For several years, Somalis from all over have been pushing me to build another boarding high school like Abaarso. While I would like to do more, I fear a second high school would be a mistake. Just because something is good doesn’t mean having two or more of them is better. Not everything is Starbucks.
Abaarso has dealt with Somaliland’s weak higher education by catapulting our students out of the system to international universities. The actual education model, engaging students to work toward their futures, absolutely should be duplicated, not to two schools but to twenty, then two hundred, then two thousand. That is scalable. There is not, however, room to even double the amount of students sent on scholarships internationally, never mind scale beyond that. Even fifty students per year gaining scholarships abroad will be an extraordinary accomplishment.
But this doesn’t mean we can’t take the Abaarso education model and do more. In fact, Abaarso can be the tip of the iceberg, or, better said, the top of the pyramid. Abaarso is developing the country’s future leaders, and doing so by getting them ready for the top higher education schools in the world. But those future leaders cannot do it alone. They’ll need an educated class of professionals to work with and an educated population in general. That can’t be done abroad. It must be done in-country.
Our plan is to build a proper higher-education institution for women in Somaliland, by establishing Barwaaqo University. Barwaaqo means “fertile” and “plentiful,” the antonym of abaar, which means “drought.” Barwaaqo will keep the Abaarso initiatives that can be scaled—our excellent whole-child education and our focus on fundamentals and character—while not forcing what can’t—the pursuit of the international scholarships. Somali students need access to quality education in their country and Barwaaqo will provide that. Will it be a better choice than attending Worcester Academy and then going to MIT? Of course not. It can’t be MIT, among other reasons because those who are graduating from Somaliland high schools aren’t ready for that level of education. At least not today.
The demand for Abaarso has become overwhelming; we are now able to accept fewer than 5 percent of applicants, with the applicant pool skyrocketing each year and our classes only around fifty students each. The university will start small but hopefully reach a thousand students within ten years and double that in twenty. We are beginning exclusively with a teachers’ college, so the educational impact can extend far beyond those who attend. We plan to help Abaarso students educated abroad to return to their country and set up schools that will be staffed with graduates from Barwaaqo University. I can’t start dozens of schools, but our students can and I believe they will. This is their country to develop and these are their kids to educate.
The idea of starting the university came over a year ago, but I didn’t want to move on it until we had the most important piece in place—our on-the-ground leader. We now have that in Ava, quite possibly the best employee Abaarso has ever had. Ava is committed to lead this endeavor. And she won’t be alone, as she will have the returning graduates to join her in the coming years. In fact, she already has her first hire. After graduating Oberlin in 2017, Nimo will be right there by Ava’s side. Who could be better than Nimo to lead the next generation of Somali youth?
Diinqal wouldn’t become the future university site, but Billeh and I still had a nice afternoon with Rashid. It just so happened that the Habar Yoonis subclan from that area had arranged a big gathering to celebrate the opening of a nearby road. Its members came long distances from Hargeisa and elsewhere for this traditional meal. While it is not Billeh’s Habar Yoonis subclan, he, too, is Habar Yoonis and several of the attendees know him. Since I have spent more than six years in the country, they know me, too.
Rashid, Billeh, and I walk to the orchard where we’ve been invited to join the traditional Somali meal. Mats have been placed on the ground and there must be two or three dozen men sitting down under the shade of the trees. Almost all are wearing the Somali mawiis, which is both cool and relaxing, a vibe that matches their sprawled-out positions. It is a feast. First goat soup comes out, poured into cups, for all those interested. Next come the giant serving platters, a couple of feet in diameter, every inch covered with rice, pasta, and cuts from a goat that was alive just two hours earlier. Everyone is in a festive mood. This is a beautiful part of the culture.
“Where are the plates?” Billeh asks.
