Luul's Story

Luul’s charm struck me the first morning I practiced the alphabet with her. I held up a flashcard with the letter ‘H’ on it. Having sped through the first seven letters, her stream of knowledge had momentarily changed current, and she was stuck. I watched her brown eyes trace the lines of the letter over and over again….what was it? “H…H…H!” I said in my mind, “I know she knows it.” She started to mutter the ‘h’ sound…”huh, huh.” She’s got it now, it’s coming to her…I watched all the cogs start to pick up speed. “H!” Luul declared in her most confident voice. Her wide smile spread across her face and both of us were filled with pride. She got it, and we shared a chuckle of relief. Now on to the next card. “I, J, K,” she continued. Luul was born in 1967 in Kismaayo, Somalia. As a little girl, she and her older brothers tended to her family’s livestock. Looking after their goats and sheep was all she ever knew, and when gunmen stole every last one, her family was left with no way to make money. Luul was nearly 40 years old when she and her son, Adan moved to a refugee camp in Kenya in 2005, leaving their home in Kismaayo behind. Luul chose to take her son Adan with her because of his disability, however, her husband and four other children stayed in Somalia. Adan had an unusual lump on his arm, which doctors remedied by amputating his limb, and he is left with only his right arm now. Luul remembers the humanitarian workers at the camp being very helpful to her and Adan, but she also recalls the brutal heat. The camp was in a very remote area, she says, and the climate was miserable. Luul’s dearest friend and companion, Fatuma is almost always by her side. Fatuma and Luul spindled a connection after helping one another in the camp in Kenya together, and have since been through the journey to America and the resettlement process with one another as well. They currently live together, and are taking English classes at CRIS. They are a dynamic, joyful pair, these two, and their conversations are usually speckled with flashes of their gorgeous smiles and a seemingly choreographed, simultaneous throwing back of their heads when they cackle. Luul’s work ethic is admirable, as she comes in to CRIS every day with the previous vocabulary copied several times in her notebook, and her sentences even more flowing than the day before. It is obvious that she and Fatuma are practicing together every evening at home. And probably laughing when they get stuck on ‘H’ every time. This is Luul and Fatuma’s first time being students, and they work hard at learning English so they can one day get a job. Luul’s not picky when it comes to employment. She’ll do any kind of labor, and if she exhibits the same effort she shows in her classes, any employer would be lucky to have her. You wouldn’t be able to tell, but behind Luul’s grinning eyes and genuine smile, she does not rest easy at night, as she thinks about her four children still in Somalia. Just as soon as the interpreter relays my questions about her children to her, I notice an immediate change in her expression. Her upward wrinkles suddenly weaken, and she is as serious as I’ve ever seen her. Her eyes start to well, but she holds it in with incredible composure. She is a mother without her babies, and wants more than anything to see their faces and know that they’re okay. She remains confident that they will join her in Columbus one day, and grateful that she at least had Adan, and that she is able to help him through his days. Eight years after arriving in the refugee camp in Kenya, Luul and her son Adan had the opportunity to go to the United States. She was happy to go to America, and although she did not have any relatives in the United States, she felt very welcomed by people upon her arrival in Columbus. Luul has continued to find comfort in her new home within her first months here, and finds the most solace in her fellow Somalis. There is a special connection us Somalis share, she says, and when others see me waiting for the bus or walking to the store, they often pull over and give me a ride in their car. When they do this, they are no longer strangers, and value one another as friends in their community from then on.Written by CRIS Resettlement Intern Kelsey Ullom