Paul Peter Job Joshua (PPJJ)
17 years old
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Biography collected and written by Angela Azibera

Paul PJ Joshua (PPJJ) is a young Congolese boy currently living in the Dzaleka refugee camp after his family fled insecurities in their home country DRC. He is 17 years old and was born on 5th December 2005. Currently he is a student pursuing his secondary education at Dzaleka Community Day Secondary School.

PPJJ started writing in the year 2019 after being inspired by his closet friend Espoir Kahitani who is also a writer. Every time he would see him write or perform, he got motivated to try. Now he is a writer. He loves poetry because it is something that enables him to express his feelings and different experiences freely.

His poem “Black Out”, he wrote using the analogy of comparing a blackout with people’s ways of living where they seem to be dark in their mindsets, failing to meditate on things before doing them.

To everyone reading the book and website, he would like to tell them that PPJJ is aspiring to become a big writer and spread his writing talent worldwide, so help and support him.

BLACK OUT

When there is a blackout in the camp
Silence is the first word to be read
When there is a blackout in the camp
All the bulbs are dim
There is a mixture of silence and darkness
Giving us an unknown quietness

So I am standing not in the past
Nor in the future
But in the present
At this moment I am not a Christian
For I neither hold a cross in my hands
Nor a crescent
I am in the middle
I am at the crossroads
I mean I have no position

I am a man having a dark mind
I am possessing a blackout in my medulla
When you call me on a phone
And ask me this question
“Where are you?”
I will tell you
The place where I am standing
Cannot be found on Google maps
Nor in the location

Listen
Life is not a gambling game
Where you’ll use cards and coins to play
Life is in the form of a multiple choice question, so you choose now
You choose which adjective should describe your future

Remember
That the present is just the preparation of the future
So you’ll have nothing in the future
If you didn’t fight for it in the present
Life is not an inheritance
So I cannot call a person with only inherited property
A man

Life is a battle
And your present is the fighting ring
So you choose to lose or win
Your destination is built by your present effort

I wonder why we are good at describing the blackouts in our homes
But we fail to fight against the blackouts
Stuck in our mindsets
We fail to describe our positions in present life
And we are dreaming of a prosperous future
Always remember to live like a soldier
And mark this in your thinking center and memory capacity
“A soldier is never off work”