“I can’t help but wonder what lies ahead.”
Suleiman was born into a large family and was sent to live with his grandmother in the countryside when he was only two. Her family was nomadic, never settling in any one place for too long, which meant that Suleiman didn’t go to school during that time.
My mother was the second of four wives and I the fourth of her nine children. We all lived in the capital city where my father held various jobs. When I was two years old, my parents thought it would be good for me to go and live with my grandmother in the countryside. Their rationale was that living in the countryside would expose me to new experiences and prepare me for the world. I don’t know if it’s possible for a two-year-old to have that level of awareness of their surroundings or the world they live in, but since I had no say, I went off to live with my grandmother. When I was five, I returned to the city to live with my parents and enrolled in madrassa at the end of 2001.
Meanwhile, my father was in the transport business. He owned a truck which he used to ferry goods across the country. The money he made was barely enough to support his large family. He was, after all, responsible for housing, utilities, healthcare, education, and everything else in between. The government at that time did not provide any type of social services. My mother, being mindful of the immense pressure her husband was under, decided to talk to him about starting her own business. With his financial support, she opened a store selling food stuffs and milk to the locals. This worked out very well and for a while, our family was thriving, that is until disaster hit; my father was robbed of his truck and lost his livelihood. He had to turn to his brother who lived in the UK who, to sustain us, would wire him a monthly remittance.
My mother’s business continued uninterrupted allowing us to keep our heads above water. Father then got this idea to venture into fishing and in 2002, moved to Hobyo, a coastal town. He started out small, with a few fishing boats, then grew the business steadily as his profits increased. As the business flourished, so did our family. Some of us children were able to go to school for the first time. Life was good again. At the beginning of 2006, just as he was basking in the success of his business, a storm hit the coast and my father lost most of his boats. He couldn’t secure a loan from the bank to replace the boats and his savings were not enough to buy new ones. He returned home a broken man, reaching out to his brother once again for help. I saw what the loss did to him, and I wished there was something I could do to lift his spirits. Mother kept on with her business. Father’s setback was but a bump in the road and she ensured that we had a roof over our heads and food on the table.
Around the same time, a loose network of Islamic courts known as the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) gained control of Mogadishu from a group of warlords who had been running the city. The skirmishes between the ICU and the locals turned the city into a dangerous place and mother was forced to close her store. We had to leave the area to find a safer place to stay. Without any source of income, we children dropped out of school. Towards the end of the year, the international community stepped in, sending military intervention to support the transitional Somali government. Government forces with the help of regional governments were able to defeat the ICU and take back control of most of the city. But the ICU was not completely gone and continued to fight into mid-2007. Staying in Mogadishu became untenable, and we moved into a camp on the city outskirts. We received some assistance from humanitarian organizations that were supporting internally displaced persons with food aid, basic healthcare, and some shelter. The support, however, was irregular and infrequent. Fortunately, my father landed a job as a driver for a private company and my mother started another grocery business in the market. Things looked up again, the children, me included, were back in school. Father’s job often took him to the city and one day as he was coming home, he got into an accident which left him badly injured. Unable to continue with work, mother once again took the helm keeping us afloat.
In the beginning of 2008, the remnants of ICU had regrouped and rebranded into Al Shabaab, targeting government premises, officials, affiliates, and any individuals associated with the government in any way. As it turned out, the company my father worked for was a private contractor who provided services to the government, so my father, concerned about his safety, resigned from his job. Once he recovered from his injuries, he stood for election as camp leader and won. He supervised the distribution of aid to the camp residents, receiving a small stipend for his role. Things with Al Shabaab continued to escalate. They started recruiting young men into their ranks while also targeting aid organizations and foreign NGOs. Because he worked for the aid agencies, my father worried about his sons’ and his security and started making plans to move us to Kenya. He sought financial assistance from his relatives, sold anything we couldn’t carry with us, including my mother’s business assets, and in March 2008, sent his first three wives and their children to Dadaab. Whatever he paid for our transportation was not enough to get us to Dadaab, so for two weeks, we were stranded in Dhobley along the Kenya-Somali border. We lived with the locals who were friendly and generous as we waited for father to send assistance.
In the camp, life was a mixed bag; education and healthcare were free. We were allocated a small residential plot and received food rations twice a month. We enrolled in the camp schools but struggled with the language. The main languages of instruction and communication were English and Kiswahili. Unable to fully integrate because of the language barrier, we dropped out of school in the second year. During our time in Dadaab, we didn’t hear from father nor did we get any financial assistance from him. To support us, mother got a job working as a salesperson in a store. We later learned that in May 2009, father had fled to Kakuma with the rest of the family so in August 2009, we too moved to Kakuma to join him. Father had a hard time securing a job in the camp because he faced the same predicament as we did in school—not being able to speak the local languages. Nor could he find work outside the camp because of restrictions that prevented our movement outside the camp. So again, mother stepped up.
She secured a $300 loan from a relative and opened up yet another shop selling foodstuffs. With great effort, we got back into school and in November 2014, I did well enough in the primary national exams to secure a place in secondary school. In the middle of my success, father fell ill, having to travel to Nairobi for treatment. He was diagnosed with septicaemia which later became systemic and in May 2016, he died. As a family, we didn’t have a chance to attend his funeral in Nairobi, again because of movement restrictions. My father’s first wife who had been with him during his treatment and subsequent death was the only one who got the chance to say goodbye. Losing him has left an emptiness that is difficult to fill. His medical bill of $2,500 was paid off with the help of relatives. Mother too fell ill, struggling with her illness for much of 2017 and spending $700 on treatment. Her business slowed significantly during her illness, but after she recovered, she was able to resuscitate it with financial support from her close relatives.
Despite these setbacks in my family, I focused on my studies, graduating in November of 2018 as the best student in the camp and the region. I applied for a scholarship program through the World University Service of Canada (WUSC) which supports refugee students with educational opportunities in Canada. I was thrilled when I was notified that my application was successful. I would be joining university in September 2020. Right out of secondary school myself, I got a job with an international organization working as a secondary school teacher earning $70 a month. By then I had a bank account and would receive my salary through direct deposit. I never used mobile money (M-PESA) services. Due to my refugee status, I was ineligible. My refugee documents, which were the only forms of identification I had, did not meet the application requirements. I used most of my salary to support my family. My teaching job lasted six months, from January to July 2019 and at the end of my contract, I started offering private tuition classes for secondary school students. I taught math, biology, and chemistry earning about $100 a month.
At the start of 2020 I was counting the days until September. But our best laid plans were upended by unexpected events: the COVID-19 pandemic turned everything on its head. The trip to Canada was aborted with no news of when we would be able to go. The tuition job also dried up as did my mother’s business. With movement restrictions and reduced income, she’s has seen fewer and fewer customers with each new day. We now rely on the 500 KES monthly food voucher which all camp residents receive.
So, for now, we wait. We lean on each other for support as we always have, looking forward to each day, hoping that each new sunrise brings with it better news and that our fortunes will improve. We have lost so much as a family, and I can’t help but wonder what lies ahead. I know going to Canada will change things, that education will open so many doors for me and for my family. My mother has sacrificed so much of herself to do what she can for her children, and without her, we wouldn’t have made it.