THE LONG WALK HOME

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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