 Thank you very much everyone for coming my name is Abdul Rashid Hussain I work with the USCRI United States Committee for Refugee and Immigrants Office and I'm a Somali elder and I want to thank everybody for coming today and you know be with us in this event so my responsibility would just be to introduce you guys and then introduce our friends here the panel on the desk and then once we do the introduction each one will give a short story of you know something that will be very relevant to their lives get to know them a little bit and then I will call Lori Stubbran who is our colleague put a lot of efforts you can meet her as well unless you will finally welcome Brad who did the heavy lifting of the so that will be our agenda and then we'll open up for Q&A for anybody who want to ask any questions and it will be able to respond on the family there is Muhammad Abdul Aziz Muhammad Abdul Aziz will be interpreting for our sister producer and Abdul Aziz is the son of producer he has taken a very big role here in the translation interpretation to make this a success and then we have Abdul Hamid Muhammad is also one of the writers and he will also give us a story and then here is my good friend Shadia Muhammad these are all people who came together to make this a success so with that remarks I want to acknowledge everybody who had come here to this event very good friends we expected a larger crowd than these but still we think people are still coming it's a Sunday many of our friends are working and we will accept their apology for those who do not come so thank you very much again for all of you okay and again my name is Abdul Aziz and I'll be the master of ceremony for today so I'll begin with Muhammad on the far left just to say a few words and then you will give to produce and welcome this way thank you very much first and I'm the artist who worked in the cover book and I also worked in the translation with the author and it's really great opportunity to work in these stores and so many things to learn from it so there's not much to say about me more than just listening to the three stores we have so we go to produce and I'll translate for you thank you one minute we'll give now the floor to produce Abdul the name for those up yo in the story she's the only female in the story we have today and she's the mother of seven kids and she moved to the United States in 2014 and I was almost like about be 10 years and more than we talked about so I'm here today to share my story from beginning Somalia and then moving to Yemen after the war started in Somalia and becoming a mother of seven children's and so many stories so many challenges went through I'm here today to share these stories and challenges with you which So, I'm so proud to be here for my children starting from Muhammad and the bag they're proud to be here for them and share my story and my thoughts on this story. Thank you. Hi. My name is Abdul Hamid. My profession... My name is Abdul Hamid. I come to Eurethistan in 2009. Before my profession, I was born in Kashakia. Animal, animal, or animal. Come, go. Goat. She, yeah. So, Abdul Hamid says his lifestyle back in the country was camel and goat farmer. Farming a little bit different. The way people do over there is a little bit more different from what people do here. Brad is a good farmer, but it's more or less different. So, the farming day is people cross between three countries. So, the Somali geography is the people who are between three countries. So Somalia is a Somali Somali and then we have Somali Ethiopia and then we have Somali Kenya. So that porous line between the three neighbouring countries is where people flock. So people just follow where the rains are and the pasture is. So once it rains in Somalia, people will flock over there. When the rains are on the other side of Kenya, they come to the Kenyan side. When it's Ethiopia, they go, so they are borderless. They just follow where the rain is. So basically, that's the life Abdul Hamid grew up. So, he says being a camel or a goat farmer, it's a little bit different from what people do here in Somalia. So, he says being a camel or a goat farmer, so he says being a camel or a herdsman, camels are a little bit different. So what they do is, like the cows and the goats, they go during the morning and then they come back in the evening. So, the camels are a little bit different. So, pretty much they are cared for by young men. They will go during the day and go as far as you can imagine. And then they come as late as midnight or sometimes 1am to 2am in the morning. So, he said to get the water is a long distance. So sometimes it takes 2 days, 3 days just to go and get water and then come back. So, he said he was young and late at night they were going to go and take the animals to the water and then they fell asleep. So, he said he fell asleep and the camels continue. They don't care about who is following them. And then he said after 1 hour he just woke up and he looked around the animals were gone and there were a lot of lions in that place. So, he was so fearful of the lions or the wild animals and on the other side he did not know what to say that the camels were lost. So, he just started running up and down and it's very late at night. So, he did not know what to do. So, he said he ran the fastest he can imagine all his life just to go get the animals because he did not know where to go so he was just running all over just to get the camels. So, he said one of the saddest moments in his life he said there was one of the camels which was his he used to like it but he said some of them are wild. So, he said he was trying to milk and then she just got upset and then she kicked him so hard. He fell down, woke up and then he said she caught him by the head and she started to leave the air like his legs were right there. So, he said life with camels is not very easy. It's very tough. So, he says he has a lot of stories but because of the time he will give to his friend Shadia. Thank you