We walked for 10 days, always at night time. I was 13 years old, my sister was 7, and I was carrying my 2 year old brother on my back. We had to walk without our parents because our father had died, and my mother had been in a bad car accident so she couldn’t walk properly. They were from Ogaden, and when civil war broke out in Somalia, my mother decided we had to go back to Ogaden, to be safe.
One night when we were walking, I heard a lion very close by, and it made a noise like it was calling to another lion. When I heard that noise, I was so scared, it was in my chest. But I didn’t show my fear to the other children. They said, ‘Sister, what is that?’ and I said, ‘It is a dog.’ And they asked me, ‘How can a dog be here, so far away?’ And I told them, ‘He is a refugee, like us.’ And they believed me.
The only thing I took from my home was a photo album, but it was so heavy, I couldn’t carry it after a few days. I had to leave it under a tree, and as I walked away I was crying, because I felt that by losing those pictures, I was losing my family.
Finally, we got to Ogaden, where my older brother was living, and we also found my mother, who had been brought by some organisation. We were so happy. But later, Ethiopian soldiers killed my brother because he believed in the Ogaden independence movement. Then my whole family went to a refugee camp in Kenya for 5 years. I got married there and I had a child, a son. But there was no money, and not enough water there, and there were so many problems that after a while my husband and I divorced.
Then I left with my son to Nairobi. The life there was very hard. I couldn’t find a house to rent, I didn’t have a job, but finally I started a small business, selling Chinese clothes at a market stall. But it wasn’t a good life, and after a while I started thinking, ‘Maybe I can go somewhere better’.
So I made the decision to take my son to live with his father in Kenya, and then I travelled to South Africa with some people smugglers. We walked for one month. There were 10 of us together, 3 women and 7 men. Some people died, some people were sick, but I was fine, because I had the experience of my childhood. Still, I was crying all the time, when I remembered my son, my mother, and all my family. But my cousin was with me, and he kept saying, ‘Don’t give up, Roda. Be strong, stay strong’. And we made it to South Africa.
I stayed there for 4 years before I got married to a man from Ogaden who lived in Australia. It’s only since I came here that I feel I have started to have a life.
In 2010, I went back to Kenya to see my son. Now he wants to come and live in Sydney with me.
Dowlada federaalka soomaaliyeed & Maamul goboleedyada waxaa u banaan oo kaliya iney hal jid raacaan.Ilaa hada waxaa soo if baxaya jaah wareer ku saleysan fahamwaa siyaasadeed ku kalana dhex jira dowlada hada xukunka hays...
