Ubah Jama Narrator

Ahmed Ismail Yusuf Interviewer

May 6, 2014 ,

Ubah Jama -UJ Ahmed Ismail Yusuf -AY

AY: Okay. We’re going to start it over. We are in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is May 6, 2014. I am Ahmed Ismail Yusuf, recording for the Minnesota Historical Society Somali Oral History Project. Here with me is Ubah Jama, widow of the late Hussein Samatar, who just passed away eight months ago, of whom his biography will be at the end of the recording. Ubah, thanks for agreeing to the interview, and welcome to the interview as well as my house.

UJ: Thank you, thank you. Thank you very much for inviting me. It’s a pleasure to be with you today. It’s a long day—work and kids and hospital, and then right in your house.

AY: [chuckles] Well, I know you are making me feel guilty now, because you just woke up early in the morning, you’re just herding your kids around—mother and father—and it’s about five o’clock now. And, yes, I can understand that.

UJ: Yep. Play those roles, yeah.

AY: Yes, actually we are not going to be able to avoid it, so when were you born and where were you born? [both laugh]

UJ: Where I was born. You know, I was born in —, the capital city of Somalia. The hospital I was born in is called Martini, and I was born 1971, April tenth. That’s the real age.

AY: [chuckles] You didn’t fake yours, huh.

UJ: Yeah, it’s not under the tree, or it’s not a fake to come to the United States. I was born April 10, 1971. We were in Somalia, in Mogadishu, the capital city of Mogadishu. I’m a city girl. That’s why I live in South Minneapolis.

AY: Yeah. Not far away from downtown.

UJ: Yeah. I have to see the high buildings.

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AY: Okay. So how many brothers and sisters?

UJ: Actually, my family is kind of unique. We are four sisters with no brother in first my mom, but my stepmom has also four girls and one boy finally came.

AY: Wow, one boy.

UJ: Yeah. My dad was well known in his community and his family. But as you know, in our culture, boys are very important. And the name, carrying the name, although my—

AY: Yeah, the name of the family.

UJ: The name of the family. Because we, as women, we get married, and we carry the name, but we don’t have kids that has our own last names. So eight girls and one boy. Whoo!

AY: [chuckles] So where are they all now?

UJ: It’s amazing. I’m the oldest, and, of course, I’m here in the United States. My second sister lives in Canada. My third one lives in Sweden. The fourth lives in Canada. The other four and my brother, half brother—they call half brothers in America, but we don’t know half brothers, we’re just brothers and sisters—they live in Somalia. Actually, two of them, the two oldest ones—one is eighteen. Can you believe my oldest one is eighteen? And my half sister is eighteen year old and seventeen. I was having kids when my dad was having kids. So they live in Turkey now.

AY: What is it? The oldest of the stepmom…

UJ: Is eighteen years old. And my son is eighteen years old. They are one month apart.

AY: Go figure.

UJ: Go figure it out. But my two other stepsisters live in Turkey to get educations, because they finished high school in Somalia. So the rest of the three and my stepmom, they live in Somalia. My dad passed away in 2007. He was killed, assassinated—his own people.

AY: In Mogadishu?

UJ: In Somalia. No, in the northern part. That’s where my family originated from.

AY: In [Gaalkacyo]?

UJ: Galkayo. My family originated from Galkayo. So my dad came to Somalia and my mom came to Mogadishu, southern part, when they were teenagers, and we were born there.

AY: When Somalia was Somalia.

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UJ: When Somalia was Somalia.

AY: So wherever you go, any city you go, it was just yours.

UJ: Yeah. Now I haven’t been in Somalia, actually, my hometown, which is Mogadishu, for the last twenty-three years old.

AY: Where in Mogadishu?

UJ: I lived in Baar Ubax. They call Howlwadaag, Baar Ubax. Laanta Xaawo Taako [monument to Xaawo Taako (Hawo Tako)]. There is a small laanta [area of the city]—what do you call Laanta Xaawo Taako? It’s a bunch of…

AY: It’s a bunch of—yes, yes, in that area.

UJ: That area. So I was born in Hodan, but I was raised in Baar Ubax.

AY: You know, the funny thing is every person that I almost interview has something to do with Hodan.

UJ: Hodan, yeah, yeah. That’s where the city—Waaberi and Hodan was the biggest areas…

AY: Middle class areas.

UJ: Middle class area.

AY: Particularly the northern part. No—I mean people who came from the north.

UJ: But now, after when I was born, people were moving to suburbs. So Baar Ubax was suburbs. New homes, new buildings, new street, new neighbor, you know. If you have money to buy lakers, you can buy lakers and live there.

AY: Lakes.

UJ: Yeah.

AY: So just tell me, what do you remember about growing up in Mogadishu?

UJ: You know, it’s amazing. I told my kids all the time, it’s exactly in the United States. My dad and my mom—my dad, especially, was well educated in religion side and Westernized education. What do you call Westernized?

AY: Western education.

UJ: Western education, that’s what you call it. So my dad makes sure that we have educations, although we were girls. My dad never believed that girls don’t go to school. Education was

3 number one priority for our family. My mom, she is from nomad, but she went to seeraale, what’s called high school, like adult GED [General Education Development] class. But she was always part of the religion side. She always learns religion more than her own culture, language, or all that. My dad was an engineer. He was a teacher-engineer.

AY: What kind of engineer? Do you know?

UJ: He builds homes.

AY: Civil engineer?

UJ: Civil engineer. He builds homes, apartments, and sells later on. That was his business. So he was also a very bright man. He knows how to be a business without connecting in the government. He was well known to our old president, well known in our community. My dad was an engineer, my uncle was a banker. So, they always want him to, “Oh, come and work for us, come and work for us.” But for the politician side, my dad was always, “I’d rather do it by my own business. I have nothing to do with politicians, clients, all that.” So he always tried to stay away from them.

So we went to Somali school, which is public school, since we were in fifth grade. I was in fifth grade. Then Egyptian private school, which is Sheekh Suufi, they call Sheekh Suufi. The high school and elementary was called Sheekh Suufi. So, we started fifth grade until they called i‘dadi to thanawi [intermediate to secondary school]. Fifth grade, which is middle to high school, we went to a private school which is Arabic. And the teachers were from Egypt, so Egyptian language, which is from Cairo—Arabic. My dad took us every morning. We were three of us— our fourth sister was young, she was seven when the civil war started—so three of us. I was fifth grade. No—I was seventh grade, fifth grade, and they were like six years apart—nine month apart, so they were together. So three of us, we always—beep, beep, the car is ready. He waits for us, my dad. We are ready, we will put uniform, we get in the car. While we were driving in the car, he asked us multiplications. “What’s this and this, and what’s that, and what’s one by one?” And then he asks us in Arabic, because he’s fluent in Arabic, German, Italian, and Somali.

AY: How many languages? Five?