so much. Can you hear me? Can you hold it closer please? Oh, you hear me now? I was born in a small village which is called Makalango and that village I stayed in time my life until the Civil War broke out and I like that village a lot. The second one is Burlington, Vermont. There are most of my kids born in Burlington, Vermont. So, there is a general and if I talk about general Somali ban too generally and Somali ban too as everyone knows we are Somalis, we live there for a long time and we are still not recognized as a citizen. I'm living here almost 19 years. I'm a citizen, my kids, they are all citizens. The difference is Somalia believe that Somali ban too are not real Somalis. We never been in the government system. What they need us was that they conscript us to use as a military purpose to ship us to the war zone like 1977. Almost 5,000 Somali ban too died in there and between the war between Somali and Ethiopia and never got higher. Before the Civil War I was a family. My father had two farms. We were in a terrible situation even though we were not in the government but we were survivors. We were just working hard and we were dependent on ourselves. The other Somalis were like they were in the government system. They were getting money, they were coming abroad. None of the Somali ban ever came to US I think and 20 or 30 years ago. But in the 1960s the other Somalis were coming to US for education or for general to get more military training or whatever. After the Civil War broke out we were in minority in Somalia. We never had guns, big guns. We thought that when they overthrown the dictator President Mohammad Ziyad Bari we thought that they will establish a government and the government will stay the way it was. But that never happened. The government totally collapsed and the country automatically changed it to the tribalism and people were fighting each other. As a tribe everyone wants to be a president. So the both majority clans, Awile and Darot they share one idea. They don't agree with each other. But they share one idea. That idea is Somali ban to remain the way they are not to gain or to be like other Somalis. They share that idea. We are called as Kakane Darot. Meaning the Darot has a king hair. The Darot called us Kamasle Hawie. Meaning the Hawie has big nose and we are not both. We are not Hawie, we are not Darot. We are Somali banters. Because they want to make a justification to kill us because they don't come just to kill you. They say you are Hawie. You relate it to Hawie. That's why Darot is killing me. Hawie comes, he says I am related to Darot. He is killing me. He give me a name which is called Kakane Darot. The Darot give me a name which is called Kamasle Hawie. They both destroyed us. They forced us to leave our prospective cities and villages. We moved to Kenya. We stayed in Kenya for a long time. I appreciate the United States Embassy in Nairobi. I applied asylum. They approved my case. When I told my history they approved me. I know the guy who was interviewing me. His name is Charles Flinda. When I told my entire story he cried. He cried. He said I don't have any other choice except to take you to the United States to feel safe. My family and I. My story is very long. Most of my story in the book, if you read the book you will find out a lot of my story. So I want to conclude here. Thank you for listening. Thank you very much Shadee for that emotional story. I am sure many other stories will be in the book. So I want to invite Muhammad Al Aziz to talk a little bit about the cover story of the cover of the book. So maybe you can share with us a little bit. Hello. Again. So yeah, I started working with the writer Brad Ear and I helped him with the translator first. I translated most of the story of my mother and the story of Abdul Hamid. Then after this they asked me to do the cover book and it was really not an easy thing to do because I know the three stories. I know the three people. I know Shater, I know everyone and capture an image match with their stories and what they're saying it was really difficult to do but after bone-listening and learning a lot from their stories I figured out a way to just come with this image you see in the cover but most likely I appreciate more the learning from this journey and their stories and what they even tell in the book what they said, all of it was interesting and I didn't hear these stories from my mother before so I was thankful for the opportunity of the book maker talk for a little bit but she didn't speak before she didn't tell us anything she didn't say maybe because she didn't like mentioning the stories that what she saw before but I thought it was really important to say it to tell my siblings to hear everything happen over there so they learn and they know that this is a second chance and we have to take it seriously but most of the stories in the book are really interesting and I learn a lot from it and this is the most part I would like to share that to you look into the story what they say and what they've been through maybe you will learn something that helps you to become better and be better in life Thank you very much I'm going to give the floor to Laurie Stavram now to come and say a few words and then invite our writer Brad Laurie It's so wonderful to see you all here This book took years and eight hours to come together and it was really inspired initially we started working together everybody here supporting Brad as he wrote the novel North and it became clear that there were important stories to learn from and when you think about how many stories you know from your family you wish you knew and then you think well these people have come from a country most of their children have never had the opportunity to be there they might have been born in a refugee camp they don't know what happened before they might have been born in the US how important is it for them to know the stories of their parents and their people the other day when Shadir was looking at