My name is Wambewa Protus Mukasa. I am a proud gay man, age 26, from Uganda. (Wambewa is a clan name.)
I am sharing details of my life here because I am a proud gay man. I am trustworthy, honest and yearning to reclaim my human right to live as nature intended for LGBTQ+ people.
My childhood years
I was born in a Muslim polygamous family. My dad married four wives and had two concubines. The four women included my mum. They stayed near the same neighbourhood, but my dad never introduced the other two women to any of our family.
I had 29 siblings: 13 brothers and 16 sisters, not counting the children from my father’s concubine relationships.
In our home, sleeping arrangements separated the girls from the boys.
When I was eleven, I enjoyed sex with my brother Luke.
It would be late at night because we shared the same bed, and others were fast asleep.
When Luke went to a boarding school, I slept in the same bed as my brother Robert. Robert wasn’t as forthcoming as Luke and declined my advances. Very early one morning, he told our parents. They beat me, then forced me to sleep alone in the chicken house. I spent over a year sleeping with the chickens until I went to secondary boarding school.
Secondary schooling, knowingly gay, and being expelled again and again.
In Uganda, secondary schooling starts after seven years of primary, taking six years (senior one – six). In secondary, I was expelled from three different schools because it was evident, I was attracted to other male students.
After repeated punishment by my parents and school administrators, I joined a hostel. I passed my secondary to university and studied at Ndejje University in Kampala. I speak Kiswahili and English, both taught during my schooling.
Freedom and liberty. I loved it.
Living in a hostel was far from my family, and I had complete control of my life. There was no supervision or monitoring from anyone. I behaved well and even worked in a boutique selling second-hand clothes.
I spent almost a year in this environment of apparent liberty.
In the boutique, a male customer regularly came to try on and then buy a dress. His name was Roger, and he became my friend, connecting me to other gay people. By coincidence, one of those came from my home village.
He was named Andrew, and we started a relationship, which was going well until we took a vacation back to our village. Our apparent friendship became a puzzling fact with the village locals, something we were oblivious to then.
A week into the vacation, Andrew came to my family’s house. No one was at home, so we ended up having fun together. His mother pretended to be looking for him. She came into the house without knocking.
I hadn’t seen it coming. But it did. Humans killing humans.
His mother discovered us red-handed. She started shouting, calling us homosexuals. People raced to the house armed with sharp tools and batons. They pounced on Andrew and started beating and cutting him. He shouted to me to run. The last words I heard from him was, ‘Run for your life’.
I had no option but to run. Tears blurred my sight as I ran from Andrew’s fading screams. I loved Andrew with all my heart, but I knew and sensed they had killed him, and I would be next.
The memory has haunted me ever since.
I ran as fast as a cheetah, sticking to rural areas and avoiding people. I headed east, via farms and remote areas, aiming for a friend’s where I might hide. It took three days to get there. But on arrival, he said he couldn’t help me. He felt I would cause him trouble by being there and that my parents had announced on the local radio station that they were looking for me with all the descriptions.
With no money, no means of identity, and no phone, I walked, emotionally broken but focused on reaching the border with Kenya. There was no plan, just a need to survive, and a determination I am a proud gay man. I kept to water trances and unbeaten tracks, eating from waste bins and sleeping in unfinished construction sites. After a week, I looked as dirty as a mad street boy on the streets of Kitale (a developing town in western Kenya).
Short-lived luck was on my side.
One evening, passing by a liquor bar, a truck was offloading beer. The two off-loaders were arguing and started fighting. The supervisor dismissed them on the spot but then asked passersby if anyone wanted the job of finishing unloading.
I raised my hand, and they gave me the job. To get paid, I had to be taken to Lodwar for their boss to pay me. It was a very long journey, but I did get paid. But then I felt lost, disorientated and not knowing where I was in relation to Kitale.
I saw many UNHCR organisation vehicles travelling one way and then the other. I asked a woman, and she told me they belonged to the refugee camp.
Arriving at Kakuma.
I made my way there, which wasn’t too far. I arrived at the camp on 29 August 2020. There, I met many others who had fled Uganda under similar circumstances. I had to wait until 18 December 2020 before being allowed to officially register as an asylum seeker.
Like my group colleagues, the Kenyan government has still not granted me refugee status. And the UN doesn’t seem capable of doing what they claim they do.
I appreciate you for reading my story. Thank you. Please please share our website with everyone you know. We need attention and a little help.