UJ: German, Arabic, Italian, and English, and of course Somali. Five. Arabic, it was his own home language, so he will ask us biology, math, chemistry, physics in Arabic while we are driving to go to school. He drops us off, makes sure that we are in the classroom.

AY: So was it he was making it as though you were playing a game?

UJ: What kind of game?

AY: I mean, meaning, just to entice you.

UJ: No, no. We were not playing a game. He was asking us what we learned yesterday.

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AY: I mean, he was just making it—to entice you. Meaning, just to make it interesting.

UJ: Interest in education? Oh yeah, yeah. So he was like he wants to make fun, and then he drives. Usually my dad, he talks to us and he sings. “And what kind of sound cow makes?” “Moo, moo.” “What’s ari [goats], you know, goats make?” “Maa, maa.” “Ariyoow, what’s ariyoow?” “Wad maashaq mashaq maashaq.” You know, the way the goats eat the grass. So he always made fun of it, but always education. So he drops us off right in front of the school, makes sure we get in. He says hi to the teachers, and talks to them in Arabic, fluently, and then he leaves. At the end of the day when the bell rings, he is standing right there, either my uncle or the chauffer or my mom. Someone is there. We never ride the city bus. We never walked home, because our home was not close to where the school is. It was downtown Mogadishu. It was Sayidka [statue of Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan].

AY: Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan [Sayid Maxamed Cabdalle Xasan].

UJ: Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, but behind that. Jamal Abdel Nasser and Sheekh Suufi.

AY: Yeah, we lived there.

UJ: Oh, we lived there. Nice.

AY: We used to live there. Yes, just right behind the Radio Mogadishu.

UJ: Oh, Radio Mogadishu. So Sheekh Suufi was behind Sayidka, and then the biggest mosque [Majidka Isbaahaysiga] is the other side, I think. Jamal Abdel Nasser and Sheekh Suufi were like over there, right there. So we can’t walk.

AY: When you descend from the hill, yes. At the end of the hill.

UJ: We can’t walk home, so the only reason we have is I always wanted—this is when I was growing up—I always want—as a group of neighbors, they rent caasi [mini-bus], which is a small city bus, small busses. And then they all chit-chat, and that’s how you meet boys and that’s how girls meet girls and friends. Nope. The car is right there in the front of the building.

AY: You had no ability to talk to anybody.

UJ: No ability. So when I tell my kids, I am like, “Guess what? I am dropping you off and taking you to school and picking you up. This is what exactly how I was raised.” And they don’t believe that, because what they have in their back mind and what they hear from Africa is a different ballgame. So that was my background of growing up in Mogadishu.

AY: So did you think that exactly that you were pampered, meaning that exactly you were privileged?

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UJ: Yeah. I was privileged, because my mom, she was home all the time, because dad was breadwinner.

AY: So Mom was just a homemaker.

UJ: Mom stayed home. She never cooked. We have aunts and maids and everybody. She never cooked. [chuckles] She never cooked. So I was privileged.

AY: You didn’t ride public transportation.

UJ: No.

AY: You did not walk.

UJ: No.

AY: You did not cook.

UJ: No.

AY: What about dating?

UJ: Dating? No. Until I was form four. Until I was—what do you call—high school. My last year of graduation—that’s another story. I didn’t graduate from Somalia. So I was form four, which is, you know, grade twelve. Grade twelve, in Somalia, I never… Because my neighbors, they were like my friends, my neighbors were different. Every family has their own class, but my mom always says, “You play outside.” She checks on us, it’s like a playground. She checks on us, “Are you guys okay?” Then we come home. She makes sure that we don’t play with boys. She makes sure that we don’t, like, no men around when the girls and kids are playing. So it’s exactly typical in the United States. But she was not afraid of us that we were not safe. She was afraid of us that we do some silly stuff. Because girls, when mom has only girls, she’s being watched differently, how she raises her girls. I never understood my mom, why she would not allow us to play with friends. You know, we play with friends, but not as far.

AY: So do you think that she was over-protective or she was…

UJ: Over-protective. Over-protective in a way, not like in American way that, “Oh, you get kidnapped, or you get killed, or something happen to you.” No. Over-protective, because the name of the family is wide and make sure that the name won’t change. So we won’t run away with men…

AY: You don’t bring disgrace to the family or…

UJ: Disgrace the family or pregnant—nope. She knows exactly what we are doing. We come home at noon, because school is in the morning, until noon. We eat, we take a nap, we go to dugsi [Quran school]. We’re there. The dugsi is not far away from home. My mom will take us.

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AY: So this is the question that I don’t know why I’m asking you, because I didn’t ask anybody else. In that age, though, when did you, then—even though it was culturally taboo, even, to go with boys—when did you notice, when did it occur to you there may be something called boys? Or got attracted to a man?

UJ: I don’t know. For my side, I was tomboy. Because it didn’t bother me. All my friends were boys. I never had girl friends—maybe one or two when I became like grade twelve, and that’s when they started talking about boys. But it never occurred to me. But my sisters, they had boyfriends when they were at school. You are only there when you have at school.

AY: They could not go home with them.

UJ: They can’t go home with them.

AY: They could not tell their parents.

UJ: No. My dad was wide open, but we were young. You can never think. Here, America, middle school, fifth graders or fourth graders talking about girlfriend and boyfriend. Over there, it’s taboo. No. We don’t even think about it, because we don’t have a time for it.

AY: So when you were seeing your sisters, though, who were younger than you are, dating, did you tell on them?

UJ: No.

AY: Did you care?

UJ: No. I didn’t care. I was just making sure that they date some good people. I was asking, make sure. I was like, “Hey…”

AY: You were pretending that you were… [chuckles]

UJ: I was tomboy, I was big brother. This story happened, real. When you are girls only, you always hear that you protect yourself. And it’s amazing how I turn and become a boy although I’m a girl.

AY: Do you think just possibly because…

UJ: It’s culturally, make you do that.

AY: But also you were older. You were oldest.

UJ: Oldest.

AY: So the responsibility, you were feeling the responsibility of the rest behind you.

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UJ: Yeah. So the responsibility was there, number one. Number two was my dad always says, “No matter what, I will never change ten boys to one of my girls.”

AY: Wow.

UJ: Ten boys, one of my… Because we hear, “Oh, you have no brothers…” So we have uncles, we have cousins that comes home. And my dad always says, “I’m their dad, I will discipline them. You don’t have to discipline them.” Back home, it’s whoever is man in the house will discipline the girls. My dad will always say, “No.”

This is the story that really happened to me. I was in fifth grade. My sisters were third grade or even younger than that. And then you know when we call these men, boys, we call them—what do you call them? They’re from nomads. They’re not the same age we are, but they’re always placed in a classroom, although they’re older than us.

AY: Toor weeye [he is bigger than the rest of the class], we used to say. Older. Yes, very mature.

UJ: Kabiir [head of the class] or something like that.

AY: Head of the class.

UJ: Head of the class. So it’s always like they’re older than us. So this boy comes and slaps my sister. And some of the girls, you know, friends, “Hey, Ubah! Someone slapped your sister.” I came and run to him. I’m like this, up to my knee to him.

