Barthelemy is a Burundian refugee who now works with Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Nduta refugee camp, in northwestern Tanzania. MSF is the sole health care provider for 75,000 people living in Nduta. For Barthelemy, this work is deeply personal. We are sharing his story of survival to mark World Refugee Day. “Please, don’t judge us because we are refugees,” he writes. “We are not wicked nor evil, we are humans just like you, living and feeling, with fears and dreams.” His new life in Tanzania began in 2015, when he crossed the border by bicycle to flee the violence erupting in his country.
When I think of my hometown in Burundi, I remember warm days, cycling on the sunburned tarmac by the golden shore of Lake Tanganyika, where hippos peek from the surface and children play in the water at sunset. I remember the bright-colored garments of friends gathering by the blue-and-white church and the echo of the pastor’s voice from the sunlit pulpit. I remember the day I graduated from university: my girlfriend's proud face and the creases in her cheeks. I remember I was happy.