I met Derrick in
an African Union pre-deployment training in Brazzaville, Congo in November 2018. I remember sitting
next to him and starring at him till the point he felt uncomfortable. I looked
at him and said “You are very attractive…”, he looked confused and probably thinking
to himself “is this girl flirting with me?”. I wasn’t flirting at all; I was
just stating the obvious. On the contrary, Derrick seemed as he never got that
kind of compliment before. So, as a weird and annoying person, I decided to
tell him almost every day how attractive he was. I don’t know why, I just felt
like it. I have this thing where I am either a very open person and I say the
first thing that comes to my mind or I am this serious person that you will
have no idea what is going on in my mind.
He was quiet, mysterious and easy going, I liked his energy. I decided to force myself
on him and try to be his friend. He didn’t seem to mind so we started talking. We
bonded over writing, he told me he likes to read and I remember when I first
told him I write, he asked me “do you write about transgender?”. That was so
weird! I was trying to figure out who was weirder. Funny enough, I do have a
short story about a transgender woman…Anyways, long story short – Derrick asked
for my books and told me he wanted to read them, I didn’t believe him because
most people ask for them and never read them but it makes me happy when people
at least show interest. He liked the book so much that he decided to review it,
so here it is:
Reviewed by
Derrick Oduck, Kenyan Journalist.
"...
Maybe the lives we live,
the conditions we experience,
the diseases we face…they only affect our bodies,
not our souls."
-Noélia Izata,2017
The Story Is About me highlights the life of Noélia volunteering
experience in Uganda. We get to understand her life story, through other people’s
characters. In her 3 weeks stay in Uganda, Noélia encounters
other volunteers’, people from different walks of life and parts of the world.
It awes her how people are different to her perspective in life but through it all,
she can relate her own life experience with them give the book more life making
it personal to the reader. She vividly tore her life to us in order for the
reader to have a deep understanding of how many people suffer through depression,
death, love, poverty and, forgiveness- that I can relate to-.
Noélia never comes to terms with the immense
poverty in Uganda and she could not understand the fact that not everyone in
this life is lucky enough to experience the good things in life as she did.
Though it was difficult for her to cope with the living conditions in Uganda, she
struggled to the very end. As a reader, I realized what she faced in her early
years affects her a great deal and to date, and still influences her choices and
decisions she makes in life. She judges and discerns everything around her.
Throughout
the story, Noélia never disappoints in bring out the
humour amid poverty and despair as you read the book. A light way to spark a
smile as your thoughts and heart are deeply immersed in the heart-breaking
poverty experiences affecting thousands of lives in a landlocked country in the
heart of Africa.
" They were so skinny,
their arms looked like chopsticks.
I thought about this guy I met here who
studied nutrition as a
degree and he looked like he had not eaten
for years..."
Noélia takes us through her many years
battle with depression... a fight she almost gave up.
"...one of the signs was a drastic change of hairstyle.
At first, I thought about cutting all off my hair
off, like a boy..."
"Depression is now tucked at a place in my head
where I never want
to visit again but I always find
myself going back there."
"if only she knew that I have been dealing
with depression for years... "
And how it almost led her to commit suicide. A situation
which even her parents, failed to notice despite all the signs and signals she
gave them concerning her battle with herself.
"I had already decided what I was going to do.
I opened the shiny brown drawer and I took the pills...
I tried to commit suicide. I think I
really committed it, I just didn’t die..."
The accuracy she remembers the events and
conversations of the people she interacted with is quite remarkable and unique.
Very few people in the planet possess such a gift.
" She was wearing the same exact clothes she
wore the first day I met her..."
Though she judged their way of life of the Ugandans harshly,
she vividly put across that poverty is not an inborn condition.
"... I can’t find anything positive in this village
tour.
Positive had another
meaning for them; the only positive thing in their lives was their HIV statuses... "
"... I can say that to live
in misery is a choice..."
It’s a situation that everyone can improve and be able to
live a better life. Eat good food... good hygiene… clean environment and
sufficient necessities of life that portrait a good perfect life.
"It doesn’t matter if you are poor or rich,
that state is a temporary passage in this
life..."
What challenges her is how the people in Uganda managed
to live in their poverty-stricken community and yet they were happy and shared
the little they had. Something she never comes to terms with, in all her 3
weeks of stay.
“Coming from a nation of bloodsuckers of the poorer, it is inspirational to see the ones who have
less,
freely giving more to other people... "
" I didn’t see poverty in their eyes, I saw hope
and gratitude…. "
Her experience in Uganda left an imprint in her that she
will always remember and amazingly she fell in love with Uganda and its people.
The different way of life taught her incredible lessons that only life can
give.
"I was going to miss them,
no matter what I have been writing about, there’s a part of me that felt home here..."
Noélia was damaged before. She struggled to let
go of her past painful experiences she went through.
" I was eighteen when it happened…. pleasure cannot replace the damage that he did to me... "
".. Today, he still rapes me emotionally and
mentally and I have prayed to God to let me forgive him... "
And it was here, in Uganda, that she found solace and be
able to find forgiveness in her heart.
“I thought I was going to waste my
time here and be forever miserable.
At some point I was but I know I will never be the
same..."
''…What I experienced,
what I learnt, what I felt, it is a part of this journey called life…And one day the pain will all fade away…”
In the end, THE STORY IS ABOUT ME is a story about
depression, a story about suicide, a story about death, a story about love and
above all, a story about forgiveness.
"... Kawooya Lawrence forgave the
person who contracted him HIV; Nakamnya Christin forgave God...
It finally hit me...this book is about forgiveness...That was my lesson!"
Noélia Izata was able to put all these amazing
thoughts and emotions evoking experiences, in just 162 pages.
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