AY: Okay, almost half of his height.

UJ: And I say to him, “Leave my sisters alone!” And he put his hands on me, on my head, and says, “What can you do about it?” So he kind of shrinked me more. So I look up—sorry to say this, this is public—I saw him, he is not wearing underwear.

AY: [laughs] How old were you?

UJ: I was fifth grade. I was even less than fifth grade. Because that’s what I’m telling you, I was aggressive. Because of how I was being, heard, and neighbor, and everything. So I look at him, it’s like he’s not wearing diaper—no underwear. So I caught him. I swear. Until the ambulance came.

AY: Ambulance came.

UJ: Ambulance. He fainted.

AY: You still had him.

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UJ: I still had him. They hit me, they did anything to me. They tried to grab me. I could never let it go. I don’t know—the anger, something on me that tricked me there. After that, I was well known in the neighborhood.

AY: No one touched you.

UJ: No!

AY: You almost castrated the man. [laughs]

UJ: Yes. And I was so proud of myself. I went home and, “Dad! Do you know what happened, do you know what happened?” And he almost fainted, “What do you do?” So after that, he always talks to me, “Remember, honey? Hooyo, aabo [Mother, father]. School is for learning, not fighting.”

AY: Oh my God. Do you have any idea what happened to that poor man?

UJ: No, I have no idea where he is. I wish I know his name. I always tell my coworkers until now, “I was bully.”

AY: Oh my goodness.

UJ: I was bully. Because the reason it makes me bully as a culture, it’s because we were only girls.

AY: So you came up with a way, just exactly, to survive.

UJ: To survive, complete. But it was a good neighborhood, we never had that problem. It was fine.

AY: So right now, in your recollection, though, would you say that it was actually a great life, or a good life, or…

UJ: In Somalia? The best.

AY: The best. [chuckles]

UJ: The best. Are you kidding me? Banana, mango, you know, eating with whole family, Ramadan. You don’t even know—my dad brings, he goes to the mosque and brings families that he doesn’t even know. The best.

AY: So until the war started, you have no recollection of any trouble or fear or…

UJ: No. The only things I recall, when I was grade twelve, it started. People were going away in different countries—Dubai, Saudi…

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AY: Okay, they were going there to get, actually, jobs, were they not?

UJ: To get jobs. But it never came to my mom, and to come back and bring some money, and it never came. I was like, “I want to travel, I want to go. Daddy can I go?” And my mom always says, “Until you get married, you’re not going anywhere.”

AY: So when did that change for you?

UJ: Whoo! You want to know the date and the time? Oh my God.

AY: Let it all out.

UJ: We were in grade twelve. We take a break from—you take final exams, they give you a break. It was Sunday, so that Monday we were taking—it’s not like Sunday, American Sunday. We were just taking a break. And it happened Sunday. Monday, we were taking a final exam that you go to college.

AY: Final exam which was—what was it? The whole nation.

UJ: The whole nation, grade twelve. That’s when you take finals, and my dad promised me that he will buy me a car, I will learn how to drive. All that dream vanished within Sunday, thirty- first, at four o’clock. I hear the boom-boom sound.

AY: Of which you never heard before.

UJ: Never.

AY: What year is it you’re talking about?

UJ: It was 1990. Sunday, December thirty-first, at four o’clock. I still recall that time. You can even go back history. I remember, I will never forget.

AY: Wow. And where was the gunfire coming from?

UJ: No idea. Wardhiigley. It’s like kind of a little bit far away from—it’s like a downtown. It was coming from the xarunta [central location] or somewhere far away. I couldn’t recall, but I know it’s not onkod [thunder], it’s not like…

AY: It’s not thunder.

UJ: It’s not thunder. I’m like, “What’s going on?” And my mom was not home. We were home, and we were playing outside, and I can hear my aunt says, “Come inside! Come inside!” I’m like, “What’s happening?” So kids don’t think that way. We were not thinking. We were like seventeen years old. So we were all chatting, “What’s going on, what’s going on?” My sister actually got married when she was sixteen. She had her baby, she has her own house, she lives

10 where the guns started. So within around like two hours… Her baby was born December 3. We call her son Abdullahi Qahaye [Qaxaaye].

AY: Meaning the exodus.

UJ: Yeah. War. Abdullahi War. So he was born December 3, and the civil war started December 31. So imagine a girl who is sixteen years old, have a baby…

AY: Her first baby, in that age…

UJ: Her first baby at that age, and then she came home to us. “Oh, do you hear?” She was freaking out. She take nothing from her house. She just grabbed some baby clothes, and her husband took her to bring our house. She says, “I want to go my mommy, I want to go my mommy.” My mom was not home, my dad was not home, everybody was scattered. So what happened is, my mom was in the city, so she ran back. You can hear it, there’s no hiding it. It’s like onkod, it’s like thunder. Everybody can hear it. So my mom came at nighttime. We were all scared. We don’t know what’s going on. It gets worse, gets close, gets worse, close. My dad left that Sunday. Sunday before that, he left to Saudi to take my serious uncle, who had a kidney problem, took him to Saudi, the hospital at Saudi.

AY: He left Mogadishu to Saudi Arabia to take his…

UJ: To Saudi Arabia to take my uncle, my mom’s brother, who was really sick, his brother-in- law. So my dad was not with us. We had a hotel, our hotel. My dad was, let’s say, wealthy. We have like five homes in that neighborhood. We have big hotel. It’s called Sallaamo Hotel. Everybody, if you tell, like, “Oh, I’m from Sallaamo Hotel,” they know. It’s in Baar Ubax. It’s biggest hotel, it’s like Baar Ubax Hotel. It’s a well-known hotel. The business was going. Everything just went numb. And after that night—I don’t know what happened after that. My dad came back the last flight, which was the other Sunday, because they travel Sunday to Sunday.

AY: Yes, yes. The following Sunday.

UJ: The following Sunday, because his family was—my uncles were in Saudi Arabia— everybody say, “Don’t come, don’t come, it’s not safe in here.” And then it start rumors. Before it was like, “Oh, Mohamed Siad Barre [Maxamed Siyaad Barre] is leaving,” and then gradually everything changed. It became qabiil [clan or tribe], it became like [Daarood]. Who is Darod? I don’t even know what Darod was. I didn’t even know what Darod is.

I never forget this—my grandpa would come from the northern part, visit us at Galkayo. All my family, all my friends, come in and out, they drink, they get ice cream, they say hi to my mom. Everybody, the house is—kids. And he will sit down on the balcony, and he will say, “Who are these kids?” “Oh, these are my friends, Grandpa.” “Who are they?” “Yeah, his name is Ali, and Ahmed, and…” “No, no, no, no—who are they?” “I don’t know who they are.” “What is their qabiil?” “I don’t know what their qabiil is.” They can be Shanshi [Shanshiye], they can be Reer Xamar [people of Mogadishu], they can be—

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AY: What tribe are they from, what clan do they belong? That’s what he was asking.

