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My name is Mohammed Abdullahi. I am originally from Somalia.
I left Somalia in 1992. That was- That was the time they were starting the wars, civil
wars, the tribalism problem. Because before we had a government. But after the 1990s,
we never had anything. So life earlier was better.
I was trained as a physician assistant. I took three years course in Somalia, and during
the civil war I was assisting malnutrition, mainly mother and child health and emergencies,
and all those evaluation cases. And when I arrived in Kenya, I arrived as
a refugee in Kenya in 1992. At that time I went to the refugee camp called Otaang refugee
camp in Coast Mombasa. In the camp I practiced my knowledge. I was in the camp clinic. As
a clinician I used to see in children or the mothers malnutrition, dehydration, and malaria.
These common diseases. I used to treat, although I also got some seminars to upgrade my experience.
And then I came to Nairobi-town to register for my knowledge.
Since I was in Kenya, I was practicing. I was working in clinics, nursing homes, hospitals.
So, yeah. Since 2009, 2009 I arrived here. Since then I don’t practice.
Since I came to US, I have started now to upgrade my knowledge. Learn more about American
culture and how to understand the accent they speak, the American accent. Because some of
them I could not understand my first time. Sometimes I would have to say, repeat three
times. Sorry, say it again? Sorry, say it once more? But these days it seems since I
started really working hard to learn English, I’m catching up with it.
We arrived from, we arrived here one year ago. When we discovered the difficulties we
were having, the language barrier, we find out about North Side Learning Center, then
we were admitted, me and my five children.
Luckily we are really benefitting, because my children can at least understand now, read,
write, and do their homework. And they are assisted in their homework because they go
to public schools and afternoons when they come home with their books of homework from
the school they are helped here. When they go back home they are really saying, We are
relieved because we did our homework. When they go back to school they are given good
results because they did their homework. The teachers say to me, Your children are really
working hard. Without the support of North Side Learning Center, it could not be possible
for them to really do it.
We hope to continue our studies. Me, I hope to also go to college level, to sit for the
exams so that they can help me to upgrade, to learn more so that I can progress farther,
to go to university or other schools. Every day I come so that I can continue my learning
so I can make that effort.
I would like to go back into medicine, although America has different systems than Africa.
And I would like to really try to look for that system so that I can get help with that.
Yeah. I would like to go back to medicine. If I get someone to encourage me, if I get
support, I know that, yeah.