Abdirahman Haiye

Student, Faculty of Agriculture

I don’t know what the future holds, but I always dream big because dreaming is free.

My name is Abdirahman. It’s very hard for people who don’t speak my language to understand it. My name is Arabic. When I came here, it was hard to just fit in and get along with people. When they ask your name, the first contact with a person is their name. When everybody says, ‘oh that’s hard’ or ‘that’s very long’, it was a barrier between me and the people I wanted to deal with. When I wanted to do group projects or ask for help — I decided that it’d best to use the short form [Abdi]. And even still, that was hard for people.

I was born at the time of the civil war in the '90s. I was born in a very rural village in Somalia. My Dad has been farming all of his life — he farms dairy cows, goats and camels. No running water, no electricity, no internet, no school, no nothing. Take care of your animals, get everything you need from our own farm and that’s it.

So, my Dad is 80 years old and he cannot read and write today. And he has a large family. He has two wives and 10 children with each wife. From a young age, I had this love for reading. When you have such a huge family, it’s hard to facilitate taking a child to school. So, time went on, and finally, there was a distant relative of ours who heard about my story and communicated with Dad. He asked him to send me to Kenya.

If you think about it, living in the refugee camp was way better than living where I was currently. In the refugee camp, school is free, but there are 90 students in one class and one textbook. It’s tricky to do schoolwork because who takes home the textbook? At least I was getting an education there and I started working hard even though there were very few resources. The classrooms were almost under a tree with tin-walled rooms. And the temperatures in the camp were crazy. I worked hard and when I finished high school, I got really good grades and I got a scholarship.

See, the idea of moving here was something they didn’t like. They think that if you move to some Western country, you’re going to change your culture. My Dad didn’t like the idea of me going to school because he felt that I needed to do something in the farm. The village is set up so that if you’re a boy, you grow up and you help in the farm. If you’re a girl, you grow up and get married. At the time, I was a very young boy. I didn’t have the ability to decide for myself, but it came as an accident because I got out of there and now, I’m here feeling that I have a future.

I’m not a quiet person, but when I came here, I was isolated. No one discriminated against me, but I was isolated. I thought that no one would understand me with my accent. I thought that maybe students wouldn’t think of friendship the same way that I do. It affected my academics and sometimes I didn’t like going to class. I wanted to stay in my room and talk to friends back home. It was a tough time.

I don’t know what the future holds, but I always dream big because dreaming is free. It’s free to dream. Even though I started from nothing, I don’t have anything specific in mind that I want to do, but I know that I will not be living in the village.

Because of my story, I feel that every human being on this planet deserves a better life for themselves and their children. I will feel really accomplished if I’m be able to help and give back to either my community back home or this community that has been able to set me up with the journey I’m on right now. I will feel accomplished if I’m able to give back. I know what it means to have nothing. So if I can help anybody in my life — even if it means one person — I will feel accomplished."

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