosom of the sea
The prodigal clouds return to the fold of its waves
A bright light glows at the end of the tunnel
If you and I can shelter the real people, with real needs
From the torrents of the storm
Lets care for the living, real people, real needs!
By Jumbwike Sam Aggrey.
Volume 1, Issue 5-6 / May-June 2009
LOST.
Head down, as I watch my feet hit the ground
I close my eyes, where am I heading.
I do not know
Everything around me stands still
As if, I am in a bad dream
And I am unable to wake up
And then I realize, am not dreaming
That’s my life, am actually living it
Not dreaming it
Everything that I hear am sure nobody else does
Everything that I see, nobody else sees
All the sadness, all the wailing
I wish I could close my eyes and ears
So that I would never have to see or hear
There is no place to hide
I have to face life head on
I just have to, like others have.
All decisions are made for me
It is like I am mindless
Any suggestion I give
Is not good enough
I am a living dead
Only I can’t be buried alive
I always wonder where the dead go
When you die, you are no longer a refugee
I do not want to feel hopeless
But I have bee made to feel that way
By powers that be!
My time will come.