‘Asylum.’ And they indicated for us to follow them. They took us to a room and motioned for us to sit. It was difficult to know whether I was shaking with nerves or from the cold, but
one of the police officers saw I was shivering and handed me his jacket, then he came back with two steaming coffees for us. They were so kind, right from the start, and although I realised that my
life was in their hands until we made it out of the airport, I never worried they’d send us back to Kenya.
Eventually a woman called Margaret appeared – she was an older woman, maybe fifty, and her face was lined with kindness. She spoke a few words of Somali, enough to ask our names and how
old we were. She asked if we were hungry and I nodded so hard I felt sure my head might roll straight off my shoulders. She left the room and returned with a tuna sandwich and a banana, which I ate
quickly. A few moments later she reappeared, this time with a man who would be our translator. The immigration officers sat in front of us, with Biros and serious set faces, and wrote down on a
form everything our translator reported back to them. They wanted to know everything about us: where we were from, why we left, where our parents were, if we had any siblings.
The questions were exhausting and endless, and when eventually they’d finished the translator explained to us that Margaret would be taking us to a hostel in London. There we would receive
income support – £25 a week – while they processed our application for asylum. Finally, after a whole day spent in the airport, we were on our way, and I sat in the back of
Margaret’s small car, watching the lights of London loom bigger and brighter towards us. I was here in this city which sounded so wonderful, and to me everything about it was beautiful and so
different from anything I’d ever seen. It was December when we arrived in the UK and as we got out of the car, snow crunched under my feet. I looked down at it, mesmerised by the whiteness of
it, and when I bent down and picked it up between two fingers, the delight on my face must have been obvious because Margaret laughed before beckoning me to follow her into the hostel.
Cecil House was right in the centre of London, in an area called Holborn; it was a dark-brown brick tenement building with white sash windows. Anyone else might have thought it was an
ugly-looking place, but to me it represented the first bed that I’d slept in without my mother on the other side of my door, and for no other reason than that I thought it was wonderful. But
I was tired, so tired, and when Margaret showed me the room I’d be sleeping in with another Somalian girl, which had two single beds and our own toilet, I crawled straight on to one of the
beds. I cuddled myself up within the duvet, the first I’d ever seen in my life, and, wrapped up in this warm cloud, I stopped shivering for the first time as sleep took me far away in my
dreams, to the only place they knew, the dusty streets of Mogadishu that had once been so familiar.
Margaret returned the next day and took me shopping, and I fell in love with London that day as we walked down Oxford Street, Margaret pointing out all the Christmas decorations that twinkled
and shimmered above my head. I’d never seen anything so beautiful before. In London, as if to embrace this new sense of freedom, for a time I abandoned the headscarf I’d worn since I
was a little girl.
In the days that followed, I got to know more of the other Somalian girls at the hostel. It was strange how tribal everyone was: despite the fact that we were miles from our homeland, the girls
from northern Somalia only wanted to speak to other northern girls, which left me with the girls who, like me, were from the south. Except they weren’t like me at all, they weren’t
young and naive – Nasra and Habiba were ten years older and a lot more confident. They’d been living in Italy for six or more years so they were
one of the police officers saw I was shivering and handed me his jacket, then he came back with two steaming coffees for us. They were so kind, right from the start, and although I realised that my
life was in their hands until we made it out of the airport, I never worried they’d send us back to Kenya.
Eventually a woman called Margaret appeared – she was an older woman, maybe fifty, and her face was lined with kindness. She spoke a few words of Somali, enough to ask our names and how
old we were. She asked if we were hungry and I nodded so hard I felt sure my head might roll straight off my shoulders. She left the room and returned with a tuna sandwich and a banana, which I ate
quickly. A few moments later she reappeared, this time with a man who would be our translator. The immigration officers sat in front of us, with Biros and serious set faces, and wrote down on a
form everything our translator reported back to them. They wanted to know everything about us: where we were from, why we left, where our parents were, if we had any siblings.
The questions were exhausting and endless, and when eventually they’d finished the translator explained to us that Margaret would be taking us to a hostel in London. There we would receive
income support – £25 a week – while they processed our application for asylum. Finally, after a whole day spent in the airport, we were on our way, and I sat in the back of
Margaret’s small car, watching the lights of London loom bigger and brighter towards us. I was here in this city which sounded so wonderful, and to me everything about it was beautiful and so
different from anything I’d ever seen. It was December when we arrived in the UK and as we got out of the car, snow crunched under my feet. I looked down at it, mesmerised by the whiteness of
it, and when I bent down and picked it up between two fingers, the delight on my face must have been obvious because Margaret laughed before beckoning me to follow her into the hostel.
Cecil House was right in the centre of London, in an area called Holborn; it was a dark-brown brick tenement building with white sash windows. Anyone else might have thought it was an
ugly-looking place, but to me it represented the first bed that I’d slept in without my mother on the other side of my door, and for no other reason than that I thought it was wonderful. But
I was tired, so tired, and when Margaret showed me the room I’d be sleeping in with another Somalian girl, which had two single beds and our own toilet, I crawled straight on to one of the
beds. I cuddled myself up within the duvet, the first I’d ever seen in my life, and, wrapped up in this warm cloud, I stopped shivering for the first time as sleep took me far away in my
dreams, to the only place they knew, the dusty streets of Mogadishu that had once been so familiar.
Margaret returned the next day and took me shopping, and I fell in love with London that day as we walked down Oxford Street, Margaret pointing out all the Christmas decorations that twinkled
and shimmered above my head. I’d never seen anything so beautiful before. In London, as if to embrace this new sense of freedom, for a time I abandoned the headscarf I’d worn since I
was a little girl.
In the days that followed, I got to know more of the other Somalian girls at the hostel. It was strange how tribal everyone was: despite the fact that we were miles from our homeland, the girls
from northern Somalia only wanted to speak to other northern girls, which left me with the girls who, like me, were from the south. Except they weren’t like me at all, they weren’t
young and naive – Nasra and Habiba were ten years older and a lot more confident. They’d been living in Italy for six or more years so they were
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