the book the finished, the published book for the first time with his children he was saying the story is here today and it will be here 200 years from now and so if you're Somali you know it's your story and hopefully it encourages other people to start sharing their story and if you're not Somali it's a way to get to understand more who is in the community and much less putting people in a box much more personal so the cover that Mohammed made has these three camels and each of those are a storyteller on their journey so it's very symbolic that way I was hoping that maybe if I do so I would say a few more words because she was very short so I'm going to embarrass her right now and ask if she could just say a few more words and then after that she'd probably come up Shadir Shadir and Mohammed they all here they know how to speak English they express themselves and I wish I can do this for myself but I'm going to need help here My story started being born in Somalia and lived with my family with two other brothers and I lived with my father I didn't see much back then I was young and most of my challenges started during the war started and we had to move to Yemen and then from there I became a mother and my life has changed and there starts the really challenges Mohammed was the first and when I had him first everything still was fine and I liked the motherhood life then I had Abdullah coming and still was like normal there's not much happening in them from Abdulaziz when he's the first son she's like the third one and he had this little she's like the third one she's like the third one she's like the third one and he had this ability this when it started it started to get hard and challenge So my husband tried to fly out of the country for a better opportunity and he got caught and they shipped him back to Somalia and we split it there and then from there I had to become the mother and the father at the same time so I had to be the mom at home and then when I sent kids to school I go to work I start working in the morning and then I had second job which is afternoon so I worked the whole day and then at night I go back to take care of my kids and the hard time I've been through it was hard for me in the beginning but now I notice that it's something I learned from and it's something makes me better today So we went through the challenges in Yemen together and we stay strong until the war again happened in Yemen in 2010 so we applied for an application in the United States and our application was approved in 2014 in 2014 they took me and my children to Romania for 6 months of camp because the US government they can't go to Yemen so you have to go to Romania so they can meet you and they review your case then from there you can start to change and see a different perspective of the world So after we met we met with the the United States government and the people who review your case they decided to send us to Romania which is the first time we hear this word in Romania it was complete out of belief and then we thought in that moment that we're going to go bigger city and as we see the United States and the TV so we were expecting to go somewhere like but we saw Romania and without knowing without knowing anything about we decided just to take and go and I remember the first night when we arrived to here and the first man we met was a Durshid of same so from the beginning we were actually leaving Yemen the people you used to see every day has changed because you flee to a different country and now we start seeing different people and she started to care from this time it was like something she is unusual for her and she never knew about and until we arrived to Romania this old journey we were all waiting for people that we know they look like us at the beginning and just to feel comfortable the first man was like actually a Durshid which makes it a little bit easier and get a little bit take it easy when you come and when we saw him we were like very comfortable to arrive in Romania so the first time we arrived actually snowed in Vermont and that was the first time we see snow we couldn't wait until morning and we had to go to check this white thing actually covering up the whole entire area but we waited until the morning so all of us went outside to play together and we all got sick together so so the first challenge here was we arrived in the second floor house and I had a disabled kid he can walk and he's on wheelchair so we had immediately to look for a different house and then she remember that day too she had an appointment at the hospital to start the process to get into the society and then supposed to be the translator being there for her to help her with the language and the translator didn't show up and that was the first challenge she had it was like okay now this is new language and I have to be with it so there she picked up this as a first challenge and learning new language but that was for her it was the third time she was born in Somalia her first language and then she moved to Yemen in young age and then she had to learn the Arabic language to survive and then come into Vermont it was third language she's still working on it it was take a little bit of time so it's going to be more fun I really hope you have it let me tell you this is going to be something to learn and with a lot of work people are going to remember how to speak a family I'm sure sure it's going to be something After a couple of years, I'm glad that people like Rashid Hussain, my friend Luley, other people we met, Lori was from the first people we met in Burma and we've been friends since then. She said, I came to Burma thinking that we only had a small family, but after a few years it's become a big family with a lot of friends and this is what always I hope for that just to live in somewhere safe, somewhere where I can educate my children and I have better life. And I'm glad that I have now and this is like the thing I'm happy for and this like the reason I do this