It Takes a School
Page 24
At Northfield Mount Hermon, the gymnasium includes a glassed-in display of Mohamed’s athletic achievements in his years at the prep school, including his winning the Gatorade Massachusetts Boys’ Cross Country Runner of the Year Award. Academically, he was also successful there, and upon graduation he matriculated at Amherst College, where he continued his all-around domination, becoming an All-American in his first year. Mohamed hopes to one day run in the Olympics for his home country, but that’s not the biggest prize he’s focused on. I visited him at the end of his first year at Amherst and, without my saying a word about his future, he said, “I want to ask your advice. I’ve been thinking about doing a master’s in education because I feel like education is what my people need most.” A true son of Abaarso. Here’s a kid whose life has taken off, but he still owns the school’s mission.
Nimo has also thrived in college, still passionate about what interests her but also making sure she gives the classroom its fair due. She is the coordinator of the Oberlin College Student Honor Committee, a student senator, an Oberlin Business Scholar, a Bonner Scholar, cochair of the African Students Association, cochair of the Muslim Students Association, and treasurer of the Oberlin College Model UN. Nimo will graduate in May 2017, and I—her proud former adviser—will be in attendance.
Fadumo went on to become an AP Scholar at Ethel Walker. In fall 2013, I took her to visit the University of Rochester, and she decided it was the place for her. The vice provost interviewed her and after the interview asked me, “Are all your students this amazing?” Academically, Fadumo remains excellent, and in terms of character, she is pure nobility. She was the one who stopped everything to translate documents for me when Abaarso School was under attack. I am sure Fadumo will stand up for justice the same way she literally stood up to speak when Abaarso’s existence was at risk. One reason I know that Abaarso students will ultimately live true to their promise of building their country is that Fadumo will make sure they do.
Fadumo’s sister Nadira is every bit as wonderful. She recently drove six hours in a single day to and from a New York City fund-raiser for Abaarso, and I apologized to her about the inconvenience. She looked me in the eye and said, “I’m here because of you. I’ll go anywhere and do anything to help Abaarso.” My mother and I were visiting her on the day she was accepted to both Yale and Dartmouth, and the normally tough Nadira even shed some tears of joy. She’s now an inspiration to Somali girls everywhere.
Qadan never let her physical handicap get in the way. After a wonderful career at Abaarso, she received a MasterCard Foundation scholarship to Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York. The summer before her freshman year, she was at a MasterCard Foundation–sponsored event at the University of Rochester, part of which I was also invited to attend. She made a presentation that included quoting back part of what I’d said to her in that conversation years before about not wasting her time wishing to be like anyone else. At Marist, Qadan earned a 4.0 GPA in her very first term.
Deqa was accepted into several great colleges, but she ultimately chose to attend Grinnell. Her optimism about life fuels her to take on every opportunity available, and at Grinnell there are lots. In March 2016, I was at a conference in D.C. for American Schools and Hospitals Abroad. Deqa came for a morning and sat with the ASHA director, an Abaarso fan no doubt, but still incredulous that our students would actually return to their homeland. After Deqa left the conference, the director came up to me and said, “I believe you now.” I would have liked Deqa to stay at the event a while longer, but she was headed to her own event for the next few days … at the White House.
When Abdisamad took his first exam at Harvard, he thought, “Maybe I don’t belong here.” Then he looked around and saw a room full of freshmen crying because they couldn’t do it, either. Turned out to be a false indicator, as he earned above a 3.0 in his first term and finished with a 3.5 in his second. He still expects to do better. I hope he’ll be one of a long line of ethical Somaliland presidents from Abaarso.
I’m immensely proud of my advisee Amal, who also attends Marist. It took her a while, but at Abaarso she was eventually able to put the past behind her and take full responsibility for her life. In autumn 2014, when Laura Kaub, a representative from the MasterCard Foundation, visited the Abaarso campus to interview our students, she joined our girls for a game of Clue, and apparently Amal beat her while trash-talking the whole time. I believe this is what led Laura to say that our students “even curse well in English.” Amal got the scholarship and has thrived at Marist. Completely on her own, she lined up an internship for the summer of 2016 at a major New York publisher. I’m hoping the young lady once known as “BBC Abaarso” will one day become a true media celebrity.
Suleikha, the daughter of Amran and Mohamed Hashi, graduated from Abaarso, spent two years at the African Leadership Academy in South Africa, and is now headed to Georgetown University’s Qatar campus. She wants to be a lawyer, and I’m hoping Nimo and Suleikha will ultimately become attorney general and chief justice of Somaliland.
After Abaarso, Muna attended Choate Rosemary Hall, JFK’s old school. She’s been there ever since, except for a semester she spent at King’s Academy in Jordan. Muna is no longer a little kid—she’s grown up and capable—but she’s still every bit as charming. She’ll be applying to colleges in this coming 2016–2017 school year.
Fahima will also be a senior this year, in her case at Emma Willard School in Troy, New York. She’s still intense—upon meeting one adult last year she launched into her full plan to fix Somaliland—but I think she’s a bit more at peace with her life. Great things no doubt await her. Fahima’s little brother and sister are now at Abaarso, and Nimo, Deqa, and Mohamed also have siblings in the school.
