A Boy From Africa. Part 1

Some people are afraid of their own story, some people are even a shame of their own story, that telling it and sharing it makes it very hard to do. Not all of us have great stories to tell, but all of us are products of our own stories and experiences. Our stories are not just a story but they are part of us, our stories are our histories. And our histories though sometimes it can break us but yet it can also make us, for a great healthier and happy future success.

A choice that a person decides to make of what to do with their story, usually determines the kind of a person that person will turn out to be in their future. Believe me life has a way of breaking us, because the only way character can be form is trough brokenness and pain. And if not careful, this brokenness can also be the downward path of your life and the destruction in your life. That is why I’ve decided to tell and share my story, because I know that someone out there will read it, and see that they are not alone that has a broken story. Maybe they can receive the strength to tell theirs someday, because telling a story is sharing a burden.

My story begins with a boy from Africa. Yes that’s me, my name is Seiza Angunga. I was born in Congo Kinshasa on April the 16th 1994. I grew up with my grandparents in a small village called Mbanza-ngungu.

The above picture is where I grew up. I had a fun a happy childhood. Although we didn’t have much but yet we had a joy and happiness. As kids we didn’t know what poverty meant, we only accepted what was and whatever that was didn’t keep us from being happy children. It’s was a hard thing to have shoes, if you had shoes it meant you were blessed and take care well care of it. I saw friends little children who had nothing to eat, who will go down the forest alone to dig under the ground to try to find criquet to eat. Life wasn’t easy for everyone, in facts it was harder for everyone. My dad had about 13 children with few different woman, with my mom he had two me and My younger brother. After my mom separated with my mom she left us with our grandparents, and she went out to seek for a new and better life. Our grand parents raised lots of their grandchildren, there was a lots of us in one house, cousins, uncles, and so on. My grand father worked hard to put us in school, he placed us in one of the best school in town there which taught French.

Above Is the school where I went from grade 1 to grade 6. I was blessed enough that I had an opportunity to go to school, many children I saw barely had money to afford clothes. Because of how I lived and the things I’ve seen, the poverty I seen and lived myself it did something to me. Being in the house where we barely had power, no water and we had to go down the mountain every week to wash clothes and get water with huge bucket in our head, to carry water and go back up from the mountain to the house with it. Sometimes just being a boy then, the water will be so heavy going up the mountain that I’ll feel like passing out. Things was hard, seeing my friends even struggle and suffer was harder, we tried to help each other with what we had, but we didn’t have much to help everyone either. It was painful, some had nothing to eat. Especially one time after the war I remember seeing many dead bodies, and things got even harder for many. One day we were at the house, someone came knocking at the door and started begging my grand mother to give them something to eat, my grand mother responded we don’t have much at all, just enough for the whole family. But the way that man begged and cried, I saw my grand mother take a fish and gave it to him. That acts made me very happy has a boy, because I couldn’t stand it anymore to see the man begged and desperately cried for food, that I was ready to have him mine. I realized then, that it don’t take to have money to help others, but it takes a heart of brokenness to help those who are broken and in need. I seen friends only gone to sleep with nothing but eating salt and fruit. My grandparents worked very hard to always make sure we had at least bread to eat. By this time my mother had found herself a new life with his new husband and started a family. I had forgotten about her, that I grew up thinking my grandparents were actually my parents. One day my grand father told me they have arranged that I should go to Canada to live with my mother. I thought wait you’re not my parents, then he gave me a brief history to kind of remind me. So I was so excited me and my little brother to go to Canada, it was a strange feeling. It was like a dream only I didn’t know if It was real or not. I was told not to tell anyone. I was excited but I was afraid to leave my friends and family in this hard situation they were in. When the day came, I left the village to go stay in the city for awhile before flying to Canada. I left without never saying goodbyes to my friends, something I regret till this day because many of them have died and gone forever. But the reason we were forbidden to tell anyone, it was because some people can become jealous and decide to hurt us so we will not go and have a better life then them. After few months in the city the time came that I had to come to Canada, I remember that early morning I got up got ready. I cried and cried and cried, I didn’t want to leave my family, my grand father hugged me and encouraged me to me be strong and be brave! I made him and everyone else a promise, that I might go as a boy from Africa to Canada, but I will come back as prosperous child from Canada and change your life forever for the better. My grand father looked me in the eyes and said I know you will, be strong and brave. I smiled and cried not knowing that this was going to be the last time I’ll ever see him again. Few years later my grand father died. A pain I bear till this day for I loved him just like a father to me. Then my uncle dropped me and my little brother at the airport, and there we flew to Canada. With expectation of a better life with my mom and step father, but yet it turned out to be the nightmare I could’ve never imagined...( to be continued part 2)