UJ: Until I was in [Kismaayo], I didn’t know what tribe I was.

AY: So when the war started in Mogadishu and then you heard the rumors on Darod and sort of those things, did it dawn on you there is some kind of a separation?

UJ: Yeah, there is something happened.

AY: But you still did not have a grip of it, you say.

UJ: Yeah, because our neighbors were different clans. We have , we have Sacad, we have Darod. We have , that we call them xabbadi keentay [he who is here running away from the gunfire].

AY: Who came from the north.

UJ: Northern part. Because the civil war started, and we always called them xabbadi keentay, and they always says xabbadi sugto [those who wait for gun shots]. That’s what they used to say.

AY: You were calling them the people that was chased by fire, by the gun.

UJ: By the fire, by the gun. And they always say, “You’re waiting the gun.”

AY: You are the one who are waiting…

UJ: Who is waiting now. We’ve done ours, you wait now. And we always tease each other. We’re neighbors. So it was every qabiil in our neighborhood. Day after day you can’t go to the store to buy things. Day after day you can’t go to the market to buy food, so whoever have something to eat, either white rice or white spaghetti—and the people who usually have that are people who called, have some money, they have storage that they keep. So the rest of the neighbors, they were counting on us, we were counting on them. Some of them have cows— Abgaal. Habibo, Mama Habibo. We always called them Habibo. We always play with them. We liked their food they eat, with their food. I hate my food—we always go to the neighbors. She was like mom to us, and she always gives us milk. So we give them food, she gave us milk. So this guy I never forget—Basbaas, his name. Adeer duq Basbaas [uncle Basbaas]. He was Abgaal. I didn’t even know. He says, “Ali, you need to leave.” “Why? I’m not leaving.”

AY: That was your father.

UJ: My dad. “Ali, you need to leave.” Because my dad, in the neighborhood, everybody knows each other. And that’s what I noticed, surround us, was most of them . I never knew it before. And then they say, “We care about you. So and so is going to come tonight and kill you. So and so is going to come. Because you’re Darod. You need to leave. We don’t want you to get hurt.”

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AY: So your neighbor, just exactly the neighbor that knew you, that you used to eat with, that you used to associate, play with, are just also bringing you the information.

UJ: Yeah. They’re saying, “Leave, this is not safe.” And my dad will say, “No, we’re not going anywhere. Why? If people wanted to kill me, they can come and kill me. I’m not taking my family out of nowhere. Where do we go? We don’t know where to go.” And then my grandma, my daddy’s mom, insist—

AY: Your grandma.

UJ: My grandma, my daddy’s mom, said, insists that, “If you don’t go, we will go.”

AY: She said that?

UJ: She said that. And the house was full, because the rest of our family. It was packed. Everybody was sleeping on the floor, on the fadhiga [living room], everywhere. Because they leave where the civil war started. Wardhiigley, downtown…

AY: Every other place but in your—

UJ: In Baar Ubax.

AY: They run away from the rest of Mogadishu and came to your house.

UJ: Yeah. To Baar Ubax. Because we were suburbs, we were getting close outside the city. So my grandma said, “We’re going to leave tomorrow morning.” And then around two in the morning, this guy Basbaas came and said, “They going to come to you after salat al-subh [salaat al-subax, morning prayers]. You need to leave—now.”

AY: The same one that who was warning your father just exactly told you—

UJ: He said, “I hear rumors. You need to leave. You’re Darod, you have to leave. Right now. If you don’t do it, they going to do something to you. Either they will shoot you or they will rape you or…” We never believed that. So four in the morning, here comes my dad, wakes us, everybody. What I’m exactly wearing, we left the house.

AY: So it dawned on him this is not a time to play, so you have to move.

UJ: Yes. It was not even salat al-subh.

AY: Wow. And then, at that moment, when he was just exactly telling you, “Grab whatever you can”—actually, what you were wearing—“and just let us go,” what was going through your mind?

UJ: We didn’t know! We didn’t know. We were just afraid. We have no idea—

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AY: But the fear start, you were—

UJ: The fear that they will kill my dad.

AY: You were fearful for your—

UJ: Yeah, for our dad. We were not fearful for us. We didn’t even know what tribe we were. So how your neighbors will harm you or will do something to you, we never came to our mind that this is would happen. So we left. We walked miles and miles.

AY: So you did not even ride a car.

UJ: No, we couldn’t even ride. They will bomb the car, they said. My brother-in-law had one car. We had two cars in the park. We have my other family who came with the car. We left at least five cars in our garage.

AY: Five.

UJ: Five cars.

AY: And took a walk.

UJ: We walked. We don’t know where we are walking.

AY: How many of you?

UJ: Forty, forty-five, fifty? Relative to relative to my mom’s side, my dad’s side.

AY: And you are possibly going northwest towards Kismayo or…

UJ: Yeah, what is “Xerradasisi.”

AY: I have no idea. “Xerradasisi”? I am from the north.

UJ: Oh, from the northern, yeah. “Xerradasisi” is like you’re going through Afgooye.

AY: Oh, yes, it’s west. It’s northwest.

UJ: That’s because we were suburbs, we were close to Afgooye and Medina [Mediina] and, you know, all that. So we walked and walked and walked and walked, and then—I don’t know after that what happened. It’s just blanked. And then the last thing I know, we were in “Xerradasisi.” “Xerradasisi” means, at that time, everything divided in half. We know we were Darod. We know who we were fighting with was Hawiye. We hear that so-and-so has been killed, so-and-so has been raped, so-and-so has been this. Then, I remember, one day we don’t have what to wear. We have no underwears, we have no socks, we have no shoes. Our shoes is sandals. My mom

14 said, “We’re going to go back home. We’re going to get our gold, we’re going to get…” Oh—let me go back a little bit. The hotel? Since my dad was well known, there is a qasnad [a safe]. There is like a bank in a room—what is it called?

AY: It is called a safe.

UJ: A safe box, three or four of them. Because at that time you can tell the government was changing, so they couldn’t trust the banks.

AY: So the money was just—

UJ: So since my dad has a hotel, they will bring all the money and gave it to trust my dad, and he will put safety to their money. Guess what? We went like at four in the morning, my mom, three of us—because boys, men couldn’t go out. Now it’s only girls. We have like more than twenty men in the house. They can’t go out.

AY: Because they’re going to get killed.

UJ: They’re going to get killed or something will happen to them. So at midnight, like four in the morning, we walked to the hotel to get money from it. How are we going to go? Where are we going to go? The hotel is abandoned. No one is here. Everybody left. No one remembered to get your money. So we went this room, we opened the room—full of like five, six safety money. We tried to open it, because we were panicking. We were making sure we don’t make noises. One of it opened, the rest didn’t open. How much can you carry cash? Can you carry cash? Money?

AY: Was it shillings Somali, or just all dollars?

