.
(Sinister music)
(Music fades out.)
(Buzz of voices, serious music)
The streets would be full of people selling food.
And the food ... like would have ...
Like, if you're selling food on the street, it would have flies on it.
And on the buses, 'cause it's a really small country
and a lot of people stuffed in, there's no place to sit.
And if you're sat, even if you're a baby,
you have to get up the seat for a bigger person.
And then the streets had dust and tough wind blew
so it got in your eyes.
I know why the war started.
Eritrea, a long time ago, used to be just a big country.
Then they split it with Ethiopia.
But then, since we split it from Ethiopia, we got the Red Sea.
The war started because they wanted the Red Sea.
And all of this war happened.
Lots of people had to get away and we didn't have lots of airplanes.
'Cause everybody was just moving and moving.
(Threatful music)
I remember that ...
that we had to ... leave ... when I was a young age.
And my dad couldn't come because he knew secrets.
Because the guy that's leading us right now is very, very bad
and my dad wanted to escape but he couldn't.
They sad to him: "If you tell people of our secrets
we will kill your wife and ..." me.
So when he told it we had to run.
(Hasty music)
I remember that we just got on a plane, then I slept.
I really knew it was a long, long journey.
And sometimes we took buses
and I really fell asleep a lot of times.
And then, at the end, we arrived in England.
It was kind of very hard to fit in. with hardly any English.
(Humming music)
We started school and I was like very scared
'cause I didn't have no friends.
'Cause everybody already ... had groups.
One day this boy ... He fell out of a group.
So then me and him, we said: "Why don't we be friends?"
Then ... like we joined other people's groups
so we had made lot of friends.
(Children's voices)
A few weeks later I came back from school
and there were lots of ladies in my house.
And my mom was on the bed and then I asked her:
"Why was everybody crying yesterday?"
She said: "Oh, I have something to confess to you.
"Your dad ... he died there." And then ...
I started crying, then she started crying and I told her: "Stop crying."
The she said: "I'll stop crying if you stop crying."
So we both ended up stopping crying.
For a few days I stopped eating.
I only drank a little bit and I couldn't finish my dinner at school.
Mom came to me and she said:
"You don't have to be very upset
'cause ... that's why we left home - because it was dangerous.
I started feeling okay and that ...
it's right that we should have come here.
(Calm music)
It got really better, I made a lot of friends.
We don't talk about how our lives are at home.
We don't like ... talk about this stuff.
We don't talk about sad things.
We talk about good things.
We don't mention such things, we act like they never happened.
My friend always ...
When I'm feeling sad he always comes up with a joke and cheers me up.
And when he is feeling sad I come up with a joke and cheer him up.
SWR 2020