Graduation brings a new kind of frustration

Worms in the Feet

I'm about to graduate from university. I simply can't believe I've been able to reach this point. I remember vividly when I cam here, I never thought that I'd be able to go to university and study, let alone survive all the difficulties. My counsellor at the Medical foundation, Johanne, tried so hard to push me; week after week she'd say to me, "You must try and study, I believe you can do it." Then she'd send me information about it and I'd come back next week and she'd ask what I'd done. For a whole year she went on and on, until finally I got fed up, and I had to go and start finding out about courses, just to stop her. But honestly I never had the confidence I could do it. I thought I'd lost my mind, I wasn't not intelligent any more, I'd lost a lot of my natural abilities with everything that had happened to me. And of course partly it was the new language, English. My fifth.

I told her this, but she told me, "You can do it." But looking back I have mixed feelings - joy, but also sorrow, because of the hard times I had just to get here.

When I was very little, some of the other children had worms in their feet. You could always tell which ones they were because they walked like ducks, and they couldn't play football. And you could see the holes in their feet, that would itch so they couldn''t sleep at night. Then there was the smell: putrefaction, rotting flesh.

They live a few weeks but then they die - inside you. You can't always tell right away, but the sooner you get them out the better. You can pick them out later, but then they're big - it's very painful and leaves a big hole. The more you have, the more holes you have in your feet, and your nails will be deformed too. Even as a grown up, you can tell by the way their feet are positioned.

Of course, they were a sign of neglect, of kids who weren't properly looked after. Kids who didn't have shoes, whose feet were touching the ground, so the worms could get in. It was something to be ashamed of. But we used to laugh at them. My cousin who was very strong, Leya, he would make sure when he fought them that he'd stamp on their feet. Fighting dirty. Really painful.

Most of the boys with worms in their feet didn't go to school. The first year of school was free, but after that you had to pay. My mother sent me a year early, when I was six. She was a teacher, and very keen on education. That first year I just sat there writing numbers and being in class, getting used to it. Eating my bananas and milk for a snack, which most of the students didn't get either. They used to hang around and at break time when I mixed the powdered milk and sugar, saying 'give me some'. It was a good way of getting friends.

The next year was proper school.

Some of the kids with worms believed that if they went to school the teachers would force them to pull out the worms, or give them as beating if they wouldn't. So they'd be hurt either way. Other kids would go, but as soon as they'd been beaten once they'd leave and not go back. It was a Catholic school, and it was the best. There was another school but the children who were sent there were seen as those who hadn't made it to the Catholic school. They were often older, some of them didn't start until they were ten or more. They were less tough on the children there, but their results were not so good.

In my village, everybody thought that beating kids was a sign of a good education. For instance, they'd ask you 'What's the capital of Gabon?' You had seconds to answer and if you couldn't in time, you'd get a knock with a metre ruler, or a blow from a fist to your head. It was so painful! Really a crime. There were some parents who didn't like it, but they were seen as bad parents for not wanting their children to be beaten.

So I was used to things being tough, but what I was not used to was the uncertainty of everything in my life here; not knowing from one day to the next whether I'd have food, or travel money, or even a home here. They could ask me to leave the hostel at any time and make me homeless. And this went on for years.

There have been moments when I went to college when I hadn't eaten or slept, but I'd still go. I had no money for food, I'd be starving, but be there. It was hard to concentrate but I'd force myself.

I had a friend from Nigeria, a good friend. On many occasions she'd go and buy me something to eat, but it was rare that I could do the same for her. So she complained of that one day. She thought it was because I was mean. So I had to explain to her that I had no money. Then one day when I got my money, which was barely enough for me, did something a bit stupid. I took her to a restaurant - just a Subway - but for me, that was a big extravagance, and left me very short of money myself.

In the end she came to understand my situation and when she could, she would help me. But most people didn't know. It's hard to be with your friends when they go off to buy food and you can't go with them. They would say, "What, you don't eat?" But I couldn't explain. It was humiliating. And to make things worse, my campus was in the City at Tower Hill. I was surrounded by rich bankers who had lots of money to spend, so everything was very expensive.

At school back home, the teachers called us by our surnames. And when we saw our teachers outside school we had to greet them and say, 'Bonjour Citoyen.' I took this to mean that even if you saw them at a distance, far away, you had to run after them, get in front of them and say, 'Bonjour Citoyen', with your arms folded as a sign of respect, barely able to breathe because I'd been running so hard to catch up with them. My mum and aunties would be doubled up with laughter at me, and when they wanted to tease me, they'd just have to say, 'Bonjour Citoyen.'

But here people in authority don't take advantage of it. And we students came to know each other quite well. In fact, I couldn't believe how free the other students were, even with the teachers, I would say, 'Sir' to them even when I could see others calling them by their name. They'd say 'Call me by my name' but I found it very difficult. I had to make a conscious effort to adjust, it doesn't come easily.

Once we were in a group, supposed to be working, and something came up about asylum seekers on TV the night before. I said, 'I'm an asylum seeker' and they said, 'What?!' They were shocked. 'You're joking, aren't you?' 'No, I'm an asylum seeker.' Several minutes later one of them asked again, 'You're not joking, are you?' "No, I'm not." They were silent for a minute, trying to digest this. They couldn't believe this friendly guy, the guy they chatted with all the time, was an asylum seeker. I don't know what they thought an asylum seeker was.

So I do feel a bit amazed that I went through all this. I really wanted to be there for the last graduation, when I got my BA. I told them I didn't want to, but the true reason was that I had no money. And this time, for my Masters, I really want to do it. I had no pictures, nothing to help me remember my achievement. I don't want that to happen again.

It feels like a great achievement considering all I went through. But there's a sad edge to it. For most of my friends, graduation means they can work, and be paid. I have at least three friends in good jobs already. One of them even offered me work. But I'm not allowed to. For me, graduation just brings a new kind of frustration, and yet more waiting.