UJ: No, shillings Somali. How can you carry shillings Somali? And even that was under the bed. The rest we couldn’t open, because we were freaking out, you know. When you get stressed out, you can’t open the…

AY: The combination.

UJ: The combinations.

AY: You could not remember the combination.

UJ: We just get some cash, we put a—what do you call—a bag, and we walked out of it. You can’t even carry, you’re walking. So men were like, “Make sure they leave before the sunrise,” and then my mom wanted to make sure and she was insisting we go back. “We need to get our money back. We need to get our clothes back. We need some clothes.” The house is full. This is your house? It’s full. Can someone tell you to leave without nothing? What will you grab?

AY: And what will you leave? And where will you grab?

15

UJ: Four in the morning. What will you leave out and what will you grab? Will you grab a camera? Will you grab pictures? Will you grab money? Will you grab—surviving skills. Until right now, I have dreams. Whenever I hear, like when I watch the TV, like civil war things, I sleep and I’m still packing, I’m packing.

AY: Oh, so you have nightmares of…

UJ: I have nightmares, still, packing. Nothing else—packing.

AY: Because you left and packed. So that business is still waiting for you.

UJ: It’s still there.

AY: In your mind.

UJ: Nothing else. And I used to scream and I used to run—not now. When I watch something happens on the TV, or a bomb or any like distractions, for sure at nighttime I’m packing. I don’t know what I’m packing. So I still have that in the mind. We couldn’t go back. We went very close to home, we couldn’t go back. Our house was taken over.

AY: So you tried. Mom was just exactly insisting that you have to go back and somehow or other collect your stuff, whatever it is, whatever you left behind, but you still could not reach home.

UJ: We couldn’t reach home. We went, walked, walked, walked, walked, walked. Can you imagine you walk and walk and walk? And then you get there, very close home, and you can’t, because someone is in the house. They live there. People live there.

AY: They took over.

UJ: They took over. They were eating, they were cooking, they were having fun with the cars. You know, and we have a garden that mango, all these fruits grow—nobody was eating. The fruit was coming out from the…

AY: The fruit was rotting.

UJ: Rot. So we have to go back. We get nothing. We go back, then overnight or two nights, here comes the cars. People were bringing dead body. They were going out dead body.

AY: And where are you now?

UJ: We are at “Xerradasisi,” called “Xerradasisi” by the…

AY: How do they spell that?

16

UJ: I have no idea. I still don’t know. It was one of the army houses. Cabin. It’s trees and small houses—it’s like a barracks. They build it just in case for the arms.

AY: It was a military barracks.

UJ: Military barracks. So they called “Xerradasisi.” So that’s “Xerradasisi.” “Oh, the ‘Xerradasisi’ is Darod, ‘Xerradasisi.”’ I’m like, “What is Darod?” Then we go there. We stay there like three, four nights. And then you hear, “Oh, this girl was raped, this person was killed, this person was this.” And I’m like shaking. Raped? Oh my God! You’re a teenager—you get raped? Oh! My mom will say, “Don’t tell my girls, don’t tell anything. Man, go over there and talk.” We sit down, we cook in the morning, we sit down and watch and watch and see who goes in and out. Men will go out and in, and my dad will say, “No one will go with the army.” You know, people, they divide each other now. Now we are Darod battling with Hawiye. My dad will say, “No one will leave. I don’t care what tribe it is. No one in my people—we’re like fifty people—will go there.” We took over a place, it’s like carwo [exposition center], empty home. We took place, and we stay there.

AY: So the people that you know, though, all at this moment in that camp or in that area, as far as you know, were they exclusively Darod? Or of course there were others. Or you have no recollection of that, but you only remember…

UJ: It was just I hear Darod place.

AY: That you remember.

UJ: That I remember, like , Darod place. So I don’t think so was Hawiye there, because they were going, fighting, and they were bringing dead people and wounded people back, and then they get another group and they come back, back and forth. And then overnight my dad decided this is not right. Then we leave. We’re going to go to Kismayo. Guess what? You can’t find a car, you can’t walk there, you don’t have the money to pay these people. So my dad found a friend of friend of friend of his that has—what do you call—chicken car? What do you call that chicken container—gaadhiga shimbiraha lagu qaado [a chicken transporting truck].

AY: Well, I think it was just that you call it a truck for transport—

UJ: Oh, truck for transporting the chickens. So he took out all the chicken places, and we cleaned chicken poops and all that. We cleaned that, and we went inside. My dad and his friend, they drove. He said, “We can’t give you any money.”

So good thing is my dad has a company of exporting, importing from Italy to build homes. That day it was leaving the Italy to come into Somalia, so he called and said, “Cancel that.” And everybody hear the civil war. So that money, it was not only his money, his business…

AY: Oh, meaning that income or that money that was coming from…

17

UJ: Yeah, to build homes, construction thing, he stopped. So he’s relieved that money is not coming to Mogadishu anymore.

AY: His message got through.

UJ: His message got through. Somehow, somewhere it happened. And then, I think when he was leaving from Saudi, he stopped, because Saudi, when he was coming—he came from like week after, so he didn’t know what was going on, but he didn’t want to get robbed or anything. He says, “Wait until you hear from us.” And it was not only his business. It was like a group of people who put money together, and that’s how they make business.

AY: So he also stopped the money to come back to Somalia.

UJ: Yeah, the ship was coming from—yeah.

AY: From Saudi Arabia.

UJ: Yeah.

AY: So there are at least two savings—some in Saudi Arabia.

UJ: Saving money. So that’s what we survived.

So then we went to Kismayo. We have no place to go. We don’t belong in Kismayo. My husband is from Kismayo. I didn’t know then. And then when people hear the war, people abandon their homes. Although Kismayo is not at war, the people were going. So people, whoever live in Kismayo, they were leaving.

AY: They were leaving in Kismayo. You were leaving Mogadishu, and they were leaving Kismayo.

UJ: Leaving Kismayo. So we get this house that was empty. Three homes that around area by the shore. And because my dad was married to another woman—so I have a stepmom, too. So my mom, my stepmom—all of us—we were living in the same house. Imagine that—stepmom and… Yeah. For the first time.

AY: [chuckles]

UJ: Good luck with my dad, here with two wives.

AY: Possibly.

UJ: Killing each other.

AY: He was dealing with the headache of that, too. Two wives in the same house.

18

UJ: So it was interesting. And what happened was my stepmom, she stepped in and she said, “I found friend of mine and friend of friend who has a store. His store is abandoned. We going to make injera [canjeero, flatbread] and cook breakfast in the morning, and we’re going to sell it to the people. That’s how we’re going to survive.” So the extended family we were taking care of, everybody find their own home. So now it’s my uncle—

AY: A second, though—the house that you found, did you know who it belonged?

UJ: Nope, we just move in.

AY: Just took over.

UJ: Exactly.

AY: You lost yours, so you took over another. [both chuckle]

UJ: We just took over. We didn’t kill anybody. It was empty.

AY: Oh, you say that now.

