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Nawaal Khalif

July 19, 2020

Once I Turned 15 Short Story

I was born in Somalia and grew up with my aunt in a small village. My aunt was like a mother to me, and her oldest son was like a father to me. Where I lived, I would only see the people I lived with because everyone lived so far apart from each other.

In the village, my only job was to take care of my aunt’s goats, camels, and sheep. Every day from the time I turned six, I would take them out of their pens at sunrise. When I returned at night, I had to milk the goats because it wasn’t healthy for the goats to keep milk in them. Sometimes, if hyenas or lions ate the goats I was caring for, or if I lost goat in the forest, my aunt would beat me with a stick, abuse me, and at the end of the night without eating she would make me sleep with two hundred goats. The goats would step on me all night if I fell asleep, which I didn’t like. When I knew I lost a goat, I would run away from home and sleep outside. I stayed away for days sometimes. I came back days later, starving and tired, and would then apologize to my aunt.

One day, my biological father came to visit me in the village and bought some clothes as a gift. I had no idea who he was, so I hid around the corner to hear what the adults were talking about. I overheard the man talking to my aunt say I needed to go live with my biological mother. That was the moment I discovered that my aunt and her son weren’t actually my biological parents. I was so shocked and surprised by this discovery, but I mostly felt relief, because I knew why I was being mistreated. I had many questions for this stranger who called himself my father. I was relieved at the thought that I might have a mother who would love me and not treat me badly. All my emotions were running into one big feeling of freedom. I knew it wasn’t my fault that she was so bitter towards me, but I was thankful for her raising me even though I wasn’t her biological daughter.

A few months later, my dad introduced me to my mother over the phone. She told me that she had a new family in America, and I should go to Kenya to study for a while. I didn't know what she meant by studying, but I had to do what she said if it meant that afterward, I could meet her.