by Mo Farah
I never had much skill with the ball at my feet. My ability was in my ‘engine’: I was full of energy, and I’d chase that ball around all day if I had to. I had a bit of pace on the turn too. But I was football mad. I wasn’t interested in anything else. We’d play for hours on end: me, Hassan and the other kids from our neighbourhood. We’d arrive home covered in cuts and bruises from diving and sliding around the streets. Grandma would inevitably get angry with us both for getting our clothes dirty.
Life wasn’t easy in Djibouti, but it wasn’t desperately hard either. We experienced the same ups and downs as anyone else. Perhaps we didn’t have some of the things that children in other countries take for granted, but for us this was never a big deal. In some ways, it was an advantage. In Djibouti everybody had to work hard for what they had. No one got given anything on a plate, but you wouldn’t find people sitting around feeling sorry for themselves. Everyone rolled up their sleeves and got on with it. We learnt to appreciate what we had. We learnt that you didn’t get anywhere in life without putting in the work. In that sense, Djibouti made me tough. I saw a lot while growing up there. Had to deal with a lot too: moving from country to country, being separated from my dad, having to adapt to a different culture. My mum used to repeatedly tell me, ‘In life, make sure that you adapt to whatever you do.’
I managed to adapt. Some people aren’t so lucky. They grow up with too much, too soon, so when they really need to work hard towards a goal, the motivation isn’t there. They can’t live without certain comforts. They can’t adapt. Me, I never had that problem.
Some time after our arrival in Djibouti, Grandma Amina’s daughter, our aunt Nimco (pronounced ‘nee-mo’ – the ‘c’ is silent) won a scholarship to study at university in Almelo, a city in the Netherlands. She used to send Grandma letters and pictures of her new life in Europe. I couldn’t believe how different everything looked – the neatly paved streets and grey skies and old church buildings. I started thinking to myself, ‘Wow! There’s this whole other world out there.’
After our grandfather passed away, Grandma decided that she wanted to move to the Netherlands to live with Aunt Nimco and build a new life for herself. I suppose she felt there was nothing left for her in Djibouti after Grandad died. There was Hassan and me, of course, and her other relatives, but Aunt Nimco was her daughter. I was upset. I loved my mum, but Grandma had been the one who’d looked after Hassan and me for most of the time we’d been in Djibouti. I was closer to her than anybody except Hassan. After she left I told myself, ‘I have to find a way of getting to Holland to live with Ayeeyo.’ I just couldn’t imagine a life without Grandma. My mind was made up: I wanted to move to Almelo. I would build a new life there. And Hassan would come with me.
My wish seemed to come true when Mum took me aside one evening after Grandma had moved to Almelo, looked me hard in the eye and explained that we would soon be leaving Djibouti as well. Like Grandma, we were moving to Europe to begin a new life. I wasn’t upset to leave Djibouti. I was just excited. As I understood it, we’d all be going to live with Grandma in the Netherlands. Mum added that first we had to go and visit my dad in London. I thought she meant we’d be staying with our dad for just a few days. I didn’t really give any thought to the implications of moving to Europe – having to learn a new language, making new friends. I was too young to understand all that. I simply wanted to be close to Grandma. Whatever it took to be by her side again, I was willing to do it. I couldn’t wait.
Much has been written about the circumstances which led to me and Hassan being separated for the best part of twelve years. The truth is this: the original plan was for all of us to travel to England as a family. But shortly before we were due to fly, Hassan fell ill which meant he wasn’t able to fly. We couldn’t cancel or change our flights because there were five of us booked on that plane and that would have meant losing an awful lot of money. As a short-term solution it was decided that me, my mum, Ahmed and Wahib would fly to London as originally planned, with Hassan remaining with our extended family in Djibouti. The plan was always to go back and get Hassan a couple of months down the line, after the rest of us had settled down. Of course, I didn’t like the idea of being separated from Hassan even for a short period of time. We’d been inseparable from the day we were born. Everything we experienced, we had experienced together. I was consoled by the fact that we wouldn’t be away from each other for very long – a couple of months perhaps. Then we’d be back together. Had I known how many years would pass before I’d see him again, I would have been heartbroken. But as far as I knew, Hassan falling ill was a temporary hitch; eventually we’d all be living together as a happy family. My parents, my grandma, me, Hassan and my other brothers.
At least, that’s what I thought.
Actually getting to Europe from Djibouti was quite an undertaking. We had to take a train from the city to the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa – a journey of 800 kilometres. We arrived at a crumbling old railway terminal which looked as if it was falling apart, and from there made our way to Bole International Airport, where we boarded an Ethiopian Airlines flight direct to Heathrow.
We almost didn’t make it to London. Two hours into the flight, the warning lights flashed on, the alarm began squawking and buzzing and the plane started dropping speed all at once. I remember being stunned by the intense painful popping in my ears. Then the oxygen masks dropped down. That’s when the panic really set in. Everyone on board started shouting and screaming. Some people were crying for help, others grabbing the oxygen masks and hurriedly fitting them over their faces. People were holding hands, like they believed they were going to die. One guy actually bolted out of his seat and started wrestling with the airlock on the emergency exit, shouting that he was going to jump before the plane crashed and killed us all. A bunch of people tackled him to the ground. I saw all this happening, my heart absolutely pounding with terror. Somehow I managed to put on my oxygen mask. I gripped onto my seat and the surreal thought entered my head that this was the first time I’d flown on a plane, and it might well be my last.