“My uncle has been gone far too long,” I tell the four others who are around our particular platter. From there, we dig in with our right hands, sharing this massive offering. It is messy, but there is also something wonderfully simple about it. We are lying in nature and eating without concerns for formalities or appearances, though as for the latter, the Somali men eating under the tree paints a great picture. Billeh looks great, too, using his left hand for a plate and his right for a fork. He is a Somalilander back in his home country and feeling at peace.
After an intensive search, we decide to locate the university in Jaleelo, a small village north of the road between Hargeisa and Berbera. Unlike Abaarso, Jaleelo is situated above a massive aquifer and, in fact, its wells serve much of Hargeisa. Because the village has plentiful water, the new Somaliland Coca-Cola bottler built its factory in Jaleelo. This, too, is a great selling point. That owner isn’t from the Jaleelo clan and his factory is full of foreign workers. This means they’ve already worked through much of the trouble, hopefully paving an easier path for us.
The Jaleelo villagers donate a large piece of land, nine times the size of Abaarso. From the start the elders have welcomed us in. Which is not to say that everything will be simple this time, either.
At my invitation, fifteen of the Jaleelo elders come to visit Abaarso so I can meet with them, discuss issues, and make sure they understand exactly what I am planning. I have no interest in once again trusting the words of a surrogate.
One man commits to adding a piece of his land that is adjacent to the rest. The elders are happy that we will help educate the children in their town and that we plan to accept students from their secondary school into Barwaaqo. It is a very poor town with limited education. It only built a high school a few years ago, which in total only has twenty students.
I couldn’t have asked for the meeting to go any better when one person in the group speaks up. He is probably a man of around sixty, his English strong. He tells me he’s lived in Western Europe for many decades now. He doesn’t live in Jaleelo and my sense is that he never has. He just has a clan connection to the place. Sound familiar?
He talks for a while, but his message is simple. “They say that charity starts at home, so it is suspicious when you come here.” This isn’t a question to be answered or a clarification he seeks. It is an attacking statement. He continues to essentially say, “This is a Muslim country and if you try to pull anything, we’re going to kick you out.”
When he is done, I face the group and have the translator make clear exactly what my plans are, that I have every intention of respecting the local religion, just as I’ve done in Abaarso, but that I am also a different person from a different culture and will do things in different ways. To them taking your shoes off can be a sign of protest. I’ll probably do it because my feet are hot. I hope they can live with that. If they can’t, that is okay. We’ll instead go to one of the other sites where people want to host our new school.
The elders are angry with this European-Somali man for causing trouble. They assure me that they want the school and they want to work with me. Many say they don’t even know who he is or who invited him.
Walking out, all I could think of is what one of the parents said to Khadar when he was preaching about our destructive Western ways. “You lived in the West for decades and married a white woman. You got educated at their schools. They were good enough for you and your family, but now that our kids are going to benefit, you say they’re bad.” Isn’t that the truth? It isn’t this man who will suffer if we don’t build that university. It isn’t his kids in
the town who need education, and he isn’t the one who has to live in that depressed village with limited opportunities and no services.
While most Africans living in the diaspora I’ve met are huge supporters of their homeland, I’ve seen this hypocrisy from others as well. That a Somaliland person who has lived in the West would promote xenophobic behavior in his poor countrymen is baffling to me. However, seeing the positive reaction of the real Jaleelo elders gives me hope that all the trouble we went through has made Somalilanders a bit more open. There are people in this country who sincerely want to move their country forward. Let’s hope the real stakeholders in Somaliland welcome in the right help while keeping these particular troublemakers away.
45
IN HARVARD YARD
In August 2015, Mubarik, Abdisamad, and I are sitting in Harvard Yard waiting for the last member of our group to arrive. He has called to say he is running late, but today is so perfect that we could wait all day if necessary. All around us are returning students, many accompanied by their parents, as Harvard is now beginning its fall semester and “move-in” days are under way. Abdisamad, the boy who spoke so eloquently about gender during Anand’s fund-raiser, has been here a couple of weeks already in order to participate in freshman orientation.
