“For a long time, we would dig holes and bury the money inside.”
Droughts, inflation, looting, and violence in Somalia forced Ali’s mother’s tea stall and his father’s shop into bankruptcy. They fled to Kakuma where his parents hoped that their six kids could continue school there. Ali doesn’t see the camp as an opportunity though. He says, “Honestly, the camp is a small hell, and there is no end in sight.”
The camp was such a huge change from the idyllic childhood I remember. My father had a small shop down the street from our house. Selling food and clothing, he brought home about $500 per month, which paid for all of our needs: rent, school fees, and healthcare. My mom ran a small tea shop to supplement dad’s income. But by 2011, things were falling apart at home. Completely broke, my parents took us to Kakuma. For the first year, we depended 100% on the UN. After about a year, my mother managed to start a small business buying and selling people’s unused UN rations. But it was tough going. Not many people had extra rations to spare, and lots of people were trying to earn a living just like my mom. But it helped to have a little cash for things like soap and shampoo, which weren’t provided by the UN.
In the camp, it was hard for my dad to start a business. He was used to running shops, but to do that he needed a lot of capital, something we definitely did not have. He got the idea to serve as a sort of facilitator and advisor to a large number of shops. He helped them link to and manage suppliers, which improved shop sales. From this, he was able to create a salary for himself of about $200 per month. He saved as much as he could, so he could start his own shop, attached to our house, after about a year.
By then, we had adjusted to some of the unique financial arrangements in Kenya. It took me awhile to get used to the denominations of currency. It was hard to keep track of what the money meant. A 10-shilling coin is so small, but it’s not useless! I had to learn. And then there was M-PESA—a popular mobile money service in Kenya and other African countries—this “soft money” system. We just couldn’t imagine paying for things if it wasn’t done using physical cash. And there were so many ways you could get the M-PESA transaction wrong. The whole thing was so strange and scary.
We had never used a bank before, either. For a long time, we would dig holes and bury the money inside. Then we found out people in Kakuma often left their savings with a shopkeeper, and we could not believe this. Can you imagine, just trusting your wealth to another person? People do!
Once my father’s shop was going, things got better. But in late 2014, gunmen broke into our home and ordered us all to lie on the ground. My father screamed, and they stabbed him in the belly. He fell to the floor moaning, while they looted his shop completely, ordered my mother to hand over her savings, and then raped two of my sisters, right in front of us. My mother pleaded with them to stop, to just take what they wanted, but to leave the girls alone. I will never forget my sisters’ cries. They left with all of our things, all of our money, and my sisters’ lives as they knew them.
They survived, but are still in therapy. It wasn’t just the rape they had to endure. People immediately blamed the girls for what happened, even when they were still in the hospital with my father recovering. After this horrible incident, UN officials came, promising to start the process of resettlement, so we could be safe. It took three years, but we were approved to go to the USA in 2017. But before we left, we were told that America has banned immigrants from Somalia from entering the country. Once one country has approved you for resettlement, no other country can take you again. So that’s it. We are stuck in this tiny hell.
We had no choice but to try and make a living again. Some refugees in our same clan raised money to help my father reopen his shop. I finished secondary school and spent a year working as a private tutor. I’d work from about 4:00–6:00 pm and was able to earn about $60 per month. It was one of the best jobs around, if you ask me. But I also wanted more. My friends and I hired some other young people to take our tutoring jobs, but for $40 per month, while we are trying to set up a distribution center to help local businesses source their goods from around Kenya. At the moment, each of us is getting about $300 per month from the business, and it’s still growing.
It’s better financially, but it’s not as good as when I was young. And our memory of the violence and hatred we’ve seen in this place will be with us forever, in this little hell, which continues to be our home.