UJ: No, we didn’t kill anybody. We just took over. Even the restaurant we took over. We didn’t know who it belongs to.

AY: The restaurant that you were going to sell the…

UJ: Make a business out of. So this is what happened. Then my stepmom figured it out. Okay, I can get up early morning. We were like fifteen girls, teenagers, my age—like seventeen, sixteen, fifteen, fourteen. Some of them will take care of the house, some of them will come with her. Some of them will come lunchtime. So she started buying some stuff, because the store— Kismayo is still stable. So we buy dishes, we buy everything. We open a restaurant. We make injera, and we sell tea, breakfast. And men will come. My uncle, he used to sell cigarettes, and he will sit down outside and sell cigarettes. We became business.

AY: All of a sudden you had a business of your own.

UJ: All of a sudden we have business, somehow. Then my dad has to leave to go to Kenya, and the airplane that brings khat [qaad, stimulant drug]—what is it called?

AY: Narcotics. Khat, yes.

UJ: Khat, yeah. Exports and imports, comes to Kismayo. He knew people, because my dad was well known. And he may give some money. So he took them—he has his passport—so he went with them. He went to Kenya. He went, somehow, talk to, have connections with, and what he said is, “Okay, for the next two days, get ready. This ship will come, and you’re going to ride that ship.”

19

AY: Meaning the whole…

UJ: Family. My uncle’s side is like nine or ten of them. Our side is my sister, brother-in-law— we were like fifteen of them. So we were twenty-five people. My grandma was there. My grandfather—

AY: Did he arrange the whole family to ride…

UJ: No. People were still insisting they want to stay in Kismayo. People were still thinking that we go back.

AY: Wow. That’s what’s so amazing. That’s actually what everybody’s just saying.

UJ: Nobody thought that you’re just going to walk and never come back. So my uncle, my grandma, my grandpa from my mother’s side, my mother’s family side, they all say, “We’re not going. Why are we going to Kenya? It’s not our home. We’re not going.” My dad decided, “This is my family. Whoever wants to come—welcome.”

AY: “Welcome. But I’m going to take my family with me,” that’s what he was saying. Was he saying that?

UJ: “Whoever wants to come, I will make sure they will be provided whatever I provide my family. But the rest, I can’t force you.”

AY: And what was your take? Were you just exactly saying, “I am just going to wait out”?

UJ: No idea. I blanked out. I never knew after Kismayo what happened. I only know that we sell things. I don’t even know how emotionally we were attached. I don’t even know what kind of connection my dad was making. I don’t even know. I was just wake up in the morning, survive, and go to sleep at night. How much I know, I’m telling you. Remember, I’m telling you the date that civil war started? I can’t tell you now when and where we left Kismayo. It was just somewhere around one month, because I remember December—that was January 1991, January, New Year. January, February, March was Ramadan. March, Ramadan, we only fast five days, and then we went to Kenya. Which is somewhere in March, if we go back to the history when was the Ramadan that time. That’s when we were in India, it was somewhere in April.

AY: So when your dad just exactly said that, “I am going to take my family with me and whoever else that comes along with us,” who left? Who stayed behind?

UJ: The rest of my family stayed. The four of us didn’t have a choice, four girls. We didn’t have a choice. My brother-in-law. The baby. My mother-in-law. Two of my cousins, my mother’s side. Two of my aunts, my dad’s side, and her babies. We were like twenty.

AY: Okay, so it’s twenty of you…

UJ: We took the ship. It’s not a big ship. It’s a big ship, but it was loaded with people.

20

AY: Was it a boat or a ship?

UJ: It was a boat. The ship was after us—the one who sank—there was half our family was there. The family who refused to come with us? They left. We have thirty people that died in that ship. The father is here. One is the man who lost eight kids, his wife, his brother-in-law— Ahmed.

AY: Yes, I know him.

UJ: His brother-in-law, his sister-in-law, his father-in-law. His mother-in-law only survived from there.

AY: How many people died on that terrible ship?

UJ: Just our family was more than thirty people.

AY: Oh my goodness.

UJ: It can be to the child, grandma, boy, a man, woman, chauffer, maids—it cross, because we bring all with our family, together.

So then we took the boat. And this boat from Kismayo, you can’t even get out from the real Kismayo shore. We have to travel by a car, big truck, to take us out to the ship, and then there is no small boats. You have to swim.

AY: You have to swim to get to the ship?

UJ: To the boat, to the big boat. Because the big boat cannot come to the shore.

AY: How about if you do not know how to swim?

UJ: Family will help you.

AY: So you had to go there dripping wet.

UJ: Yes. That’s the only clothes we have, remember.

AY: And that’s how you, all of you reached the boat.

UJ: Reached the boat.

AY: How long did it take you just exactly then to leave Kismayo all the way to Kenya?

UJ: Seven, eight days.

21

AY: Wow.

UJ: We were nauseated. We didn’t eat seven days. We make, like my dad told us to make sabaayad [flatbread], like pita bread, and chapatti, and, you know, some kind of dry to eat. We couldn’t eat. What the guy, what the crazy people, what they did is underneath the boat—you know, there is different levels—they had dead fish that they were selling. So people was there sitting on dead, on fish. And what do you smell and what do you sit on it and how do you— everything on your body was fish.

So when we were getting off the boat—we reached Kenya—we wait almost two, three hours so they can let us in. We couldn’t walk. You sit. When you go to the bathroom, you sit where you go. The reason you do number two is you eat food. I don’t believe nobody went number two.

AY: Nobody went to the bathroom.

UJ: You sit on the bathroom, you pee there. The only thing we have water. So we were not even drinking. We were sipping whenever we had—like, tanks we brought.

AY: Because you could not sit or because…

UJ: There is no space. There is no place to eat. You sit like this, someone sits like this, someone is sitting like this. You move, there is nowhere to move. It was packed. It’s like this room that I fit fifty people.

AY: Oh my goodness. So then how long did you stay in Kenya and then where did you go from Kenya?

UJ: The first camp they called “show ground.” It was their show ground. It was their carwo [exhibition]—what do you call carwo?

AY: It’s not coming to me now. Every now and then English fails me, but it’s not coming to me now.

UJ: It’s exhibition. Exhibition?

AY: Yeah, it’s like exhibition.

UJ: It’s like river exhibition. So that’s when they—soo bandhigaan waxooda [that is when exhibit their stuff]. It’s like exhibition that you show what you have and you go around yearly. Carwadeenii Soomaaliya oo kale [Like our expo in Somalia]. I don’t know what they’re called. But that’s our homes were. We did homes. We slept on the floor. The bathroom was nasty. The food—this government will come, give us like ugali [staple starch dish of southern Africa] and some rice. We don’t know how to eat ugali. We don’t know how to cook ugali. We don’t know what to cook with it, so we have to break whatever when… It’s not like real homes. It’s like woods. It’s like places they build for shelters, or, like, I don’t know, construction area. You use that as a cook, bathroom. We didn’t know nothing. We only had phones that you get in line, and

22 you only always hear people are calling each other. “Oh, do you know so-and-so? His qabiil is this, he lives in that city. Is he in the boat? We’re looking for that person, we’re looking for that person.”

