Friends are few in number and relatives live an ocean away, but since moving from his native country, Gambia, Buya Jammeh has gained something precious.
“This is the land of liberty,” Mr. Jammeh, 32, said. “Since I stepped my foot in the United States, I feel like I’m O.K., I’m a free man. I’ve regained the life I lost. I have nothing to fear in the U.S.”
Mr. Jammeh grew up in the north bank region of Gambia. After high school, he began a career in journalism. Gambia has a weak independent press, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists; Mr. Jammeh said he had been threatened many times, and beaten by the military police.
“I felt journalism is the right profession for me, so I could fight for the rights of people who might not have the opportunity to be where I am,” he said.
Mr. Jammeh worked for various news organizations, including The Independent, one of the most critical news outlets in Gambia, before it was shut down in 2006. In 2008, he took a job with Gambia Press Union. He said that the organization’s criticism of the Gambian president, Yahya Jammeh, and his administration came with harsh consequences. In 2009, several Gambia Press Union employees were arrested and jailed. Mr. Jammeh fled to safety in neighboring Senegal.
Once situated there, he helped start a campaign called the Coalition for Human Rights in Gambia, which had a radio project for Gambia, Radio Alternative Voice, based in Dakar. Mr. Jammeh worked there for four years and met the woman who would become his wife. They had a daughter there. But Mr. Jammeh lived in constant fear.
In 2013, he came to the United States to participate in a short program at the Institute of Comparative Human Rights at the University of Connecticut. He did not go home.
“I decided I had to stay because I can’t keep risking my life for something that is uncertain,” he said.
With help from the immigration department of Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New York, Mr. Jammeh was granted asylum in June.
Catholic Charities, one of the agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, is also helping Mr. Jammeh petition to bring his wife and 2-year-old daughter to the United States. He wants them to arrive before his child gets much older.
“In Africa, they still practice female genital mutilation,” Mr. Jammeh said. “I have a daughter. If she’s 4 or 5, she’s going through the same process, and I don’t want her to be subjected to that kind of process. It’s tradition. They don’t need to take permission from you as the father.”
Mr. Jammeh was granted asylum on June 20. He now lives in the Bronx and is hoping to bring his wife and daughter to the United States soon.
Mr. Jammeh shares an apartment in the Castle Hill neighborhood of the Bronx with three roommates, all from Gambia, and he works at Portabella, a men’s clothing store, earning $8 an hour. He sends as much money as he can to his wife and child, which leaves little for himself. So Catholic Charities drew $400 from the Neediest Cases Fund to buy him insulated winter boots, a winter coat and professional work attire.
“I don’t have a life,” Mr. Jammeh said. “Being in exile, it’s not an easy thing. These are the thing I have, watching the TV or enjoying my Facebook friends. That is my routine.”
He talks to his family on the phone as often as he can. “It depends on how much money I have to buy a calling card to call back home,” Mr. Jammeh said.
As fond as he is of his new homeland, Mr. Jammeh said he had seen plenty of injustice that should be exposed. He intends to one day return to journalism — a career he believes to be crucial to his character.
“Nobody’s perfect,” Mr. Jammeh said. “Even as I seem to be a gentleman, I seem to be a freedom fighter, doesn’t mean that I have no flaws in my personal character. That’s human life. People get angry. People go mad. But I feel by doing journalism, I am good. I’m as free as the flying eagle of the U.S.”
Source: TheNewYorktimes