Poets' Corner
A refugee
Do you know what it's like to be so hungry?
Do you know what it's like
To have your Daddy out in front
And your Mommy a little way out;
To have your sisters slightly behind
And you taking a stand In a long food queue out in the sun?
Do you know what it's like
To own only a pair of shorts
And having to wear a girl's blouse?
To own only a tattered skirt
And having to wear a boy's shirt?
Do you know what it's like
To sleep with 8 people under a blanket
Which was meant for just two?
To sleep on a football field
Out in the cold night
And thinking if the world was right?
Do you know what it's like
To have friends who are friends
Only because you all want to make amends?
To have friends who are friends
Only because you are all so poor?
To play games of sorrow
To dread tomorrow
And have life pierce you like an arrow?
Do you know what it's like
To wake up on Christmas morning
Having dreamt that it would be gay
Only to discover
That there'd be no breakfast on that day?
To have a lunch of porridge
And a supper of bread and dates
Which supper reminds you of the region in which Christ was born?
Christ may have been born in a stable
In a manger full of hay, but
Do you know what it's like
To be born in a refugee's camp
And never living to see the light of day?
If you know what it's like to be all these
Then you probably are one of us refugees
If you have no idea what it's all about
Find out, please, and do your best to help us out.
For them,
By Edwin B.A. Essuman,
University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana
