This week I’m delighted to talk to Nalougo, a member of a creative writing and performance group with Freedom From Torture. ‘Write To Life’ is the longest-running refugee-writing group in the UK, and the only one specifically for survivors of torture.
They’ve collaborated with many galleries and museums, have produced zines, and have created several projects including one called the alphabet of poverty which explores the many failures of the asylum system in the UK.
As you’ll hear Nalougo explain, ‘Write To Life’ offers a valuable space for people to process their experiences, and he feels strongly that it could benefit so many more people.
A huge thanks to Nalougo for talking to me, and for reading his poems, ‘Belonging’ and ‘Time’.
Find out more about the Freedom From Torture creative writing group ‘Write to Life’.
TRANSCRIPT:
Bairbre:
Hi and welcome. This week I’m delighted to talk to Naglougo, a member of a creative writing and performance group with Freedom from Torture. Write to Life is the longest running refugee writing group in the uk, and the only one specifically for survivors of torture. They’ve collaborated with many galleries and museums and have created several projects, including one called The Alphabet of Poverty, which explores the many failures of the asylum system in the uk.
I’ll put a link to it in the show notes. It’s really worth having a read of it.
As you’ll hear Nalougo explain, Write To Life offers a valuable space for people to process their experiences, and he feels strongly that it could benefit so many more people. This is Nalougo.
[MUSIC]Nalougo:
Belonging
In Africa he was a computer systems specialist
with his own office overlooking a boating lake.
Here, he is a security guard in a cramped Spanish night club
flashing on the corner of Piccadilly Circus.
Back home, he always ate plantain fufu with spicy aubergine sauce,
in the cheerful canteen where a waft of barbecued meat hung in the air.
Here, at work,
With no access even to a microwave,
he grabs a sandwich from Tesco on his way
Trying the mysterious flavours one after another,
Searching for anything that might taste of home.
Staying outside all through a cold winter night,
Drizzle penetrating his cheap coat and stinging his face,
Every hour he patrols the four corners of the building
fighting off people pissing on the walls
running off drug dealers and their business
looking for suspect objects in the shadows.
And in between
not allowed to listen to music or use his phone,
nothing to enjoy or distract him
from the dreary creep of the hours
To the faint beat that seeps from inside
he stamps his feet against the cold,
stretches his arms
Thinking of his children's future here
where no neighbour will take them in to sleep.
Back home, wherever he had to go, he knew they were safe with somebody.
Thinking of his own future
in a country that just regards the old as a burden
Should he leave them there? Or bring them here, to learn those chilly habits
casting him off when he becomes incapable.
Here, or back home, day by day he must build a better life for them.
In Africa, we mourn more for the death of an old man than for that of a
Newborn, because with him dies a long lifetime of learning.
An old man who dies is a library that burns down
taking with it all the proverbs of Africa
more wisdom than he could find in any book.
Here, he sits in the library, reading and searching the whole world's
knowledge – but alone.
By the end of his shift it’s early morning,
He shuffles through his music, trying to stay awake on the underground
not to sleep past his stop
on the two hour journey to the tiny room
A faint sour smell from its carpet
A place to sleep till it’s time to leave again.
[MUSIC]In life. In our life all are, we all have like some. You know, some bad experience, some good experience. We all thinking about something which is not good for us. You know, we all maybe have like no ptsd, but something in our head or brain, which is like stressing us something like this. So we, we all need to write down because by writing down is like you releasing yourself.
But people doesn’t know that. Even I didn’t know that before, to be honest. But, but writing down, writing down, writing down is, I, I release a lot, I release a lot on, on me. I release a lot. So if every pe, if everybody can do that, I think the world will suffer still but it’s not gonna be like this. Cause I can see, we can see around people killing this themselves or doing bad things on other people because of what’s going on with them.
But if they’re right, it’s like they will release at least a bit on the, on the burden, which is destroying them, you know?
Bairbre: So, yeah. And did you, would you recommend, like, do you think it’s a good idea to have, you know, that communal aspect as well? I mean, it’s always good to write on your own and, but bringing it to other people or bringing it to a group, like did you find that really helped as well?