AY: So how long did you stay in Kenya?

UJ: I don’t remember how long we stayed at show ground. But we had a family that lives in Kenya. They were sijui [suju, Somali Kenyan] families.

AY: They were Kenyans, Somali Kenyans.

UJ: Kenyans, Somali Kenyans. So what they did is whoever have kids and whoever is breast feeding or was pregnant, they took these people, because homes are full. Everybody is visiting, like your house is full. So who will you take? You take the vulnerable people.

AY: Most vulnerable.

UJ: Yeah, most vulnerable people. So for us, we were teenagers, we were fine, and my aunt was with us and my mom was with us.

Guess what? In that point where we were on the boat and traveling from Kismayo to Kenya, somehow we called Hawiye, they went to Galkayo and start civil war.

AY: So nowhere is safe, even up north.

UJ: Nowhere is safe. Northern, they went to northern.

AY: The northern part.

UJ: Northern part. So they killed my grandma and my grandfather. Well-known grandfather that knows all the city. They kill four or five uncles on my mother’s side, and they kill for the rest of the neighborhood. Galkayo exactly was Hamar [Xamar, Mogadishu]. Everybody run away.

AY: From Galkayo.

UJ: From Galkayo to baadiye [nomad]. So we had that problem issue, and then my mom will come or my aunt will come and tell us, “Your grandma has been killed.” Then Mohamed Siad Barre left Mogadishu. He came to Kismayo, and when he came to Kismayo, they came with him. Who was killed? Half of my family was killed in Kismayo. My uncles. My sister lives here. You know Afrik grocery? The one who is married to Ubah. Her dad was killed in Kismayo. Because these are the family who stayed there and said, “We’re not going. We’re going back to Mogadishu. It’s going to be okay.” So in the middle of out of nowhere, we were in Kenya now. We are in refugee, real refugee now. We were not refugee when we were in Somalia. We are refugee right now.

AY: We have no home.

23

UJ: We have no home. We have gated around us, we have police around us. You can’t go anywhere you want. And then somehow my dad came. He noticed there was something changed, then he decided we need to leave Kenya. This is not good for my family, it’s not safe. So he went to the Somali embassy, whatever it is. He get us, each one of us get a passport.

AY: How many of you?

UJ: Twenty. More than twenty.

AY: Yeah, okay.

UJ: And then we have relatives, so this is the other thing. Your dad is wealthy, he is well known. Is he going to leave? For the rest of the family? How you going to do that?

AY: So how have you got passports and—

UJ: Oh, he went to Nairobi, then he has all our names and our birthdays and everything.

AY: Yes, but who is he going to leave behind?

UJ: Yeah. Who do you leave behind? My mom was making sure that we all go together as a family, but who do you tell that you’re welcome? Do you have money for them? Can you take them? But oh, the Ali, well-known guy, he took his kids and he left.

[pause in recording]

UJ: So, this was my life. Then we left, then what we did is my dad was looking for a Muslim country. You don’t just leave. You don’t just go. You look for a Muslim country.

AY: To send you away from Kenya.

UJ: He is not sending us, he’s taking us.

AY: Oh, he decided to go with you.

UJ: Yeah. He finally decided this is nowhere to go. Somalia is not a place to stay. So we want a Muslim country. We don’t want my kids to go American or whatever.

AY: From Kenya to another country, any other Muslim country.

UJ: Yeah. Any Muslim country.

AY: That he could support you.

UJ: Yes. We couldn’t find a visa to Pakistan.

24

AY: To Pakistan.

UJ: Yeah. Our second choice was India. It was not all India, it was Hyderabad. Hyderabad is Muslim, concentrated Muslim.

AY: It was Muslim concentrated city, yeah.

UJ: We left. We don’t know where we were going. We have no homes. We have no idea where we were going. We stayed hotel thirty, more than thirty days. Then he always goes out every morning. He will find the places, bless him. Then we finally found an apartment. Two apartments. Now, my sister and her husband, their child, five of us of girls, my dad, and my mom, and my stepmom. So you can’t have one apartment for that, so he has to find two apartments. So my stepmom and my sister, her husband, they live in an apartment. It was the top one. They’re renters. Then we stayed there almost a year. Then my dad, what he did is he always goes, somehow—because he has a passport—he goes to Italy, Dubai, finding out where to get out of here, because six months—we only have visas six months, remember. So, you know, when you give extra money in India, you get extra visas. So somehow we’re allowed to stay there a year. He found a passport, Saudi passport.

AY: Saudi passport.

UJ: He went to Dubai, buy us all the Saudi clothes, like niqab [veil covering the head and the face worn by some Muslim women], all the girls. And then we found from Madras—somewhere like way up Madras, like you walk, you take a train, like two-three hours—he found a place to go to. I don’t know. Here she has a market. She is the one who used to make a business out of selling, finding out who makes the passports. Qunsul bay bay ahayd [It was a consulate]. What do you call qunsul [consulate]?

AY: Consulate.

UJ: Yes.

AY: So was it a forgery passports?

UJ: Forgery, yeah. Real forgery, but it’s real.

AY: No one can tell.

UJ: Nobody can tell.

AY: So he bought you forged Saudi passports.

UJ: Yep.

AY: All of you.

25

UJ: All of us. So then we can’t leave all of us in the same time. They will get suspicious.

When we were there we learned English. My four of my younger sisters—no, three of my cousins and we were like four. My youngest sister and two of us, we found a school, that English and Hindi school, that every morning we take. It’s like a private school. We became Indians.

AY: You became Indians. You spoke—

UJ: Yeah. I spoke little bit—namaste [Hindu greeting] and I spoke Urdu and forget some names. We go once a week, we go—the guy who were living, he has teenagers like our age, so…

AY: So are you speaking the Urdu and Hindi, or are you speaking the Indian English?

UJ: Indian.

AY: Meaning that English with Indian accent.

UJ: Yeah. Indian with English accent. So the family we rented from, their house, they were speaking fluent English because they were mixed, white and Indian mix. So a priest that preached the religion Christianity. So we were fine talking to them in English. We learned, we became Indian. We eat chapatti. We didn’t have maid, because we were like a lot of girls around us, but we know how to go to the store, we know how to catch the taxi, we know how to walk. We became Indian. Hyderabad—it was came to a home to us. We didn’t know we were leave. We have to go nowhere. So my dad came overnight. He travels—he always out, because he have to figure out somehow.

I have to go. Maybe you have to stop and come back another day?

AY: Do you think so?

UJ: What do you think?

AY: Oh, it’s fine with me.

UJ: Yeah, I have to go soon. No, don’t stop now. I’ll finish the… then I’ll start my new life. [chuckles]

AY: Okay, go ahead.