Being accepted to Harvard has made Abdisamad a celebrity and a Somaliland hero. One evening not long after the news broke, I was having tea with a high-ranking government official at a hotel in Hargeisa. There was a steady stream of people coming to see the official on business matters, and he made sure each one knew the news about Abdisamad. Finally, I told the official that Abdisamad would soon be at the hotel. “Can I meet him?” he asked with hope. Our boy had become a rock star. In fact, Abdisamad’s acceptance to Harvard was such a big deal that the president of Somaliland invited him to the Presidential Palace, where he had then given awards to both Abdisamad and Abaarso.
While Harvard’s reputation is renowned worldwide, in Africa it is considered the pinnacle of success. It wasn’t that people in Africa compared it to MIT or other Ivy League schools; it was that they barely knew that the other schools existed. Mubarik was now at MIT, and I remember a conversation following his acceptance. “Congratulations on mit,” one Somali said to me, rhyming “MIT” with “sit” in a single syllable. Harvard was different. Everybody knew Harvard.
For Somaliland, Abdisamad’s accomplishment had a great patriotic value—it put Somaliland on the map, literally. CNN ran an article on its website about Abdisamad and Harvard, and the article included a map of Africa with only Somaliland labeled. All the other African countries were unmarked.
Back in Harvard Yard, our last member now approaches with a smile and a handshake. I know him well, although we have never met. He is Nicholas Kristof, the op-ed columnist for the New York Times and the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes in journalism. His primary topics are human rights and the effects of globalization, although he covers it all—health, politics, economics. Now that he is seated with us, passersby figure out who he is every few minutes and ask him to pose for photos, which he graciously obliges.
Do Mubarik and Abdisamad understand what is happening here? They are sitting in the most prestigious academic spot on earth, talking to one of the most prestigious journalists from the New York Times. Yet they seem unfazed. Nick is asking them about all sorts of things, from adapting to America, to first impressions of Abaarso, to whether they know how to milk a camel, and they are talking to him like they are seasoned panelists. Nick has to be as blown away by their poise as I am, never mind their deeply reasoned responses. I’ve known these boys for six years and I’m still impressed by the intellect they are bringing to each answer. With each question I get nervous for them, and then I am at ease when I realize I don’t need to worry. These children are now men and they have it all under control.
* * *
A year from now, I would get more great news. This time it would be about a female student, making it that much more special. Fadumo’s younger sister Nadira is accepted to Yale and Dartmouth as well as to six other colleges. She becomes the first Abaarso student to be accepted to two Ivy League universities.
As far as I know, she will be the first Somaliland woman ever to go to an Ivy League school. Back in Billeh’s day, when Somalis first started coming to the United States to attend great universities, women were not among them. Yes, there are accomplished Somali women with Ivy League degrees who are also U.S. citizens or citizens of other countries. But Nadira has no citizenship other than Somaliland, and to all those young girls growing up in Hargeisa, Burao, Erigavo, and the rest of the country, she is just like them. She is an inspiration.
Nadira’s success, as well as the success of the girls before her, has led to a seismic shift in what Somalilanders view as possible for their girls. Our first entrance exam with SOS had fewer than twenty girls in attendance. The most recent had four hundred. New classes at Abaarso are split evenly between the sexes, and as more of the heavily male classes graduate, Abaarso will soon be half girls, half boys. Our new university, planned as a teachers’ college for women, will capitalize on all of this excitement behind female education. One Abaarso girl recently gushed that “now my sisters can have a real future.”
Abaarso students, boys and girls, are convincing the world that they can compete with anyone. Mubarik, Abdisamad, Deqa, Mohamed, Nimo, and too many others to mention are the ones who made this breakthrough possible. Current and future students have them to thank.
In Nadira’s case, she has another special someone to thank, her sister Fadumo. It was Fadumo who originally underwent a hunger strike to attend Abaarso, and it was Fadumo who then insisted her sister come to the school. When Nadira got to campus, she was angry and withdrawn, but Fadumo convinced her to let that anger go and strive for a future, not dwell on the past. Now, she is outgoing, warm, and appreciative. When she is accepted to her list of colleges, someone says to me, “You must be very proud.” I respond with the truth. “Honestly, I was already about as proud of her as I could be,” I say, much like a caring father. I had seen her actual father two days earlier, and he felt the same way.
