User talk:Abdigani

Abdigani Mohamud (born in January 1, 1993 in Nairobi Kenya) is a Somalian mixed with Ethiopian.



Abdigani Mohamud had such a hard time understanding people in his life, He always wanted to change whats wrong in this world but it seemed impossible. In 1998 Abdigani was unrolled to school, he loved going to school. Abdigani was always doing good in school. He went to school in Kenya until fourth grade. So he left to the United States to find more education and a better life, so he wrote a letter when he was a sophomore.

I am writing this letter to bring light to the extenuating circumstances that pertain to my academics and personal life. During my school years my grades were quite poor, however, if you consider the situations and circumstances that I have experienced, it is my sincere hope that you will understand what I have gone through and grant me the opportunity to become a student at U-DUB University.

I was born in Mogadishu, Somalia in the early 90’s in the middle of the intense civil war between the Somali government and the rebels. The rebels started over- running the Somali government forces and started killing people, raping young females and looting their houses. Our house was one of the houses that was hit by rebels. They took our house and killed one of my uncles. But most of my family, my three sisters, my older brother and I, were able to escape the city with the help of my father and mother.

After our escape, we all moved to a refugee camp in Mandera, Kenya which was thousands miles a way from the civil war or so we thought. It was only a few months later that the war came to the camp where we were staying and the bloodshed began once again.

I spent most of my childhood living in that camp as a refugee and every second of it was like living in Hell. Seeing your neighbour dying from hunger or getting shot by a member of a different tribe was an eveyday occurrence. I have vivid memories of seeing people getting killed and girls being raped by the rebels. The one thing that kept me going everyday was the joy I had of going to school, even though it was almost 20 miles  away from our camp. I was one of the best students in my school and this feeling of pride was the only positive in what was otherwise an indescribably horrible childhood.

After school I played soccer with my siblings and friends. I soon found out that sports was not just a game that I played. It was something much bigger. I found that I could use sports to help me escape the harsh realities that surrounded my everyday life and just enjoy myself while I was playing. But then one day my sister, found a way to get our family to America. She filed for an immigration passport to allow us entry to the United States. After a couple years, we were allowed to emigrate to America. We landed in Columbus, Ohio where we rented a three bedroom apartment in what turned out to be one of the worst neighborhoods in Ohio. Drug dealers, prostitutes and violence were an everyday thing in our neighborhood. I had significant problems getting myself accustomed to the culture in America because it was so different than the one I had left in my homeland. The major problem I had was with the  language barrier since English was not the language that I was taught back home. In addition to all of the obstacles I was facing, my parents split up just before I began my freshman year of school. I found it very hard to deal with the stress of all of these things and not have your father at home to help you. I eventually became depressed and no longer cared about most of the things I had previously deemed important. Rather than achieving good grades, just finding the time to attend school became very difficult  because I had to get to a job to help my single mom pay the house bills. Most of the time I used to get up in the morning and look for yard work, then go to school. In spite of my many problems, I was able to make it through my classes by just showing up and passing my finals. Doing school work was an almost impossible task for me because I didn’t have any friends at school to help me with my work, and I didn’t know who to ask for help with my homework, but I persevered and just kept on working hard to get my things straight.It was not until the end of my 5th grade year of school that I started catching up with my classmates  and surpassing them in a lot of academic ways. I did so well that year that I passed all of my classes which includes six courses: math,science,history,reading and writing. Things still were not that good in my family because my dad used to come to our house angry and start conflicts with my mom. My mom eventually got tired of my dad’s tirades, and she decided to move the whole family to Seattle, Washington. It took my family almost three months to find a place to live after we arrived in Seattle, and when we finally did settle in, it was almost the end of the school year. Still I was able to get enrolled at Aki Kurose Middle School and I thought I did reasonably well in only a few months of school.

That summer I transferred to Ingraham High School because my mom believed that they had a reputation for excellence in academics. I had finally found what I needed to achieve success in school. I began to excel in both my classwork and in my new found passion, soccer. I was selected JV in my only season that I ever played soccer, and I had a G.P.A. of almost 4.0 in my last semester of high school. I have gone through a lot of hardships just to get to this point in my life. I have had to accomplish a lot in order to try and turn my life around and achieve what I have already. I sincerely want to be successful, and I just want to be given that one chance at continuing to progress. I know I cannot fail in university because I cannot fail my three brothers,and sisters and mostly I cannot fail my mom. I know they are all looking up to me to see how I, their older brother, will do in college. I really appreciate this great chance that U-DUB is giving me to do the one thing that I have always dreamed of doing, which is going to a big university like Simon Fraser. I want to attend U-DUB because it is one of the best research universities in the world, and I want to take full advantage of that and get a degree from the Health Sciences Department. I would eventually like to go back home to Africa one day and help the poor and long-suffering people by giving them a chance to live in health and happiness for one more day in their lives. Thank you allowing me the opportunity to apply.

Sincerely, Mohamud Abdigani