Nalougo: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because especially in freedom, it’s like when other people writing, it’s like sometime when they read the, the, the story or maybe the poem or thing like this, sometimes it’s like, for me it’s release as well. It’s not just what’s going on on you, but you can base on the experience and then make your journey.
And try to turn the page, try to turn the page to another, you know, try to do something else, like step up, you know, from the, from the story. It’s really good. Even the even yeah, the helping, the help. The help, help even just. Even reading as well, because when they write and then the, the, they read you, you listen.
So even when you read, when you read yourself, it’s like it’s always trying to, yeah, it’s always affect you always.
[MUSIC]TIME
In the midst of the succession of events and phenomena
Inaccurate chronometer which deceives us
we can neither see it, nor smell it, nor touch it
neither direct nor modify it
it runs and leaves us no reprieve
no right of appeal
it flees like a bird in the night
flows through our fingers like liquid
Assassin, it kills each successive day
it goes too fast
it’s like money
When we give it to one place, we can’t give it to another
But it gives us one advantage: called the privilege of age
With it,
Happiness comes by
Love takes root
Knowledge grows
Wisdom is acquired
With the passage of time.
It is often said,let’s give time to time;
But we always forget to ask,
Is there any time to give?
We only have a handful of sand left to live our life
By doing good deeds with joy and happiness.
So let’;s take advantage of the time that has been gifted us
Marvel at the world around us
Before life catches up with us, and fills us with regret.
[MUSIC]When something is going on in my brain and anything feel like I’m not like I just want to talk to somebody, I just want to release to talk to somebody. I just sit down, take my pen, and then write second. I think writing is not just, even like writing, like this is not just, you need to think deeply to write something.
No. For me it’s like just pull down everything first and then later you can try to, that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying, I’m doing all the time. It’s like I just take the paper, pull down, take my pen, everything which is going through in my head, just put down and then let her try to take out some of them.
Even sometimes I can write like three pages or two pages because it’s, it’s never enough. Never. What’s going on inside us is never enough. If you want to write everything which is going on you in a specific thing. You can take 10 pages. So just, I just write down and then later, sometime iise them in two, because it can be two different story.
It can be the same story can be divided in two, or it can be like just one story and then try to devise them or try to remove some something. And then and then also music. But it’s mainly calm music. Very calm music. Because I’m kind of calm person, so it’s very calm music, like, you know, the music, sometimes there is some music on on YouTube, like bird music or maybe the trees or the waves, things like this.
So yeah, for me, music, so that thing is helping, is helping me even even by myself when I’m studying. And then I have like this kind of music around me is pushing me a lot. No pushing in canvas in in terms of like yeah, do it, but it’s like I can feel, I can feel everything me, but even when I feel a bit tired as well, I just go for walk or run sometime to release my brain and then come back again.
Put my music down. Even when I put music sometime I can’t stop when I put music around me and then start studying or start writing something, I can’t stop till I finish. Sometime and when I finish, if the music’s still running out and then I finish that, maybe that idea and then the music still is still around.
It’s like I feel like the power is there is still there. So take another another thing again and write again. Yeah. I think ma one is mainly, mainly is music. Mainly me. But it’s not like, it’s not like singing music. No, no. It’s really calm, soft music.
Is sometimes it is good to sharing, dear, but when you share things and then people hear that they’re not gonna do the same mistake as you, which is going to help? Which is good for the world. You know, so by sharing, like for me as well, when I writee about what happened to me, what, what, this one, this one, it is like, other people, maybe they feel they have the same thing, but when they listen to me, when they read my story, say, wow, okay, so let’s try to do this one you guys, what if this guy pass for that one so I can do mine?
You know, it’s, it’s, it’s always good. So I encourage people to, I think everybody does. It’s not just everybody should write for me. Everybody in the world should write because all of us, we all have something through us. Even if we don’t have like any problem in our head, but we have some experience we need to share with other people because if we don’t share, other people, we be in the same issue.
If you other people have like some problem, but something, but they dunno how to solve. If it’s not just solving, but sometime it’s not, the, the solution is not there. The solution is not there. But they, they can just, they can just skip that thing, don’t think about it, and then think about something else.
