Faduma Mohamed, age 16, Said Ahmed, age 15, Minneapolis MN,
July 12, 2004 Robin Bowman

Faduma Mohamed, age 16 I believe in God. My religion is Islam. Religion is very important in my life. It helps me get through every day. I believe that if there is God, you can always trust, you can always ask anything. Your life will be easier… I pray five times a day just to worship my God… so, I’m really happy. I love the school here… I really enjoy school since I was a kid. I’m really interested in math and biology. I love my teachers… they always there for me. I’m a good student. Yep… Straight A’s. I work really hard on it. If I can be somebody else… I don’t know. A hero… Ghandi. You know Ghandi? “You must be the change you most seek.” … Like, if you want to do a thing, you should not wait for someone to do it. You should do it… Said Ahmed, age 15 When I left Somalia, there was a war going on… The war was happening around us… as soon as you get up you see bullets around. People killing people… We went from Somalia to Kenya… We walked. It took us like a couple of months, three, or two. I remember my first day in America. It was winter. I had no jacket. All I had was shorts, sandals and a black t-shirt. It was so cold. I didn’t even know what snow was. As soon as I step on it, my legs got colder. I like living here…it’s peaceful… Back there people used to kill each other… Here people respect each other. They show love, and your dreams come true. Here if you work hard, you get whatever you want. But here, when I go school I see black kids cursing at Somalians. I see white people hating Native Americans. People hate you and then you have to hate them back… I don’t want to do that. I want to be friend with everybody. We all should get along.