The Story of My Early Life: My Odyssey Through American College and Culture — Part III
By Abdisalam Garjeex — 09/10/2024
The Story of My Early life:- When I Was Twenty Years Old — Part I
The Story of My Early Life:- My Adventure to Germany — Part II
While in Germany, I called my father back home and a few of my relatives and convinced them to finance $5,000 to my education in America for the first year. My next task was to get a student visa; I contacted a friend who was in upstate New York, attending the State University of New York-New Paltz and requested his help in arranging a student visa for me to enter the United States. After waiting four long months, I was finally admitted SUNY-New Paltz and received a letter addressed to the US Consulate office in Bonn, Germany to facilitate my travel. I remember the day exactly, it was a sunny, Wednesday afternoon on July 15th, 1981 when I opened the letter. It was time to start packing.
I first arrived in this small town nearly forty three years ago and close to four years after completing my secondary education in Somalia of which two years I spent in Odessa, Ukraine–a popular Military training destination for the former Soviet Union, located by the black sea and the other two years working as a civil servant by the now-defunct Somali Airlines. Both endeavors ended prematurely for reasons beyond my control. My military officer’s training in the Soviet Union ended in 1977 when Somalia severed both political and military relations with Russia during the Ogaden War which led to the leaders of the USSR expelling all Somalis from their blocs as it posed an obvious conflict of interest with their support of Ethiopia. My subsequent attempt with Somali Airlines was also terminated after inept and hostile management forced me to quit and leave the country. After these losses, I was eager for a change of fortune and determined to make a move to study in America work.
New Paltz is a small university town located in upstate New York, ninety miles north of Manhattan, right off exit 18 on interstate 87 N. Although it is a rural town it had the flavor of an urban city, created by the presence of a diverse student body of more than 10,000 students, from different parts of New York, other states, and over fifty countries, and to my pleasant surprise also 15 Somali students. The State University of New York school system (SUNY), is the largest comprehensive university system in the nation, educating more than 468,000 students on 64 campuses.
New Paltz has some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen; which unfortunately as a student back then, I sadly didn’t appreciate as I do now. To the west, about 5 miles, are Lake Mohonk and the Shawangunk Mountains, with steep slopes and high cliffs that beckon thousands of mountain climbers every year. Not knowing that a group of fellow Somalis were already living and studying at the university, it took me three days before meeting another Somali and realizing I wasn’t the only Somali student after all. He welcomed me and introduced me to another Somali friend of his and offered to share an apartment with them.
I associate a few historic, but tragic events with my arrival to the United States that year–some of the events I still remember was the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, the Turkish gunman Mehmet Ali Agca’s attempt to take the life of late John Paul II, and the death of the King of Reggae, Bob Marley.
At the end of my second semester, I run out of all resources and began to suffer some real economic hardships. There were times, I didn’t have anything to eat, let alone pay tuition and room and board. To make matters worse, the US was in a deep recession, the worst since the Great Depression caused by the great market crash of 1929. We were unable to find work and when we did it was often paid no more than $3 per hour for work that was akin to hard labor. We had nowhere to turn and since exhausting all other options I was resigned myself to the idea that I would have to leave school until an Ethiopian friend of mine who was also a student said he found a solution that would likely assist me too. He took me to New York City and introduced to me a program that qualified me for financial aid and student loans. I was so relieved and grateful; I couldn’t bear returning empty-handed again.
In 2006, for the first time after twenty-two years, I initiated a sentimental journey to New Paltz with my five children. I never imagined that this day would come, a day (memorial weekend) that I would travel back in time with my children to one of my most fond memories in youth, my first time as a college student in America. I took them to the Plaza Diner, the only restaurant open 24 hours in town. While inside, I spoke to the manager and he showed me and my children the kitchen, where I had worked as a dishwasher and saw the same big industrial pots and pans that I use to wash as a student.
We also checked out some of the buildings, which serve as great memories of my life and routine as a student; the administration building, where the foreign student coordinator’s office was located, the student union building–inside, a great little cafeteria (a popular meeting point). I also visited the library and some of the different faculty offices of my favorite professors. After all these years, little has changed. We took pictures in the same spots where I posed with friends 25 years ago. If you were to see these old photos of me as a young student, you’d have not recognized me at all. I looked terribly skinny but rocked a most-stunning Afro.
My entire time studying at SUNY New Paltz, I lived in building #3 Apt C at the Colonial Arms apartment complex on Colonial Drive. I luckily struck a friendship with (Omar, Mohamud, and Dahir) whom I shared a three-bed apartment; relieved to still have that cultural tie so far away from home.
What I have gained in my stay in the US during the early 80s wasn’t only an education, but a completely reformed way of thinking regarding the world around me. Through reading and watching American movies and sitcoms, studying the history, culture, and politics I became a more open-minded, mature, and well-rounded young man, comfortable in his skin, and able to express his opinions openly. I embraced the college experience; attended parties, listened to American music, met people from all ethnic/cultural backgrounds. We may have lived in a small college town, but it had everything we ever needed and on weekends where we craved a little more action or excitement, there was the Big Apple, New York City, the most cosmopolitan melting pot of all, only a two-hour drive away.
I would enjoy the next three years, studying hard while soaking in the new cultural experience and at the end of 1984, after completing my bachelor’s degree, I went back to Somalia and stayed there until the beginning of the civil war.
To Be Continued Part IV
