Daniel Sneddon

Written age 13
Shawlands Academy, Glasgow

THE REFUGEE (first chapter)

Hello, I'm Gregory Smith. At least, here I am. My real name is Muke Bosede, and I am from the Democratic Republic of Congo, or, as it was when I as a child, Zaire. I am 22 years old and I have been living in the United Kingdom of Britain for six years, in Glasgow in Scotland. I was brought up outside of a village called Kisangani, right by the Congo River that passed right through the equator all the way down to Zambia. Here, me and the majority of my family were raised. I was the second eldest brother of my eight siblings, most of whom I could never identify. For as long as I can remember I was brought up under the roof of a mud house, which was allegedly built by my grandfather using just the dirt and straw that surrounded him. I don't think we always lived in housing this. organic. My brother once told me that we had owned an apartment, much bigger than the hut, but told me of .Mobutu Sese Seko., a man who had been self-proclaimed president since the sixties by delaying elections while he wiped out opponents and forced their families into hiding. We never spoke of it but that is what I believed happened that put us in this situation. Of course, as the infamous tale goes, Grandfather constructed the hut from his bare hands in a single day. At the time this sounded like another failed endeavour to make the elderly sound appealing to ignorant fools who couldn't care less. Yet as I grew older I began to consider that this wasn't a godly feat of determination but a simple task that even I, as a child could have accomplished. I later found out, to the mutual humiliation, that my Grandfather had not done this on his own, but with the help of three other men. In return our families would share homage. I sometimes doubt they thought it through: if they had done, I would assume they would at least make it compatible for nearly twenty people, not five.

Sharing a home had its advantages. Everyone under the shelter of the hut helped maintain the well-being of their fellow inhabitants in one way or another. Most of my living relatives were women who contributed by selling homemade jewellery that consisted of painted shells or splints of wood held together by bits of straw. They were lucky to return with cents. Some of them, however - my mother for example, made money. in ways men could not. Needless to say, they were the ones who returned home with the most. Anybody under ten with us didn't do anything substantial; instead we sat by the river and listened to folklore from my grandmother. I didn't know how the men who stayed with us accumulated the money they returned with. A popular rumour between me and some boys from the resident family was that they took a train to the capital and robbed the white men there. Our frivolous fantasies were crushed however after my sister informed me that they only sold small fish to the few tourists bold enough to visit.

Throughout my life I never saw, or heard, any talk of my Father. However due to my Mother's self-assigned profession I had my suspicions, even at that age. My grandmother dismissed my ideas and anxiously claimed he was a "business man" from the town, too busy to meet his children. I knew that the truth would never come out of anyone who didn't want me to know, so I asked my brother. He, a naive little cretin only two years my elder, bent on tales of rich gangsters and big guns, was adamant he was a heroic soldier who saved Mobutu's life on numerous occasions, the same Mobutu who I assumed arranged for my Father to be killed. However, occasionally even I tried to bend what was probably the truth and to this day I still see my father in my head as the hero my brother had told me of as a child.

For the next two years we did what we had to survive but to our great disappointment things became increasingly difficult. Members of all families began to pass away as violent disputes between foreign and guerilla forces became increasingly common.

Signs of trouble arose when I was either twelve or thirteen, while me and my cousin, my best and only friend, Tieke were playing by the river. First we heard voices raised that quickly escalated to shouting then to screams that lasted for what seemed like hours. When the screams had stopped a new sound emerged, the sound of a motor. Immediately we became frozen by fear as a narrow boat, a canoe with a propeller drunkenly taped to the rear, calmly swept through the undisturbed waters. In the boat was a small family, all of them with rope strung around their hands; some of them sitting, some of them lying, all of them in complete silence. The boat was manoeuvred by a single man. Fat yet muscular; he wore a ragged khaki shirt and cargo trousers of a similar state. He pulled a small grin that grew larger the closer he came. As the boat came in line with where we had been sitting he arose from his seated position and examined us and then turned to one of the family, a girl, who was shaking with fear. He frowned at her and I averted my eyes as he hit her with no remorse. She raised her head and wailed to reveal that she had been severely beaten, her eyes purple, her cheeks bruised, her mouth smeared with blood. She was of a similar height to my eldest sister and I suspected just as old. I will not detail what I saw then, but the image doesn't leave my head for a moment. I remember the moments as I watched in fear and shock as the girl's head shook so violently, as the bubbles speedily began to rise from the water. They became smaller and smaller and I just stared in disbelief as this madman performed this task, smiling. Not long after, the struggle ended and the girl's body collapsed into the water, he returned to his former position with no regret for his acts. He manically laughed as the boat once again moved slowly along the river, followed by the girl's savaged carcass.

This event traumatised me, never before had I been exposed to the horrors of war or even death for that matter. Whenever a member of the families passed on I was always told but hidden from the body, and the burial, if there ever was one.

Tieke and I became overly cautious, or, when I look back at it, we became paranoid. We would dive to the floor at the slightest sound, we would beg the families into hiding whenever a boat passed and if anyone came back later than they did regularly we would throw a fit. No one paid attention to our panic attacks and soon they began to ignore us. Until one day it unfortunately became a case of cry wolf.