Faiza Jama

You are young. You have a long life to go. Get your education. Don’t stop in high school. School sometimes gets hard, but do your best. People don’t have the education that you guys have. You’re not scared where you’re gonna get food. Keep going. It’s a long dream and do your best. The chance you have, places you go, they don’t have that chance. Don’t give up your dreams. They will come true.

Faiza Jama

Hi my name is Faiza Jama. I was born on February 8th, 1983. I was born in Hargeysa, Somalia. My mom was a lawyer, my dad was a truck driver. We were living an okay life, it was best life, but we couldn’t stay. The war began on Sunday, January 8th, 1991. My mom said, “You know what? I gotta pick up my kids and leave.” But my daddy said, “I’m gonna stay here. If I’m dying, I’m gonna die with my country.” My mom took all twelve kids. We went to Kismayo and stayed almost two months and a half. Then we have to leave Kismayo. We have a grandma who was 96 years old and we had to carry her.

Then we went to Kenya. We were the first refugee camp to come into Kenya at that time. The Kenyans, they put us in a boat on the Indian Ocean for two weeks. The United Nations talked to Kenyans to set up a place for us to live. They give us a refugee place, called Otango. We didn’t have no money, we had nothing. They give us two tents and it was fourteen peoples who had to stay in there. Our food, our house, everything we had, we just run away because when it come to get stuff or it’s life, life come first. We just walk away everything and we came there.

The United Nations, they give us food. You had to get up early in the morning, six in the morning you had to get up and be in a line. If you’re not there, you don’t get food that day. When you get the water, you have to be in line. You have to find something to live on. In Somalia millions people just left their country.

My sister came in America in 1995. She sent us a visa to get in America. I was so lucky to be here. I was almost nine and a half. They didn’t have any Somali in Minnesota. We were the third family to live in Minnesota. I went to fifth grade. I didn’t understand any English and I was so scared and I was feeling lonely. I try my best to learn it. Then I start to get reading and to write. Then I went to Lyndale Middle School, and then Sanford Middle School. When I was seventh grade I knew how to read and write and I was getting on in English very well.

I went to Edison High School. I had my son when I was 17. I graduated from my high school, I didn’t give up my school. I went to the University of Minnesota for two years to get my RN nurse. Then I changed my majors.

Now I’m a teacher in FICA Head Start. I teach young kids, three to five years old. I try to work with them like the education I didn’t have when I was young. I am so proud how lucky I am now. And here I am now. I have four kids. I have a wonderful job, a wonderful house and a place that’s peaceful.

My daddy passed away in 2007 back home. Somebody shot him and he die. Now my step-sisters are still back home in the war. They don’t have no place, they sleep every day new places. And right now my country is not a place to go.