Refugee LGBTI+s talk about their days: Thankfully My Day Went Well

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Kaos GL Refugee Rights Program aims to facilitate LGBTI+ refugees’ access to basic rights, official bodies and social networks in the cities where they reside, the program provides legal and social advice through lawyers and social workers working within the program. In addition to all this, the Refugee Rights Program organizes developmental and social events on various topics.

Throughout 2020, the program has met with LGBTI+ refugees who speak Farsi and Arabic. Some of these events were online drama workshops. Kaos GL Refugee Rights Program organized ‘Storytelling’, a sub-branch of drama, workshops with refugee LGBTI+’s on November 23, 25 and 27 led by theatre and performance artist Gökçe Yiğitel. Refugee LGBTI+’s from seven cities participated in the workshops and told their stories.

We share those stories with KaosGL.org readers by saying “Every day of us is valuable and worth telling”. We are here with the seventh story.

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Saturday, 15/11/2020. It was 9 am when I woke up on the morning of a Saturday. I opened my eyes, picked up my phone and checked my phone for half an hour.I got up at 9:30, washed my face, brushed my teeth, gave my cats water and cleaned their sand. My partner was asleep, always waking up after me. Then I put water for tea. I had a glass of warm water before breakfast and prepared the breakfast table. I eat breakfast very carefully to gain weight, and I always eat honey, butter, cheese, walnuts, cucumbers, tomatoes, peanut butter, molasses and tahini for breakfast. I didn’t clean the table after my breakfast, because my partner woke up, came to the breakfast table, and started eating. I put fresh tea to my partner. Then we sat down together and watched a 50-minute episode of the series called Aghazadeh. Then my partner went out to the balcony for a smoke. So I cleaned the table and the dishes. I checked my phone again for a while. My phone rang, it was a friend of mine. The friend said, “It’s my birthday, you’re invited to us tonight, I’m waiting for you” and we accepted. It was early afternoon. I made a kind of hashbrowns with a little mincemeat, potato and onions. Did the housework. We had lunch around 3 pm. My time was limited, I quickly went to buy a gift for my friend and came back to home with a wallet. Took a shower and started to prepare for my friend’s birthday. My partner went to the hairdresser’s to get a haircut. I was in the bathroom when they came in, then my partner took a shower too. Then I blow-dried their hair and my own. It was 7:00 by the time we got ready. We went to my friend’s house. We had a lot of fun there, we danced. We had a great time. There was chicken in the oven for dinner, and it was delicious. I did a knife dance and got 50 liras as tip – it’s a tradition, you dance with a knife in front of the birthday kid, and that person tips you in exchange for the knife. Everyone except me was drunk because I don’t like smoking and drinking, and I had to bear with the drunks at the time. We came home at 1:00 a.m. and went to sleep tired and thankfully my day went well.

Top 3 objects I use: perfume, vacuum cleaner, electric blanket

Action: washing, dishwashing, laundry…

Extension: fake eyelashes, bra, necklace

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