School's janitor, valedictorian share an unlikely bond

13wmaz
By Justin Murphy
Saturday, June 27, 2015

advertisements

ROCHESTER, N.Y. - Jamal Abdullahi needed a letter to save his life. It would be addressed to his father, exiled somewhere — he did not know where, exactly — in Somalia.

Its message would be: Please come for me. But Jamal did not know how to write. He had never been to school.

He was 18 years old, detained at a military training camp cleared from the jungle in southeastern Ethiopia, being prepared to fight in a war he wanted desperately to escape. Awake at 5 a.m. every day to run, to learn to shoot, to crawl and climb, to run again.

His father was a fighter and a religious leader, greatly respected. If Jamal could contact him, he would surely intercede and free him from captivity.

Jamal had never been in a classroom, but his mother had taught him to be resourceful. For instance, when he was about 12 years old, the army of Ethiopian dictator Haile Selassie threatened to kill the children of rebel fighters like Jamal's father. Every night, she sent him and his brothers to sleep in different houses throughout the village to avoid being found together.

Resourceful. He needed help with the letter. He asked around the camp, quietly: Who could write in Oromo, or Arabic, or Amharic?

He found someone and the letter was written. His father came, pulled him from the ranks and took him across the border into Somalia, to safety. That was in 1976.

Home
Email

Hiiraan Online