hours before they’d be knocking again at whatever new door we were then hiding behind. It wasn’t an easy life, but, as far
as I was concerned, it was still better than Somalia.
After we’d been staying with friends in Nairobi for a year, my father phoned my mother in the middle of the night. In the morning, when she sat us down, fatigue had carved deep grooves
beneath her eyes, and she looked older than I’d remembered from the night before.
‘Your father says you are to make your own lives now,’ my mother told us. ‘He said we can’t go back to Mogadishu.’
If I’d shared a closer bond with my mother, if it hadn’t been broken, I might have wanted to stay with her, but when I knew I was free to go wherever I wanted to claim asylum as a
refugee, I couldn’t wait to leave her side. Ninety per cent of Somalians were choosing Canada, my people were leaving on planes in their thousands. But I didn’t want to go there –
there was a name that appealed to me more than anywhere, a word that sounded so different, so intriguing, so interesting: London.
‘I want to go to London,’ I told my mother.
So when my mother heard of a family friend, Zahara, who was flying to London, she agreed I could go with her. Zahara was in her thirties, an older, responsible person for my eighteen-year-old
self to travel with, to be my chaperone as I headed up into the sky on a new adventure. But to me, leaving Africa didn’t just mean safety from the civil war; it meant freedom from my own
culture. It meant saving my life.
The plane circled the airport before making its descent, and then finally I heard the captain address us over the Tannoy: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to London Heathrow.’ I had
arrived. Hibo had arrived, and I knew this was just the beginning. Tears started running down my face.
I was
free
.
I was free.
‘Don’t you want to be here?’ asked Zahara, seeing my tears.
But I wanted it more than anything I’d ever wanted before.
We disembarked, but not to the balmy evening we’d left in Nairobi. Instead, there was a breeze so cold that when I arrived at the plane doors to exit, the shock of it pushed me back into
the aircraft. Goosebumps stood to attention on my arms like they never had before.
‘Are you OK?’ the stewardess said.
I looked down at the long trousers I had on and the thin shirt, and she immediately seemed to understand I was too terrified of the cold to step outside. She kept me on board until all the other
passengers had filtered off, and then Zahara gave me her denim jacket and one of her big scarves. But even as I walked carefully down the stairs, seeing the lights of the night shimmering against
the tarmac, my teeth were chattering. Inside the airport terminal, out of the cruelty of the wind, I asked Zahara if I could stop to use the first toilet we saw, and in there I burst into tears
again. A million thoughts raced through my mind: this is freedom, this is my life now. I will choose who I love; I will choose who I marry. But, most importantly, I would choose not to have my own
daughters cut. Just by arriving in this country, I had saved future babies from mutilation and I cried because there was no other feeling of freedom like it. I knew from that moment on I would
decide everything and be in charge of my life in this new land, with these pink people who call themselves white. And even then, I knew one of the first things I was going to ask for: to be
opened.
When I came out of the toilet, Zahara was waiting for me.
‘Why are you crying again?’ she asked.
‘I’m just so happy,’ I told her.
We followed the last of the crowds from the plane towards a large area where a huge queue of people snaked its way round the room. There, two police officers came towards us, and we handed them
the fake passports with which we’d travelled and embarked the plane. We told them the word we’d been taught to say back in Kenya, the only English word we knew then:
as I was concerned, it was still better than Somalia.
After we’d been staying with friends in Nairobi for a year, my father phoned my mother in the middle of the night. In the morning, when she sat us down, fatigue had carved deep grooves
beneath her eyes, and she looked older than I’d remembered from the night before.
‘Your father says you are to make your own lives now,’ my mother told us. ‘He said we can’t go back to Mogadishu.’
If I’d shared a closer bond with my mother, if it hadn’t been broken, I might have wanted to stay with her, but when I knew I was free to go wherever I wanted to claim asylum as a
refugee, I couldn’t wait to leave her side. Ninety per cent of Somalians were choosing Canada, my people were leaving on planes in their thousands. But I didn’t want to go there –
there was a name that appealed to me more than anywhere, a word that sounded so different, so intriguing, so interesting: London.
‘I want to go to London,’ I told my mother.
So when my mother heard of a family friend, Zahara, who was flying to London, she agreed I could go with her. Zahara was in her thirties, an older, responsible person for my eighteen-year-old
self to travel with, to be my chaperone as I headed up into the sky on a new adventure. But to me, leaving Africa didn’t just mean safety from the civil war; it meant freedom from my own
culture. It meant saving my life.
The plane circled the airport before making its descent, and then finally I heard the captain address us over the Tannoy: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to London Heathrow.’ I had
arrived. Hibo had arrived, and I knew this was just the beginning. Tears started running down my face.
I was
free
.
I was free.
‘Don’t you want to be here?’ asked Zahara, seeing my tears.
But I wanted it more than anything I’d ever wanted before.
We disembarked, but not to the balmy evening we’d left in Nairobi. Instead, there was a breeze so cold that when I arrived at the plane doors to exit, the shock of it pushed me back into
the aircraft. Goosebumps stood to attention on my arms like they never had before.
‘Are you OK?’ the stewardess said.
I looked down at the long trousers I had on and the thin shirt, and she immediately seemed to understand I was too terrified of the cold to step outside. She kept me on board until all the other
passengers had filtered off, and then Zahara gave me her denim jacket and one of her big scarves. But even as I walked carefully down the stairs, seeing the lights of the night shimmering against
the tarmac, my teeth were chattering. Inside the airport terminal, out of the cruelty of the wind, I asked Zahara if I could stop to use the first toilet we saw, and in there I burst into tears
again. A million thoughts raced through my mind: this is freedom, this is my life now. I will choose who I love; I will choose who I marry. But, most importantly, I would choose not to have my own
daughters cut. Just by arriving in this country, I had saved future babies from mutilation and I cried because there was no other feeling of freedom like it. I knew from that moment on I would
decide everything and be in charge of my life in this new land, with these pink people who call themselves white. And even then, I knew one of the first things I was going to ask for: to be
opened.
When I came out of the toilet, Zahara was waiting for me.
‘Why are you crying again?’ she asked.
‘I’m just so happy,’ I told her.
We followed the last of the crowds from the plane towards a large area where a huge queue of people snaked its way round the room. There, two police officers came towards us, and we handed them
the fake passports with which we’d travelled and embarked the plane. We told them the word we’d been taught to say back in Kenya, the only English word we knew then:
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