My name is Suleiman Abdi Hassan. I might look older to you
but I was born only twenty years ago in a small east African country called Somalia .
Everybody talks of how bad it is over there. They say the country is in a state
of anarchy. Anyway, we used to live in a small city called Kismayu. My family
was not rich or anything, all I remember my father was able to provide for us.
He used to own several herds of cattle and some goats. We even had a school we
used to go to. This is my story.
It all started when I was five years old. We went to bed at
nine as usual. In the middle of the night we were woken up by loud noises and
screaming coming from my parents hut which they used as bedroom. We had three
huts, a kitchen that also housed the goats, my parent’s bedroom and ours. I
shared the bedroom with my older sister Aisha and my brother Oman , he was
the oldest. The screaming that came from my parent’s bedroom was so frightening
that I jumped out of the bed I used to share with my brother into a huge basket
that my mother used as storage for grains. It was empty by then. After a little
while a group of people shouting came towards our hut, they knocked the door
open. I could hear my siblings screaming but I stayed calm and quiet inside the
basket I was in shock. What followed was a dead silence after the group escaped
into the bushes. After probably an hour and half, I don’t remember exactly, I
crawled into the bed in the darkness trying not to make any noise least the
group came back. I could feel the bed was wet but then nothing was unusual I
used to wet the bed anyway. I might have wet it before I was woken up by the
screams. I could also feel my brother lying in the bed but I was to too afraid
to say anything. I did not sleep that night. I woke earlier than usual and went
under our tree, we had gourds lined up as cooking pots. My sister and I used to
play under this tree on weekends, it was Saturday. This time my sister did not
join me as she always did. I could see my clothes were stained red but I was
not hurting anywhere, it was weird. I went back to the hut after two hours. I
was hoping to find breakfast ready as my mother always did.
There was a crowd of people around our hut and as I got
closer I saw some people laying on the ground covered with blankets they were
not moving. One of them had a leso
that was my moms’ favorite she had won it the previous night. Our neighbor who
lived close to our home approached me and held me tight. She had never done
that before. She took me to the back of our hut and told me to stay there. She
came back with some clothes for me to change. She took me to her home and said
that I will be staying with her for a while. She had a girl that went to the
same class that I did. Her name was Foxa.
After two days, my neighbor said that I should resume classes as they
figured out what to do next. I did not understand what that meant. I never said
much I was always the quiet one. Everyday I would walk to our hut hoping to see
my family. There was nobody there.
One day while walking home from school, Foxa told me that
she heard her parents say that my family had been killed and that I was lucky
to be alive. One day my neighbor said that we will no longer go to school as it
was getting worse out there. She never explained. I did not know what was going
on but I remember my father was so proud and always reminded us that we were
from the Gabra tribe. I was too afraid that the same people that killed my
family were going to come back and kill us. One day after having lunch I
decided to escape. I took a path that led into the plains. Our school was on
the other side. I walked all day eating berries on the way. I never came across
anybody. It was a less travelled path. The darkness came and I spent the night
on top of a tree. I could hear animals sounds below the tree and I would firm
my grip. In the morning I did not see any animal around so I continued with my
journey. Berries became my food along the way. The plains were huge I could
only see the horizon. That night I climbed up a tree when darkness came. I was
woken up but loud moaning sounds. We read about the moaning of a lion at
school. They were several of them and the moaning was very frightening that I ‘peed’
my pants. I feared that I would loose my grip and fall down and the lions would
feast on me. They were very strong and shook the tree as they tried to climb up
but the tree was too slippery for them. I did not sleep that night either. In
the wee hours of the morning, I was overwhelmed by sleep. I woke up after sunrise.
There was no lion in sight, I must have been dreaming. There was tall grass
below the tree most had been flattened.
There was no building in sight or anybody. That evening before sunset I
saw some white tents in the horizon they had two letters written on them UN in
black. They were so many lined up across the field. They called the place
Daa-dab camp. I walked towards them. When I got there an elder man held came
towards me and held my hand. He took me to a tent that looked like my head
teacher’s office inside they had stacks of papers arranged neatly on the desk.
They asked for my name. I told them my name is Suleiman Abdi Hassan drawing on
the ground with my toes I was bare foot. I was always shy. They called one of
the women in a tent adjacent to the office. They told her to take care of me.
She took me to her tent and gave some food I was hungry. She had a boy a little
older than I was, his name was Ali. After about a week a group of people came.
They said they wanted to take all the kids to the city to study, Ali and I was
not left either. They took us to a school in the city they called the academy.
I had never seen anything like it. The buildings were made of stone including
the academy. They called the city Nairobi .
Our class teacher was so nice to us her name was Mrs. Moraa. I would feel proud
of myself when she called out my name during roll call. Days turned into weeks,
weeks into months and eventually we were told we had to move into a new class
after we had an exam. Mrs. Moraa was still our class teacher. Every year we
would move to a different class.
One morning, Mrs. Moraa came into class and said that she
had some very good news for us. She said that some sponsors wanted each and
every one of us to submit an essay of anything we wanted to write about as long
as it was “good quality material”. She said that the best three essays would
get a scholarship overseas. I didn’t know what overseas meant but Mrs. Moraa
said it would be life changing. She said that the essay would be timed for one
hour after which she would collect them as she always did during exams. She
said that we would write the essay the following day and we should take that
day to think about what to write. The following day she came to class with a
stack of writing paper for us to use for our essays. She gave each one of us two
sheets of paper to write on. I wanted to make Mrs. Moraa proud of me but I
didn’t have anything to write about. I decided to write about my own personal
story. Every now and then Mrs. Moraa would walk around the classroom to see how
we were doing on our essays. That made me nervous. After an hour she took the
essays from us and told us that it would take two days for her to mark them. On
the third day early in the morning Mrs. Moraa came to class holding a stack of
what she said was our essays and that she had the best three essays already in
her hands. My heart felt like it would explode as she called out the name of
the third best essay working her way up to the best. It wasn’t my name. The
second best essay wasn’t mine either. As she called the best essay I felt like
I would pass out, I remember hearing my last name Hassan no one else had that
name in that class. I jumped from my seat and run towards Mrs. Moraa. I hugged
my class teacher that day. I was overwhelmed. She took photographs of the top
three students for what she called “legal documentation”. What followed is the
most memorable part of my life.
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