UJ: Then we learn English. This woman comes and tutors us English. You know, American accent, but India. So we were fine until my dad came overnight.

This is the good things. India, there was no tribes.

AY: There were no tribes. You were all .

26

UJ: Yeah, we were all Somalis. And there were, like, boys—we still have brothers, like we call them brothers and sisters. They live in, some of them, in Canada. They are from Hargeisa [Hargeysa]—Burao [Burco], I think, Burao. Then they hear us, this family came, this whole family came from Somalia. Then we were really—this is how we felt as Somali whenever we see Indian black guy—we chase them. “Alla waa Soomaali, alla waa Soomaali [Hey, it's a Somali, it's a Somali]! Hi! Sidee tihiin [How are you]?” He looks us, I’m like, “Ohh, shh—they’re Indian.”

AY: [chuckles]

UJ: We were homesick. It was hot, crazy. It was May. Oh, it was like you take a shower with your clothes on and you get dry just like that. What a country we destroyed. What a country that we destroyed.

AY: So now you miss Somalia, you miss speaking the language, you miss even seeing the people.

UJ: Now we became qurbo [diaspora].

AY: You were nowhere.

UJ: We were nowhere.

AY: You are somewhere, but it seems to you that you are in no man’s land.

UJ: No man’s land. And then these men—I remember that night we cry so bad. These four men knock our door. No—we were like upper. We saw them walking. “Hala! Hala! Hey! Ha! You are Somali! Ah!”

AY: Somali men are walking by!

UJ: Walking by. Oh, Somali men walking by! “Salam alaikum [Peace to you]! Alla waa Soomaali [It’s a Somali]!” They are Somali. We were…

AY: So excited, just to hear another voice itself. Wow.

UJ: It makes me cry, how we destroyed that country. So then they came to us, and they talked to us and they said, “Oh.” One of the boys met my dad—Buna—when he was traveling in a train, and he said, “Oh, I have a family in Hyderabad, and this is the address. But I am going Madras and traveling Mumbai.” He was traveling just to find out something. And then when he told them, he told all the kids who were in college, and they came—

AY: A group of them.

UJ: A group of them, and they came to find us.

27

AY: Looking for you.

UJ: Looking for us, because my dad saw it in a train, in a public train.

AY: Just told them that my family’s somewhere in Hyderabad.

UJ: Yeah. And he didn’t even know what tribe they were.

AY: Wow. Look at the contradiction of Somalis.

UJ: Isn’t that amazing?

AY: Yes. You were being chased only with your clothes on your back by Somalis, just because you happen to be a particular tribe. Yet you are not in the country, and a Somali, another Somali, who is not even your qabiil, is just looking for you, just because you are Somali.

UJ: He wants to see us.

AY: Yes, can you imagine? Look at the contradiction.

UJ: Isn’t that amazing? So he came. We talked to them, they talked to us, and then they told us this Somali girl… “We came to you because we heard there’s girls in here. There is a Somali lady that has a kidney problem who is really sick in the hospital, and nobody can give her a bath except a maid—as a man we have to give her a bath. She has no family.”

AY: Oh God. They are looking for you just because that men could not actually give her a bath. They are looking for a Somali…

UJ: Somali woman who can help them.

AY: Wow.

UJ: And then we had connections, and my mom jumped in and said, “Yes, what we can do,” and then after that we became sisters and brothers. Then they found, one of the boys, he has sisters who live in another city that go to college. Then they move in—Buna—and we get to know each other. Then now we don’t have homesick, because we only have these five people that came to us. So in the morning we have schedule to take care of this woman. We have no idea what tribe she is. She was engaged to a man who lives in Sweden. And he cannot come because he has no passport, so she was about to go to him. He filed a visa or something, but she gets sick while she was doing that. So he can’t even come to her.

AY: And she has no family there.

UJ: And she has no family there. And we don’t know where their family is because of the civil war. So this woman, she died in my hand. We were taking care of it in the morning and

28 nighttime. They go to school, they are students. We are like five girls, we have nothing to do. We take the taxi, we traveled from here to somewhere in the suburbs—like what do you call where? Like fifteen miles, and then you know how the bus is and how trucks and how the crowded area is. It took us like half of a day. We stay there in the hospital. We sit in a chair. We take care of her. We sing with her, we sing to her. We read a Quran to her, and we give her wesso [ablution], we give her wudu [ablution] so she can pray. Her brain is still working, but she is paralyzed.

AY: So was she talking to you? And did she know that you were with her when you got involved?

UJ: Yes. She knew that they found a girl, Somali girls that can give her a bath and taking care of her.

AY: Was she talking when you got there?

UJ: Yeah, she was fine.

AY: Ah, but she deteriorated while you were there.

UJ: Yeah. And then everybody stays. My mom stay, I stay, my stepmom stays. We took over her. She became our sister.

AY: Wow. How can you imagine. So, when she died…

UJ: No idea. So when she died, she just said, “Oh.” And I was like, “Fadumo…” Mise Farhiya ayay ahayd [Or was it Farhiya]? “You okay? Do you need water?” She couldn’t talk. I panicked. That was the first time I saw someone die.

AY: Right before your eyes.

UJ: Eighteen years old.

AY: Even in all that you had been through.

UJ: Yeah.

AY: All that horrible time in Mogadishu.

UJ: First time I saw someone died. So then we bury her, then we connect with the Sweden guy. He knows the family, probably, or maybe he doesn’t know. Then he freaked out, then I don’t know after that. I don’t recall that kind of stuff.

But after three month, two month, we left. Half of my family—when my dad—my dad, bless him—he don’t leave before he makes sure the other family is okay. So my sister, her husband, her baby, my cousin—four of them with the baby—he said, “Go and check this out, if this

29 passport is working. Anywhere on the country that has refugees, if they caught you, just go with it.” Especially we were looking for London and Canada or America.

AY: So he is just telling them to use the Saudi fake passport.

UJ: Yes. They were Saudi. They have dollar, money.

AY: And anybody and any place in the world that would accept you as refugee or asylee.

UJ: Yeah, take them.

AY: Take this money and just take it so you have to go to that country. Okay.

UJ: So their ticket was all the way to Canada, to Vancouver, but they were caught in London.

AY: They got caught in London.

UJ: They got caught in London. Then they said, “We were refugee.” And then they were done. So after two or three days they call us and say, “Oh, we were in London.” Then my dad said, “Okay, I’m safe now. Then I can go.” But in the meantime, my sister who married—I have another sister who was engaged before the civil war—her husband was in Sweden, he was in Sweden. So he get a passport, he had a visa, he came, he get married. We had a wedding in India, he went back, he did visa for her, so she was waiting for him to go. So she couldn’t go with us. So me, my two younger sisters, and my mom, my stepmom, and my dad was the left—six people of us left. The rest, they stay in India. They didn’t want to go.

AY: You left India.

UJ: Yeah.

AY: Where did you go?

UJ: That’s a story! [both laugh] I’ll stop there.

AY: Okay.

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