That moment was the most scared I have ever been. I’ve never known a fear like it.
Somehow the pilot managed to regain control of the plane and made an emergency landing. Amazingly, no one had been seriously injured. There was this strange silence when the plane finally touched down, the doors opened and everyone breathed a massive sigh of relief. We stepped off the plane one by one. My ears were still aching. Mum was shaking. Wahib was trembling. Ahmed screamed with the pain in his ears. Some of the passengers had to be treated for shock. An official from the airline told us that the plane’s cargo door had suddenly sprung open in mid-flight, resulting in a massive drop in cabin pressure. He then explained that our flight would be delayed for at least twenty-four hours. In the meantime they offered to put us up in a hotel close to the airport. We ended up spending four days in this cramped room before the company told us our rescheduled flight was ready to board.
Five days after leaving Djibouti, we finally arrived in England. I remember my first sight of London. It was late at night when the plane began its final descent towards Heathrow. I had a window seat. As we broke through the clouds I looked out and saw this incredible sea of lights, red and yellow and blue, blinking and shimmering across the land. I’d never seen anything like it. I wondered how they could have so many lights switched on at the same time. In Djibouti the power would have cut out after about five seconds. The size of the city was unbelievable – it seemed to stretch on for ever.
I had no idea then that I was looking at the city I would soon be calling home.
3
HOLLAND, ENGLAND
THERE were a lot of things that surprised me about England – but one of the biggest shocks was finding out that Holland wasn’t part of it. When we arrived in Britain, I had this idea in my head that Holland and England were part of the same country. A bit like Wales, I guess. That all I’d need to do to visit Grandma in Almelo was to
hop on a train in London and buy a ticket. Before I’d left Djibouti I’d always thought of Europe as tiny. I imagined that everything must be really close together.
To begin with, we stayed with Aunt Kinsi, my dad’s sister, in Hanworth. This was a tough corner of southwest London in the borough of Hounslow. We lived there for a few days while we got settled in. Aunt Kinsi had lived in Britain for a long time and knew the ins and outs of how things worked. She spent those early days showing my mum the ropes. After three or four days, we moved to a rented flat in Shepherd’s Bush directly overlooking the Green. We stayed there for a week or two. I remember my dad coming to visit us after work. He’d take me, Wahib and Ahmed down to the playground on the Green, where there were swings and roundabouts and slides.
I’d never used a swing before. I’d never seen anything remotely like it. Growing up in modest surroundings in Somaliland and Djibouti, there were no such things as playgrounds with swings and roundabouts and slides. Playing on that swing in Shepherd’s Bush was a big deal for me. Dad showed me how to use it: how to thrust out my legs on the rise, then quickly bend them on the way back to build up some decent momentum. It took me a few tries to properly get the hang of it. Then I was flying! Like a lot of things in my first weeks in the UK, it was an alien experience, but also an amazing one.
Those first few days in Shepherd’s Bush were a real eye-opener for me. It was like nothing I’d ever seen in Djibouti. The buildings were bigger. The cars were bigger. Everything just seemed huge. People talked in strange accents. I didn’t understand a word of English and had no idea what they were saying. I tasted chocolate for the first time. A Snickers bar. I remember taking a bite and thinking that it was the most amazing taste in the world. And the toys … wow! Back home, I owned one toy: a push-wheel thing with a stick attached to the front and lights fitted to the wheel spokes so that whenever you pushed it, the wheel would light up and flash all kinds of bright colours. Here there were computers and gadgets and action toys and all kinds of stuff. People dressed differently from back home, too. It was rare to see women wearing short skirts and high heels in Djibouti. I’d known that things would be different in Britain. I just hadn’t known how different.
I counted down the days until we’d leave for Holland to see Grandma Amina. A week or so after we had moved to the flat in Shepherd’s Bush, my dad came round one evening. Instead of taking us out to play on the Green like he usually did, he sat the family down and explained to me that I’d be starting school in a few days.
‘In Almelo?’ I asked.
My father cleared his throat and glanced at my mum. ‘Walad – my son – you’re going to go to school here. In Hounslow. You can begin there immediately.’
I was confused. ‘Maan fahmin – I don’t understand. What about Grandma?’
‘You can’t go there now, to Almelo,’ Dad said. ‘It’s not possible. You will stay here, with me, and go to school in London. You always wanted to go to a proper school, didn’t you?’
Then it hit me: I wouldn’t be living with Grandma. My parents explained that the Netherlands was this whole other country on the other side of the North Sea, and to visit there I’d need a passport, but the visas that me, Mum, Wahib and Ahmed had entered the country with didn’t permit overseas travel. It sounds crazy, but this was all news to me. I have this tendency to see things in simple terms. I try not to focus on the small print. For whatever reason, I’d automatically assumed that moving to Europe meant being reunited with Grandma Amina. I would live with her, and Hassan would join us and everything would be great. Now I was starting to see that things were a little more complicated. Once I got over the disappointment that I wouldn’t be seeing Ayeeyo for a while at least, Dad explained that there was a school not far from Aunt Kinsi’s house – Chatsworth Primary School on Heath Road. He’d already made enquiries and I could begin there immediately.