just to share my part of coming from hardship to a good end. The stories are a really long story and a lot of things to talk about and you can't take your time, but you just want to know more about their stories and what happened before in Somaria and what happened in Yemen and along what happened to Burma. You can find all the stories in the book. Thank you very much for being brave and sharing all these good stories. So let me take this opportunity now to welcome our good friend, the writer who has put a lot of efforts into the book. Please welcome. I just want to thank everybody for coming and thank the storytellers. It's been an amazing journey. It's five years. We've been working on this pre-COVID. We were going to meet in person and then COVID happened and so we met on Zoom for five years and we got to know each other but mostly I got to know this story and the stories are incredible. I'm a fiction writer so it sort of surpassed anything that a fiction writer could imagine. The epic journeys that these three people have gone through and also the next generation that has gone through because Mohammed, for instance, he grew up in Yemen. He was a Yemeni. So he's learning about Somalia, too, through hearing these stories. But what's amazing about, the one thing that's incredible when you read these stories is just learning about what their lives were like before. They got straddled with that label, refugee or asylum seeker, that these were people who had whole lives and community and culture, jobs, family, just like you and me. And then the terrible thing happened and they suddenly have lost their identity as an individual. And so part of telling these stories was a way to regain that personhood and to show all of these, to show people what an asylum seeker is, that there's a whole life that they have before they became that label. And I'm just so proud of the work we did together. And I want to thank Lorde. I want to thank Unyielding Press and Kim McQueen and Riley who is now here. And Mohamed for doing the cover, which is just stunning. I mean, isn't that cover stunning? I mean, because Mohamed review it shyly. Mohamed, I knew this about Mohamed. You'll learn this in the book that he was like a semi-professional soccer player in Yemen. That he, you know, Fardosa had these kids and two with disability and they were, you know, poor. They had no money. She worked for everything they had. They had, the father was a gun. And, you know, one day Mohamed came home and gave his mother some money. And she's like, how'd you get this? And he said, oh, I'm playing soccer. And most kids in school, like they ask money for sneakers, most Yemenis. And here he comes, he's playing soccer. It didn't make sense. Like, how are you giving, why are you giving me money for playing soccer? Or he was so good that, like, these private people, private school found him and said you could come to our private school if you play soccer for us. And he was just like the street kid. And he got this, like, elite private education that only the rich people in Yemen would get. And he was hired on to play for a professional club. And all this was happening. So he doesn't talk about this in the same way he didn't talk about the fact that he's an artist. And so after beating him two years into our relationship, he kind of revealed that, oh, yeah, he does some art, he plays around. And then he showed me and Donna his work. They were like, he's real good. And so he asked him if he would do the cover. And he asked him, so he's a man of many talents. And I could go on, like, I'm going to stop. And I thank Donna, my wife, who took the photographs in the book. And Lori, of course, for making it all happen. And I'll do rush it and send it to you because there's sort of an inchpane of all this. And thank you all for coming. I'm sure I've missed something. Thank you very much, Brett. Without you, these things would not have been possible. So I'll open the floor for Q&A. If anyone has a question for the panel, we'll be welcoming and we'll be able to answer. So the floor is open. Anyone who has a question can ask. I want you to hear in Vermont now that you're here. What makes you happy about it? Whether it's work, your school. I wish I said you'd share the luck in your home. We came to Vermont and we never know that. I, myself, never had Vermont. When I was in Africa, I knew New York, California, Boston. But I never had Vermont. When I came to Nairobi, when they told me you are going to Vermont, I asked the person who told me that, is it in America? Yeah, he said, yeah, it is in America. When I came here, I liked it. The first person I saw was Judy at the airport. And my host family, Chris Miller and Linda Miller, they live in North Hero. They are a very, very nice family. They hosted me. Then it was December. I never seen snow before. The situation was really difficult for me when I have snow. I got a job. I got a bike to go to the job and to where my job is. In the morning, I went to my job and I worked. Evening time, when I came back home, I got lost. And the storm there, and the big storm. It was three o'clock. I was going everywhere, downtown, El Vido Avenue. Three times I came to where I lived. I got back. Then I have seen all the miles. I said, let me ask this guy. I was speaking a little English. It was very little. I asked him, I am from Africa. I am here only one month. I get lost. I don't know where to go. Can you please help me to treat my home? He said, of course. Where do you live? I said, I live in Forty Interve, Interve Avenue. Oh, you see that light? Next is where you live, Forty Interve. It was around six o'clock, almost six o'clock. Then that was my worst day. But otherwise it was good. People were happy. People were helping us. They were bringing explosives. They were taking us to grocery stores when we needed. They were helping us. I start forgetting what I have seen before. That's the situation in Vermont. A lot of people were calling me and they were saying, wait, here is a