Talk With Me, a national writing competition for secondary school students, is run by the Petone Settlers Museum in association with the Department of Labour and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. It was first run in 2006 alongside a major exhibition Walk with Me: the Refugee Experience in New Zealand.

Nosia Fogogo is a refugee from Burundi, Africa. She came to New Zealand in 2005 aged 16. She’s the overall winner of Talk With Me.

Happiness is Ubiquitous
By Nosia Fogogo

Unknown people, they came and took my grandfather. We did not know why or where they took him. Nor did we know what they were going to do with him. The people, their intentions and reasons were all unknown to us.

My family was known for their courage and it was also known they would be the first to get killed. They knew it too, that’s why they never tried to hide anything from me. They told me every single thing they thought I needed to know. My mother once said to my ears, “That which you need will always be what you want”. To this day, I walk around with it in my head. Her voice follows me, my shadow memory.

It’s true, I witnessed my family’s death. I know who murdered my parents, but what can I do about it? I’m now safe as a refugee in New Zealand with such freedom and peace. If I didn’t get a chance to escape, I would have been long gone. The people I saw kill my family would have killed me too. When I was hiding behind the big green tree I heard them saying that once they found me they would cut my head into four pieces and feed my heart to the dogs. They didn’t get their wish. God saved me.

I now stand safe and fearless with no one to feed my heart to those dogs. Because I was lucky enough to escape death and I now live to share my story.

I ran and ran
I cried and cried
If my day
Is to be running and crying
I would rather die in my sleep
Poor child
Happiness is no longer
Taken away
They are already at the green gate
We have no chance, no way to get out
We have no chance to save our lives
We have no time to breathe in and out
We have no way to run
Aren’t we dead?
Is this the end of happiness?
Is this our end?

They are at the front door; my parents have already decided I have to run. Both said We love you.’ I had no chance to say goodbye. I never got a chance to tell them what I felt. I now leave it all to God.

As soon as I closed the door behind me, they were inside the house asking for money and my father gave them all he had. My mother was crying. My heart started beating harder. My heart was not in its place. There was a gun on my father’s chest. There was a gun on my mother’s head. I could hear my mother crying. I wanted to scream, but didn’t. I was hiding, hiding to save myself and to tell this story.

I was hiding behind the big green tree. The tree planted by my father two years after getting married to my mother. Was it going to save my life? I heard gunshots from inside the house. I no longer could hear my mother crying. With my heart beating even faster, I wasn’t afraid of dying. So why was I still hiding? The men were screaming questions, and I heard my mother answer. They were asking for my brother and me. But he was overseas and mother lied about me. She told them I was sleeping over at a friend’s house. They were laughing, but my mother was crying. They were asking for her credit card and pin numbers, she gave them all they wanted. I heard her say, “Please, take all you want and leave me.” That “me” was her last word.

They walked out, all fifteen of them. Some had guns, others knives. They left one knife behind in our driveway. They burnt our cars. Inside, I saw blood everywhere. My father’s body was on the white couch, the couch soaked with his blood. I cried over my parents’ bodies. Blood all over me, my hands filled with blood. I looked at my mother’s body and cried out to her; “what am I going to do without you?” What was I to do? I didn’t know.

Running, stepping in the dark on the dead bodies of people I knew - my relatives, my friends and my neighbours. At the border, I washed the blood off my hands and said goodbye to my birth country. I made a promise:

I will speak
I will stand to make speeches
I will sing what I saw
I will cry out my anger
I will scurry to carry the flag of all refugees
I will swallow the soup to get the source of the sound of the past and
I will keep my promise for tomorrow

I am talking to you. I want you to hear what I am saying even though the gunshots are louder than my voice. I am calling your name. I need your hand on my shoulder. I once cried with no sound, if I let it all out now, could you wipe my tears? Tell me, why do I have all these heavy thoughts in my head? Do you want to hear it from my own mouth? It is true as white milk: I do not have to hide anything. I have lost myself and now I am trying to find my second self.

I am just a strong girl
Who came from a long way
Who has much to say and much to see
Who has lots to talk about the painful and powerful
History
I am not the history maker
But I am the storyteller
I will tell you what I think
You need to know
I will let you hear the voice of
The real refugee.

Check out the other two winners’ pieces: Kate Brooks’s ‘Kifah’ - struggle and Juliette Varuhas’s Never, Never .