I am proud of all my Abaarso students, not just the Ivy Leaguers and the MITs. They all have overcome steep odds just by making it through their first year at the school. Every student’s success is a victory. We take nothing for granted. Neither do they.
I worry for Abaarso, Somaliland, and Somalia’s future as well, but maybe I shouldn’t anymore. Maybe these two men beside me, Abdisamad and Mubarik, as well as their female counterparts, will have that all under control, too.
Back in Harvard Yard, Nick turns to me. “So how does it feel to now be sitting in Harvard Yard with these boys?” I am not often at a loss for words.
EPILOGUE
Where Are They Now?
In December 2015, nearly eight years after my first visit to Somaliland, I passed the headmaster position to James Linville, my extraordinarily dedicated and capable assistant headmaster. It was time for Abaarso to have a new on-the-ground leader ready to engage in all the day-to-day struggles. James is smart, educated, and hungry, but, most important, he loves Abaarso. Before the end of his first year he told me he wanted to stay at least until the seventh grade graduated. He’ll be at the helm for years to come and Abaarso is lucky for that. If and when James finally decides to do something else, my hope is that one of our alumni will be ready to take over the position.
With my headmaster duties behind me, I am now focusing on continuing the Abaarso mission, which is the long-term development of our students’ homeland. Currently the biggest challenges are fund-raising, finding summer housing and internship opportunities for our students abroad, and developing our new Barwaaqo University. There is still more to do than I can possibly handle.
James has been leading Abaarso through an accreditation process with the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. The campus itself is making large strides toward the association’s standards, thanks
to over $1 million in grants from American Schools and Hospitals Abroad, a USAID subsidiary. Even though the campus will become much more functional, with improved utilities, a great science building, and exercise rooms, we still won’t be fancy.
Admissions rates are through the roof, with over a thousand students vying for fewer than fifty spots in our seventh grade. The country is overwhelmingly behind us, and for the Abaarso teachers, it is probably hard to imagine it any other way. There are no longer any teachers who were with us during the tough times, and, as of next year, we won’t have any students from that time, either. The school has advanced so much, but Abaarso cannot afford to lose its history, as that is much of what built our character. This is one reason why it is imperative that our alums come back to teach.
As of May 2016, Abaarso students have earned approximately $15 million in scholarships and financial aid, and the 2016–2017 school year will see almost ninety students studying around the world. Needless to say, my mother is stretched beyond belief trying to take care of them. Unfortunately, with these great opportunities has also come a jump in our funding needs. Our students receive extremely generous scholarships, but many of the scholarships leave out items such as travel expenses and visa costs, not to mention the unexpected issues, such as dental problems, that invariably come up. These are wonderful opportunities for Abaarso students, but with our increased numbers, we now need to raise several hundred thousand dollars per year.
Thirty-two students made it through our first class at Abaarso. At the time of this writing, twenty-seven of them have earned scholarships to higher-education institutions abroad. The students in this first group continue to be pioneers for all those who have come after.
When Mubarik took MIT’s lowest-level Computer Science course, he told me, “The professor isn’t teaching this from the beginning.” Sure enough, when it came to technology, Mubarik had come in way behind. He hadn’t seen his first computer all that long before getting to MIT, and he could have just chosen a different direction. Instead, he focused all his efforts on catching up, even skipping some other classes when he was in the middle of programming. Nor did he take any easy paths. He is majoring in computer science and electrical engineering, and when I told an MIT professor about his schedule, the professor responded that Mubarik was taking a heavier-than-normal course load. Still, by his third year, he was getting impressive grades. It used to be that he did not understand my English. Now, I don’t understand his robot lingo.
It Takes a School Page 23