To be honest, I had mixed feelings about staying in London. On the one hand, I really wanted to go to school, mixing with all the other kids. Up to that point, I’d only studied at the madrash in Djibouti, and for me, schools were all about making new friends. Going to a British school, that would be fun. On the other hand, I had my heart set on living with Grandma. She was a big part of my life and suddenly she wasn’t there. Hassan too. I kept believing it wouldn’t be long before I saw them both again. In the meantime, we moved out of the rented flat in Shepherd’s Bush and into a house in Hounslow, close to Aunt Kinsi’s home in Hanworth.
I joined the Year Five intake at Chatsworth. Although I was only at the school for a few months, I remember it being quite small. All the other kids had been going there for years and knew each other, and I couldn’t speak any English. I struggled to make friends at the school. Mostly, I just kept to myself. In the summer I left Chatsworth, and that autumn I started at Oriel Primary School. My little brother Mahad was born the same year at West Middlesex University Hospital.
In the meantime Dad had returned to Djibouti to bring back Hassan and reunite the family. But after a fortnight he returned home empty handed. I was devastated. This also put a big strain on my parents’ marriage. I was only eight years old at the time but even then I noticed my mum and dad growing apart and becoming more distant from one another. At the time I didn’t know why Dad had come back without Hassan. He wouldn’t say much about it. Many years later, I discovered that when Dad had arrived in Djibouti, Hassan was nowhere to be found. The extended family he’d been staying with had left the city. Dad tried his hardest to look for Hassan but just wasn’t able to locate him. Two weeks passed. Still no sign of Hassan. Dad couldn’t put off coming back to the UK any longer. He had a job and a family to support. So he reluctantly gave up the search and flew back to London without Hassan. As a young kid, and not understanding the situation fully, I blamed my dad for not bringing Hassan back with him. In my mind, he was responsible for why I wasn’t reunited with my brother. Added to the fact that we never had a strong bond to begin with, those deep-rooted feelings grew stronger and I began to resent my dad. I missed Hassan daily.
I tried to focus on school. Oriel was a much better environment for me than Chatsworth. I was joining at the start of the year, so I’d have a better chance of making friends. And I had a cousin at Oriel – my wingman. His name was also Mahad, and he was our Aunt Kinsi’s son. Mahad was my age and we enjoyed the same things, shared a lot of the same interests and spent a lot of time hanging out together.
Hanworth has a reputation for being a bit rough. Most of that reputation is because of the Young Offenders Institution in neighbouring Feltham. On a Friday or Saturday night, there’s usually a fight kicking off somewhere in town, with the police getting involved. It’s also fair to say that, generally speaking, there’s an element of troubled youth in the area. There were a few kids at Oriel who liked to go around picking on others. Anyway, thanks to Mahad, I had memorized a few phrases in English ahead of my first day at school. Simple things, really, to help me get by: ‘Excuse me’, ‘Where’s the toilet, please?’ and ‘Thank you’. I also picked up another phrase: ‘C’mon then!’
When the bell rang for break-time, all of us kids charged outside to the playground. A group of kids started playing football, kicking a ball around. My eyes lit up. Of course, I immediately joined in and began tearing up and down the field, chasing after the ball. Halfway through the game, this huge kid marched over and kicked our ball away. I recognized him because Mahad had pointed him out as the hardest kid in school. He was literally twice my size. I didn’t like the fact that he’d interrupted our game, so I marched up to him and said, ‘C’mon, then!’
The kid just stood there for a moment, looking at me funny. Then he threw a punch and clocked me clean on the face. I saw red. I hit him back. Now all the other kids in the playground gathered round in a circle, cheering and yelling as we traded punches. Even though my opponent was way bigger than me, I gave him as good as I got. Eventually, the teachers pulled us apart and dragged us both to the head teacher’s o
ffice. I got a black eye and a suspension for my troubles. When I returned from my suspension, no one ever tried to intimidate me. Everyone knew about the crazy Somali kid who’d picked a fight with the hardest kid on his first day of school. That gave me a certain respect with my classmates. They knew I wasn’t weak.
Mahad showed me the ropes around the school. He was good like that. We sat next to each other in class. We might have been cousins, but we’d grown up in very different worlds. Mahad had been born in Britain, he spoke fluent English and he had dreams of becoming a singer when he was older. He was more British than Somali. Having him around made it easier for me to settle at Oriel, for sure. More than anything, I just wanted to have friends.
One of my earliest memories of my days at school in England is when I invited a classmate over to my house after school. I didn’t know this kid very well; I just desperately wanted to introduce my parents to my ‘new white friend’. My mum liked to be told about guests coming over and didn’t like strangers randomly showing up unannounced. She wasn’t exactly thrilled when I showed up one day after school proudly showing off my new friend. While this other kid sat in the front room, Mum pulled me to one side.