You know, think about something else. So everybody in the world should write something down, everybody. Yeah. In the world you have, so we have something to share. We all, we all have something to share with other people. Yeah. And then, and then even they don’t have to to think about. Yeah. I’m not a professional, so I don’t know how to write, no.
Most of my poem you can see is like, come through like this, just sit down. Right, right. It’s like, You think, you think on me when I write this one? It’s I think just write. But when it came out, and then people say, wow, that’s, that’s amazing. You know, when people say that, it’s like I get more confidence to write more again.
I get more confident. Yeah. It, it help us. Well, Yeah. So yeah, that’s fair, I can tell people to, to write even when they’re going through more, mainly when they’re going through something like difficult situation, don’t stay just by themself. Even when they sing, like, because even when we sing in just specific thing, particular thing, even when we think, like psychologists, we talk about some issues, but sometimes the psychologist is not there.
You are by yourself. But you are alone because you’re not gonna see the psychologist like 24 hours, seven on 24 hours and 27, 24 hours. Sometimes it’s not there, but you are by yourself. No, I need to see my psychologist tomorrow. But the journey you will take is good to have psychology, but when you are yourself and then you want to speak with somebody, Just take your pen.
You can speak to yourself. Take your pen, take your paper, write down even if there’s no pen and anything, you can put your, your, your microphone and then just speak. Speak to yourself. No, think about somebody here. I’m speaking to that person. It will advise you. That’s the thing I’m doing. Write down. And then sometimes when I read, I ask myself, is it this mine?
It’s like, I’m not sure. Is it mine? You know, so that’s a thing. That’s it? That’s mine.
Bairbre:
Yeah. But is that, that surprise? You don’t know where, when you pick up the pen and you go onto the page, it’s a, if you don’t know where you’re gonna end up, sometimes.
Nalougo:
Yeah. So that’s a thing. They can, they can just write.
It’s good. It’s, to be honest, it’s good. It’s, it help me a lot. The writing thing. It did help me a lot. Even I have like a psychology, but it did help me a lot, a lot because the psychologist wasn’t there 24 hours . So when I joined Write to Life, and then they told me, okay, they, they teach me how to do.
It’s not, it’s not teaching, teaching. It’s like, okay, just write down. Okay. I say, okay. So when I was for myself, and then thing was going on on my head, say even sometime at the beginning was like, when I was writing, I was crying by writing. When I was writing, I was crying. It’s like it was really, really bad thing.
So I was writing and crying, crying, crying, crying. But it’s helping because if I didn’t do that, I couldn’t remove all that pain in that time. Cause if you have to go all the time to the psychologist, maybe once a week or twice a week, you know how long will take maybe 10 years. Or if you are trying to speak to yourself, by yourself, by writing things like this, it is like will take less than 10 years.
Maybe three years or four years. So, which is really good, you know, which is really good. But still we need to, I mean, specifically if you have like some issues, but even if you now have some issues, you have some good experience you can write down, which is going to help people.
Like the noise on the underground some people, they don’t like the noise in the underground, you know? So when you write something about, okay, the noise in the underground, for example, you make something really nice, don’t think about the noise.
Maybe take your book, read, or do something . Say, okay, let’s this poem say something. Oh, oh, lemme try. Go down underground. You will try once, twice. It’ll help that that person. We learn about one plus one. It’s the same thing we learn from when we read. We always learn from something.
And then everybody has its own experience. That’s why I keep saying everybody has its own experience, so everybody should write something about his thing.
Bairbre: A huge thanks to Nalougo for talking to me and for reading his poems, ‘Belonging’ and ‘Time’. If you wanna know more about the creative writing group Write to Life, you can find more @freedomfromtorture.org/what we do/survivor activism/write to life. Or it might just be easier to go to the Freedom from Torture site and navigate from there.
That’s freedom from torture.org.
Again, a huge thanks to Nalougo for being part of this episode and to the Arts Council of Ireland for their continuing support. Next episode, I’m talking to another member of the group, Tanya, so have a listen for that too. Tanya will read some of her work and explain more about why Write to Life is such a valuable group.
Thanks for listening. Bye for now.