lot better than Vermont. Come here. I said, no, I stay here. I like it. BRRP helped me to apply a job. The first job was just temporary for three months in Vienna. Was cleaning. Then they applied me another job. That job is still there. I am a supervisor now. I get an experience. They treat me good. I stay there until now. I am now a grandfather. Five kids. I have five grandkids. I am Vermont now. Vermont. So that's my message to all of you. This is about the freedom of expression. I don't know. Marka? Since he came to Vermont, he has never been to another state. So he loves this state because it's very peaceful. People are very generous. And he said all the people he has met are very kind and loving. So he's not thinking of moving to another state. He will stay here forever. I didn't see him. I didn't see him. He is very kind and loving. And very kind. And he is very kind. All the people have met. I don't know what to say. He is very kind. And he is very kind and loving. And he is very kind and kind. So he said he came sick when he came to Ramat and he said he loves the weather so much and he said he got a lot of care especially the medical team so they were able to give him good medication and now he says he is very healthy so he likes how he stays so generous when it comes to compared to other states So he says he lived in Takuma refugee camp where life was very tough and he said they did not have good medical care he had a lot of injuries back from the country and he did not get good medical care but when he came to the US he got a lot of good care especially the medical and he says these are the best ways when it comes to human life people so much very helpful when it comes to helping people so he said when I compare where I came from and where I am today if I would have stayed where I was maybe I would have been dead but today God takes to God he is alive so he says if you don't think enough the people who help you you will never be thankful to your God so you must be thankful to the people first who help you and then you can be thankful to your God and yeah why the child like that yeah and that has really inspired him to come forward and write a book about his story and he says he expects many other people will come forward and to give their stories he says he is very happy he says he is very happy yes Dr Green thank you so much for sharing your stories I admire your resilience tremendously I want to ask you a little bit about loss though because as much as things were hard where you were when people speak your language and when people share the same customs sometimes it's hard to come to a place that's really different so I'm wondering what's the thing you miss the most and what's the thing that's been hardest to adjust to good question so what's the thing you miss the most and what's the thing you miss the most and what's the thing you miss the most this is saying because you grew up in Somalia when they were civil and especially for women it was very tough parents were very fearful of their daughters and wives you know to be raped so that's how she grew up and coming to the United States you know so peaceful and people are so much respected she doesn't feel so much that she has missed back home other than you know the weather maybe but that's what she says she doesn't feel that she has missed back home she doesn't feel that she has missed back home she doesn't feel that she has missed back home So at the meeting is giving a very good story, I wish we had time. So he says he misses the camels first. And he says the camels used to walk around and graze between boundaries, but here he says he has not seen camels since they have come, and he says all animals are indoors, so that's the sad part. He wants to give freedom to the animals, for them to walk freely. Then he's giving a story, he says in the Civil War, there were these militias who were killing people, and then he said one night he came to a family and they welcomed him. They were sleeping, and then one a.m. in the morning the owner came to wake them up, and she said she was so frightened and she was literally frightened, and they said what happened? So he said these guys were coming and I'm afraid they're going to kill you. And he said someone will not kill you because he knows you've done something wrong to him. He will just kill you because of the club you belong to. So that's the sad part. So he said they did not know what to do, and the lady was crying because she was the host. So what they did is they started to talk between him and his friend, and he said let's get, you know, let's cut the tree, and then pretend we have a gun, you know, also, and then we tell them to come, we are ready to fight. So that's what they did, and then his friend collected some woods, and then they started to make, you know, these commotions, pretending that they also had a gun. So this lady went there and whispered to them, and she said these guys are loaded, they also have a gun, so if you fight, we can die in between. So the guys were fearful, and they ran away. So that was the only way they could escape. And then they left. As they went along, he said on their way, there was another militia on the other side, and then there were lions on the other side. So they had to choose between the militia and where the lions were, and he said we chose the lions instead. So they had to go to the lion side because he said because he knows traveling at night, it was easier for him to face the lions than the human being with a gun. So that's how he went and was able to chase the lions and they went his own way. Why were the lions? Thank you. So I'm really saying he never had a seat that she waited for because he was crossing between three countries, and at least he got the U.S. seat when he came to the U.S. Yes. Any questions? Do you want to sign books up there? One of the people came, where do you want people? Maybe you could buy the book from Kim and then bring it up to them to sign. And thank you all for coming.