Harry moved back to the States at the end of our fourth year, but he has never really left Abaarso. He spent a year helping organize the U.S. foundation that supports Abaarso and then set off on a new mission, making a documentary about the school and its students. Harry has willed this project from dream to reality, and the film is currently in postproduction. He hopes to screen it in 2017.
In the middle of her third year at Abaarso, Ava knew that something was wrong with her health. Eventually, she went home to see a doctor and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She came back to Somaliland anyway and stayed right up to the end of that year. Her telling the students about her condition was one of the saddest times I can remember at Abaarso, and when she left, we renamed Room 1 “Ava’s Room.” Once back in the States, Ava learned to handle the disease, and other than periodic flare-ups, all of which she can fight through, she doesn’t let it hold her back. She landed a job on Wall Street but continues to perform all of Abaarso’s accounting work in her spare time. Now, Ava has committed to lead our women’s university in Somaliland. We expect this university to be the first step in allowing Somalis to receive a proper education without leaving their country. When we have the right male leader, we’ll do the same thing for the boys.
After leaving Abaarso, Suzanne went to work for African Leadership Academy, where she’s earned great reviews. While I haven’t been able to see her as much as I’d like, we still talk. I don’t know where life will take Suzanne, but she is remembered fondly by all those she’s touched. Years later you’d still hear kids say, “Suzanne is my teacher.”
Suzanne’s boys from the orphanage who came to Abaarso made the adjustment and paved the way for more students from the orphanage to be accepted each year. Suzanne’s boys are the shining example of community service at its very best and the virtuous cycle that can be created.
Many of the other former teachers continue to be connected, especially in support of our students now in the United States. Mike and Kelly are among the group who have provided housing, rides, operational help, and even gone long distances to attend our students’ award ceremonies.
Billeh still lives in Brooklyn, visiting his children and grandchildren whenever the opportunity arises. He visits Somaliland
periodically, and it is always in his thoughts.
The last eight years, I’ve been an Abaarso extremist willing to risk everything for the school I dreamed would change the country. I almost lost everything, and I went through the most horrific of experiences. Yet despite that, I wouldn’t want to imagine my life without Abaarso. Everyone should, at some point, live something so consuming, so terrifying, and, in the end, so satisfying.
Abaarso’s success has exorcised some of my demons, especially those that said I hadn’t accomplished anything in life. With each victory, a little more of that self-imposed burden went away. I now see that my kids are on their way to success, and while I can still help them, neither they nor Abaarso needs me anymore. It is such a wonderful feeling to know my babies can thrive on their own.
Speaking of babies, in August 2014, I married Miriam Aframe, a wonderful woman whom I’d dated eighteen years earlier when we were both counselors at a summer camp in our mutual hometown of Worcester, Massachusetts. Then, on June 4, 2015, Orianna Starr, our baby girl, was born. Sure enough, the students posted it all over Facebook. Nimo, Amal, and Fadumo hopped on trains so they could meet Orianna before she even left the hospital for home. My daughter is lucky to have so many people who will love her like family, no questions asked. That’s Somalis at their absolute best.
About the Author
JONATHAN STARR founded and led the private investment firm Flagg Street Capital, worked as an analyst at SAB Capital and Blavin & Company and as a research associate within the Taxable Bond Division at Fidelity Investments, and sat on the board of a publicly traded company. With a half-million-dollar donation from his personal finances, Starr created the Abaarso School in 2009. His work in Somaliland has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Businessweek, CNN, and The Christian Science Monitor. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
Foreword
Map
Prologue
Part One: Burning My Ships
1. My Somali Uncle
2. Somaliland Roots
3. From Hedge Fund Manager to Headmaster
4. Modern-Day Nomad
5. Results Day
6. The Exam
7. The Blank Sheet of Paper
Part Two: Building a School
8. First Trip to Somaliland
9. Clans
10. Teachers
11. The Abaarso Condition
Part Three: School Culture
12. Mohamed: A Day in the Life
13. Straight Talk and Motivation
14. Fahima’s Rocks
15. Critical Thinking
16. Fundamentals
17. Integrity
18. Suzanne’s Orphanage
19. Selection Day
Part Four: The Great Miscalculation
20. The White Man Speaks Somali
21. A Complex World
22. The Village
23. Like Water Through a Sieve
24. Doing Something Right
25. Money Disguised as Religion
26. Trouble with the Boys
27. Khadar’s Rage
28. Nothing Is Easy
29. Harry’s Mad Dash
30. The Higher Education Commission
Part Five: Tenacity
31. Selling Success
32. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
33. A Somali Among the Elite
34. Twenty-Seven Schools in Twenty-Five Days
35. SAT Trip
36. Deportation
37. The Full Arsenal
Part Six: Winning the Society
38. Miss Marple
39. Religious Council
40. Vindication
41. The Cherry on Top
Part Seven: When Arms Are Open
42. Show Me the Money
43. Our Best Ambassadors
44. The Future
45. In Harvard Yard
Epilogue
About the Author
Copyright
IT TAKES A SCHOOL. Copyright © 2016 by Jonathan Starr. All rights reserved. For information, address Henry Holt and Co., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.henryholt.com
Map by Gene Thorp/Cover design by Karen Horton; cover photographs courtesy of the Abaarso School
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
e-ISBN 9781250113450
First Edition: February 2017
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