I am Adolphine Misekabu, the daughter of Nkudimba Mpidewu. I come from the Katanga (Shaba) Province in the south-eastern part of what was then known as Zaire.

I had to flee my homeland in 1996 when I was twenty two, during the reign of Mobutu Sese Seko, just before the start of the civil war in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

I want to tell the story of my journey through Africa to Cape Town with my sixteen month old baby, and the hardships I experienced from the time that I lost almost my entire family. Even before that period, I needed to express my experiences of when I was a young girl in the care of my mother and my father. My father was a wonderful man, an educated man, a respected community leader and a gifted artist.

About five years ago, after having lived in Cape Town as a refugee for eight years, I saw an artwork in a shop in Long Street, Cape Town. I couldn't believe my eyes. The sketch was of an old man with white hair, in rags, smoking a pipe. I recognised it as my father's work even before I saw the signature “NM”. I was shocked; I stood there shedding tears.

I asked the shop owner: “Where did you buy this?” He asked, “why do you want to know?” He became very rude. He cut me off and there was nothing left to do, but to leave the shop.

At home that evening my husband asked me why I didn't insist on knowing. I told him I couldn’t; my heart was too full. I passed by the shop again another day, but the drawing was gone.

I have been swallowing all of my memories for so long, thinking, where do I begin? Who is going to listen and understand? To voice out my life gives me relief.

I want people to know what refugees suffer – especially through xenophobia. I have known this scourge from the time that I went to school in Zambia as a child. My family and I knew it when Mobutu Sese Seko targeted the Kasai people. I felt as if the earth had teeth; I felt its bite when I was fleeing through Africa after my husband disappeared.