North to Paradise

by Ousman Umar

“Forward ever, backward never.” I took refuge in that sentence.

One of the saddest things I learned on my journey is that in this life, no one gives you anything for free. They always want something in exchange: it’s human nature. Or at least, it’s the nature of the system that humans live in.

On my journey north, I saw so many people behaving worse than animals, motivated by such greed that they had no humanity. But then a person who was more vulnerable and exploited than I was reached out and shared what little she had. These are the moments that I try to remember, moments of our shared humanity.

Rape is so commonplace along the journey north, in and out of the connection houses, that these women have to find ways of coping with it; if they didn’t somehow adapt to their reality—if they fully acknowledged and processed this violence—the trauma could kill them.

Sometimes, the smallest detail in the present can determine your entire future.

Given all the hardship I’ve experienced, it would be easy to think that the world is full of bad people, but I prefer to think that most people are good. It’s just that the good people make less noise.