My name is Salah, and I am 25 years old. For more than five months, I have lived on the Bibby Stockholm barge. When I first came here, they promised to process my asylum claim quickly, but I still haven’t heard anything. I feel worried and don’t know what will happen next. Living on the barge has been hard. At first, it felt like a prison.
I love to read, but I always forget what I read. My mind is tired and it is hard to remember things.
I left my country because I was scared. I was bullied and treated badly. In Libya, I was kidnapped and sold like a product. They made me work for them and asked for ransom money to let me go. I was in the Mediterranean Sea for three days and nights, hoping to survive. I spent a year homeless on the streets of Paris, sleeping at Porte de la Chapelle. Then, I lived in the jungle in Calais, trying to find a way to the UK. I finally got lucky and found a lorry to take me here. Now, I am on the Bibby Stockholm, waiting and hoping for my asylum claim to be processed. Every day, I think about my past and worry about my future. But I keep reading and dreaming of a better life, even if it is hard to remember the stories. I hope for a day when I can live without fear and build a new life. Until then, I wait on the Bibby Stockholm, holding on to hope.
There’s a man here who hasn’t seen his mum for nine years. My friends are gone. When new residents ask how long I’ve been in Bibby Stockholm, I say ‘for a while’ and I ignore them. They ask about my asylum process, and I just say, ‘waiting and waiting.’ I keep busy volunteering and going to Weymouth library to learn. I run even though my body is tired because I have to. Every time I tell myself there’s light in the darkness, I wipe the tears from my face. These tears hold back souls in time.
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