Poem: If you say, why don't you go back

Hassan Ali Said

If you say, why don't you go back

Please don't ask me why don't I go back. Do you think I like staying? For discrimination and xenophobia? Suffering from malaria, cholera and typhoid in a foreign land. Do you think I like staying?

Seeking second hand clothes, If I could help myself, If I could rebuild my homeland. Do you think I like staying? Without my mother, father, sisters, and brother. Please don't ask me why don't I go back?

Understand that it is not simple or easy. I would if I could – world humanitarian community. Avoiding past memories, I can not remove my mind, My traditional culture is my nostalgic torture. The folktales of childhood, never old Never dead, stamped on my mind. I have normal feelings – I suffer for dignity.

Please don't kill my broken heart, by asking me Why don't you go back? I will if I can. I wouldn't stay a moment When the new dawn of peace comes.

- Hassan Ali Said, 6 December 2001. Hassan is an Ethiopian refugee in Uganda