Leticia

full interview

OK, so now this is yeah, so I mean, I just explained who I am and all of that, I’m not going to go through it all. Um, I’m just going to start with the questions. Um, can you tell me what type of home do you live in now?
Um…Where I’m living now? In Sutton.

No. Who do you live with?
Oh is a friend.

And do you pay rent?
No.

And is it like shared flat or house?
Yes, she has she has got children. So I stay there with her.

So you help her with her kids and you stay for free?
Yeah. You can’t sleep there without helping. She chuck you out, you doing nothing in my house, so why to help you to sleep in here.

Yeah. And since you told me you don’t have the right to work, since you don’t have the right to work, how do you spend your time here?
Have been indoors, as she said, we are indoors. Finchley, people they send us vouchers. Twenty five pounds every month, yeah.

For like food and stuff?
Yeah.

And…So now you mean now, but what did you do before Covid, before Corona, what did you do?
They were sending us, so we were going there and pick the wheelchair and they give us the transport.

OK, good. And did you like you also went to the group?
Yes, I went to the group.

Is that how you met a match?
Yes. Yes.

What year was that?

2017. Yeah, I went in the group, I met, I met the majority 2017, but I went in the group 2015.

 
So you’ve been with the LGBT group for five years?
Yes.

Does it does being in the group bring you joy?
Yeah. Yeah, very very very much. Very much, as you said. Yeah. I mean we do DIY we enjoy dance, drink after meeting people from the street. We just go to DIY. We enjoy.

Amazing. Do you have friends there?
You know, we talk. We are all friends. We are all friends.

So…And did you go to church as well?
Yeah Camden.

Camden Church?
Yeah Camden Church.

And you told me this church is for LGBT people.
Yes, yes.

OK, great. And how, how was your life been since you came to Europe, since you came to the U.K.? Is it good? What’s good, what’s bad? What was difficult? What was easy?
When I came in also, they scared me. You can’t go there, you can’t go to seek asylum seeker unless you want to be deported. They just need to be in the house in there, sitting there, sitting there. But one of my friends, you said you are not to go and claim asylum seeker. Then she introduced me to the group. Then from there I started.
 
What has been challenging here, like what do you feel has been very difficult other than claiming asylum? Like, do you have any difficulties dealing with people who are British or do you think here is being good because you can be yourself or make much of it?
Yeah being here is good because you can, you feel good better than your home. Free. You are free to do what you can. You are free to talk what you can say. With my girlfriend holding each other if you can kiss on the street, which you can’t do back home.

Yeah. Can you just say I feel free?
I feel free.

Um. Do you have family back home?
Yes.
 
And how does that make you feel of being away from them?
 don’t feel good because I don’t see them, it’s now a long time in 18 years without seeing them.

Who are them? Your parents?
Yeah my parents, they are dead. But children, the children.

You have children as well?
Yeah. I don’t see them. I just started to talk to them before I even talk to them. But now I guess I get to talk to them. But as their dad told them, what happened, sometime they don’t want to say anything, but they have to accept it.
 
So they know that you’re gay?
Their dad told them, Your mom did this, this, this.

Wow. And how does that make you feel the way they think of you?
I don’t feel good, but slowly, by slowly, they will know who I am and they know who I am as they hear they know, but they haven’t started talking to me very good, very much.

How how like when these things happen, when your husband, ex-husband and your children are rejecting you. How does that make you feel? And how did you overcome or like, how did you like…um, yeah, like overcome or handle the situation? Do you have any strategy that you use to stay strong? Like, what do you do when you feel weak or low?
I guess, call her, I should say, we call each other. Why are you doing? How do you feel? What you doing now? We console each other.

You console each other. So this is your your coping mechanism?
Yes. Instead of there, being there covering in your bed. Yeah. And you still think you started thinking what you can’t think.

Before Immaculate, how did you deal with sadness? What did you do when you were sad?
I guess, yeah, because I was going to church, it was the same time as in prayers, the groups

And so basically being a part of a community, that was the way…
Yeah yeah.

How did Corona and covid-19 affect your daily life? What happened?
Because we are not moving out just the indoors and now we have got pains in the legs because you can we don’t move. So, like before we are moving.

So why did you leave Uganda and I know you told me you’re gay, but, yeah, can you describe what happened? How did you come here? How was your journey like?
I came by plane. Before I was caught with in my husband caught up with my girlfriend because we are on the same village. So I used to go on her place and she used to come in my house, we are like that. So one day he was calling me, calling me because, you know, sometimes I’m there.

