“On the 6th of October 2013, it was about 8 am when I woke up, I found myself in a cell at the central Police station number 1. It was in that moment that I went to the chief guardian lady who was on duty that day to ask what I was doing at the police station.

She let me know that the population of Messassi almost lynched us because they caught us in the act, my friend – named Thierry Ohandja – and I, making love right in the hub of Messassi. Surprised and shocked by this news, I told her straight away that it’s wrong, I do not recognize myself in what you tell me, which made me the star of the police station, this meant letting any stranger who came in the police station watch a man who gets fucked by another man, really the world is upside down and fucked up, and others that said, I deserve death, it’s a sorcerer, a devil, a dirty dog who deserves to be burned. The shame that had invaded me at that moment, I would have loved to die rather than suffer humiliations like this.

The next day, we were taken to the hospital for a medical examination. Arrived at the hospital, the doctor who did us the anal expertise hated us right away. She made me get on the table, naked, asking us to spread our feet apart and rummaged in my anus with both hands in the presence of 3 police officers and some doctors, starting to cry, she began to insult me by calling me all kinds of names, if shame killed, I would have died at that moment. And that is how we were transferred to the Kondengui central prison.

Arrived at Kondengui I touched death with my hands, I breathed it, I suffered all kinds of tortures and rejections. Other prisoners tried more than once to stab me in my sleep. The day I was tried in court of first instance, I nearly died of shame, all the court was after me, I never suffered as much in my life than as that time.

In summary, I had to hang out one evening with a childhood friend to loose everything, that is to say, my work, my rent and everything I put in it, my family, my friends, my greatest suffering is to be born gay because I’m the one who embodies the devil in my native Cameroon.”

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