I am very sorry I could not reply your letter of last April (over eight months now) due to unforeseen circumstances which I am currently addressing.

However, considering the fact that I have yet to settle down here after a year and three months, I thought you would have written again to keep me abreast of the situation at home.

Since I sought asylum here last year, many factors have surrounded my well-being. The facts and figures I have filtered in this letter sent to you far away there in Africa.

I live in the north inner city of Dublin. Life here is not easy at all. To be honest to you, I am managing to survive. As an asylum-seeker, I am not permitted to work. I have no right to Government-funded education and training. And I am not allowed to travel outside the country until my application for asylum is granted and I am given permission to reside in the State.

As a result of all these constraints, I have been forced to depend on Government social welfare for livelihood.

The weather has not been friendly to me either. To say that the climatic conditions here are unpredictable and horrible for me may be a story retold. It is always freezing and in order to keep fit, I have been forced to dress, now and then, in warm-to-heavy clothes whether in or outdoors.

There are no dry and wet seasons which I am used to back home but summer and winter/summer is a period of warm temperature while the opposite - winter is the cold season - freezing with frost. Believe it, I find it difficult to distinguish between the two. I feel cold and very cold all seasons. It is hard to acclimatise. Rain, though always mild, falls all year round.

The above conditions have also affected my sleeping periods. Could you believe that, sometimes, I do sleep over 10 hours in a day. These days, I also sleep in the afternoons - something I detest. At times, I do not sleep for days due to constant outburst of my sorrows, unless I receive medical support.

Anyway, I wake up anytime in the morning with little or no plan. I am confronted, sometime, with the stark realities of my situation as an asylum-seeker. I think of myself and my future - bleak! I always wonder. This time often coincides with my opposite door neighbour (also an asylum-seeker) putting on his "praise and worship" music tape. This would gradually soothe my nerves.

The absence of that or lack of someone to chat with always results in my being distressed. I would, depending on my state of mind, manage to eat breakfast before leaving for voluntary work.

There is no gain saying that at one time, I worked as a volunteer in three different non-governmental organisations at different times of the day and week. I have constantly used this routine to check boredom.

In one of the organisations, I helped in English conversation training for asylum-seekers who experience difficulty in using the language. I also do various work in the other groups. This ranges from photocopying and newspaper cuttings to sourcing and updating information on human rights abuses in my country.

These days, difficult to believe, I do shopping for foodstuffs and also cook my own food - African food regularly whenever I am in a proper frame of mind. A few months ago I cooked for multicultural food fare. Those who ate the local dish which I prepared have, to date, continued to make reference to it.

I doubt my present cooking skills - how come, you may ask. I remember depending on restaurants and helpers including members of my family to cook and serve food for me to eat. They also did most of my domestic work for me. I now acknowledge as a true fact: it is difficult for a right-handed man to learn how to use his left hand at old age. It is a hard lesson for me.

In contrast with the practice at home - it may not have changed now - here big shops sell goods at very cheap prices while small shops are expensive to buy things.

I find it interesting to go shopping here. Amidst that quest is a terrible attitude of some shop employees. In some shops, it appears that security men have singled blacks out for constant surveillance whenever we enter such shops.

Recently, I was suspected to be a shoplifter. On that day, I entered a shop in O'Connell Street (the heart of the city centre), picked a can of drink and was heading for a packet of biscuit when a front-shop security man sent a radio message: "Watch that black," he told his colleague right inside the shop.

That greatly alarmed me. I looked round inside the shop but there was no other black - male or female - around. I could not understand why I became a suspect wanting to patronise them. However, I quickly dropped the drink and left the shop in annoyance.

LIFE here, especially in the evening, is that of cinema, theatre, eating out, drinking and late night clubbing culture. These places, especially the pub-bar, is the most important meeting place. This does not mean that I am enjoying myself here - does a man whose house is on fire pursue rat? You know how I hate people getting drunk and all that vomiting associated with it.

Last time, I tried to socialise with Irish people, hoping that it would fasten my future integration into the society whenever I am granted permission to reside in the State, but was told that I am an outcast, being black.

It was on a Sunday afternoon when I ordered a pint of Guinness in a pub in Dorset Street but was not served. The barman told me that I was not "a regular" to merit drinking with Irish men and women in the pub (and all the empty seats there were all exclusive for the regulars). However, he said he could "help" me "by selling a can to take away".

I also find it difficult to go to cinema and theatre for entertainment. This is to save myself from such embarrassment as mentioned above. These days I prefer getting glued to TV and radio sets especially, to watch and listen to news.

On the streets of Dublin and in buses, too, I have continued to experience racism in the form of verbal abuses and unpleasant staring. I have also been assaulted several times. Imagine people calling me "motherfucker, dogs" or saying to me: "no blacks . . . no dogs, blacks go home . . . go back to your jungle".

It pains me a lot also whenever I am referred to as a "scrounger". Many people do not think of one fleeing from persecution as anything but a ne'er-do-well. Again, any day that I dress well, people complain and ask me how I am getting the money to buy clothes. Looking tattered, they also complain (nagging is the best word) and regard me as an impoverished man from Africa.

I have been forced not to ever put on regularly the few old clothes I managed to arrive in Ireland with. This is why I am not able to send you a photograph of me as you requested - you may not recognise me in pictures anyway.

You can now see the reason for my self-segregation from the Irish public. I consider my life here as a smack to my right-to-live. At times, I think it would have been better if I were dead than to live this miserable life. I cannot think of any solution to my problems.

What is the essence of life? I am not welcomed in my native country. I am not welcomed here, either - but why?

I have to let you go before my situation weighs you down.

The name of the author has been withheld, at his request, because of his fear that any publicity could damage his application for asylum.