I was sitting at home with my mother one Friday morning when my phone rang. 

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‘Blandine, can you come over? I want to talk to you,’ said the voice on the other end of the line. It was my friend Sarah. 

 

I was finished with my chores and my mother gave me permission to go.

 

Sarah lives in Kashojwa, near Best Future School. We live in different areas of Nakivale Refugee Settlement in Uganda. As I made my way down the path I met my father. I told him I was going to visit Sarah and he gave me two thousand Ugandan shillings to take the boda-boda. 

 

When I reached Sarah’s house, I found her mother washing clothes. She was wearing a black dress. When I arrived, I knocked on the door and tried to greet her, but she ignored me. 

 

Instead, she asked me, ‘What do you want?’ without looking in my direction. 

 

I told her, ‘I’m here to see my Sarah.’

 

‘Your friend Sarah is my daughter?’ she asked. I said yes. 

 

Instead of going to get Sarah, she told me, ‘I do not want to see you with my daughter.’ When I asked her why, she simply said, ‘because your family is poor.’

 

After hearing her words, I called Sarah. She was around the corner, dressed in a black skirt and red t-shirt. When I told her what her mother said, Sarah told me, ‘I know you respect elders. But my mother is sad now and does not think much.’

 

I said, ‘Sarah, when a person says things that she has never talked about, she is only looking for a way so that she may talk. Let us do what your mother said. She does not want to see us together because I am from a poor family. Let us leave our friendship because we need to do what your mother wants. Let us not force it.’

 

Sarah and I agreed to respect her mother’s wish to not see us together. 

 

But I went home unhappy because of the words the woman said to me. I felt sad that she called me poor. I went home wondering how some parents can ignore the children who come from poor families, especially here in Nakivale Refugee Camp where so many of us have so little. 

 

The following day I went to school. I wanted to play with other students but they kept getting away from me. It seemed they felt the same way as Sarah’s mother. They had made their mind up and did not want to be my friend. All because I was from a poor family.

 

It was a cause of physical pain for me to find I was being ignored, unwanted. 

 

I found street boys trying to disturb me because they knew my family was poor and in need of money. 

 

I had problems with my vision and my parents did not have money for my treatment. I could not read or write on the blackboard and my classmates used to tell me that I was disturbing them by asking them for books so that I could copy them. 

 

I decided to talk to my mother. 

 

After a day filled with mopping, washing, cooking, taking care of my younger brother and visiting my older brother in the hospital, I found my mother and said to her, ‘Mother, do you have time?’

 

‘No problem, my daughter. I am free to talk, do not fear anything.’

 

‘Mother, you know I’m a girl and I need many things, but without advice I will not know what to do.’

 

I told my mother about what Sarah’s mother said and the pain I was suffering at school. 

 

‘My daughter, I know how you are feeling because those words are painful, but you need to move on with your life. You should just ignore those children and not listen to them any longer.’

 

‘I am your daughter and I know your advice will help me, but some rich parents do not want to see their children with poor children like me.’

 

‘My daughter, as your mother, I would like to tell you this: respect them. Keep that respect for them and do not stop showing them respect even if they call you bad words, like poor.’

 
‘Mother, to keep respecting people who do not want me is not easy. I feel unloved when I sit with other youths because I know they will laugh at me.’

 

‘My daughter, they will not stop laughing at you even if you go far from them. You must find the way within yourself, to stop feeling unloved and put confidence in yourself. And then let them laugh. They have decided to laugh at you. But me, as your mother, I know one day they will stop laughing at you because of your success, and because you work hard. Do not listen to their words.’

 

I try every day to live by my mother’s words.