You live on the same street?
Yeah just nearby, 10 minutes walk. He came to me. You find that they are kissing. That’s making noise people they came, start beating, beating. I ran away. And I went somewhere, you know, hiding, because i couldn’t come back in my house. And I stayed there, stayed there. Later on, I went to my friend who was not nearby. I came then back to my friend and just decided you can’t be here. I’ve got my husband, I can’t keep you. So they will leach. Then he decided to say you can you can go outside Uganda. Then I came here. He made my way to come here.

She helped you get a visa?
Yeah.

And you claimed asylum when you came here?
No no it take time. Because they were scaring us that if you go there, they were deported back so… When you go in, they just get you and put you on the plane. I claimed in 2016.

Oh, wow. And then after 10 years of being here, more than 10 years. OK, and how did you feel when your husband caught you and your ex girlfriend?
I didn’t feel good. It was a shame. It didn’t feel good. And you can’t even go back in his house. He can even kill you.

So you hide, you hide?
Yeah you hide. I didn’t go back in the house, I just ran away.

Do you rethink everything that happened, do you think about it and now?
You recall, you think you think, oh, that day, look what happened.
 
Do you miss your children?
I do. I do.

Are they, like, old now?
Yeah, they are grown up. They’re grown up.
 
Do you have grandkids?
Yes.

You’ve never met them?
No.

How does it make you feel?
You don’t feel happy because you don’t see them.
 
You wish to see them?
Yeah I wish.  When we get our status and they, they can allow us to see them. But now we can go back home because of our situation. We can’t.
 
As refugees, we can’t go back home. Can you tell me, what was your dream when you were in Uganda? What did you dream of?
I didn’t know how to answer that.

Did you want to become anything like a teacher? What did you want to become?
Before I was caught?
 
Yeah. Yeah, before.
I can’t become a teacher, if I have been caught, I can’t become a teacher. It’s hard. You can’t you can’t think of anything.

So you didn’t have any dreams?
You have to fight for your life. I got to fight for your life.
 
You didn’t have a dream before you came here? You never thought, I want to be this, I want to be that I want to travel the world? Like, Immaculate said, said that her dream was to get out of Uganda.
Yeah to look for better life. True, yeah.

So you weren’t happy? You were you weren’t happy in your life? You wanted – your dream was to have a better life.
Yeah.

In Uganda?
No, outside. Yeah, outside Uganda.
 
OK, can you just say my dream was – my dream was to get a better life out of Uganda.
My dream was to get a better life of Uganda – out of Uganda.

OK, thank you. Um. And what kept you going, as I was asking Immaculate, what kept you going? What made you not harm yourself, not kill yourself? What was your strong point?
Oh, I was thinking what kept me going is I knew that if I get this direction i will get it, I would get over it.

So having hope of getting out of the Uganda.
Yeah it will be over.

So you were hopeful?
Yeah.

Are you still hopeful?
Yes. Yes, I am.

Are you more strong now?
More than I was before because these groups made us so strong. Joining the groups make us so strong.

Do you feel good talking about stuff like that in the group here?
Yeah yeah, yes.

Do you feel safe?
Yes. Yes.

And what is your dream now?
To get status, get status and be with my partner. We get a house, the same thing.

You have the same dream as Immaculate? Can you just say my dream, my dream is to get my refugee status, be with my girlfriend and have a house together.
My dream is to get my status and get the house with my girlfriend. A life with girlfriend and we’d be together.

Amazing. So, yeah, I mean, with all of these difficulties that you’ve been through, do you feel that you’re more grown now as a person, you’re more resilient, you’re more like strong and like hopeful for for the future?
Yeah, I’m strong and hopeful.

Were you strong like this in Uganda?
No, no, I was not.

You felt weak?
Mmm

OK, and I am done with the with the questions. Do you want to add anything?
Just say  to say that those people who do not like a gay people, they have to take us as we are. That’s how God made us. So they have to take us as we are.

And also, you were telling me that you can be Christian and gay? 
You can be you can be you can be a Christian and you can be gay. You can be

You can keep your faith separate.
Yeah.
 
And you still believe that God loves you the way you are?
Yeah, yeah. I believe believe it’s…

OK. Thank you so much Leticia.
You’re welcome, thank you too.