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\u201cRomania was my worst. I couldn\u2019t understand the language, the environment was not familiar and when you don\u2019t realise your environment, you get confused.<\/p>\n
\u201cRomania was bad, a very poor country \u2013 people were running away from Romania. There were 300 Somali people… I was the only child.\u201d<\/p>\n
At age 16, Abdi arrived in Melbourne. He had no family or money and couldn\u2019t speak English.<\/p>\n
He eventually found his mother via a Red Cross tracing service he saw advertised at the local supermarket, and the pair were reunited in Australia.<\/p>\n
Abdi\u2019s mother told him she had held a funeral ceremony for his father and sister.<\/p>\n
Years later when Abdi was backpacking in Europe, he saw a man he had stayed with at the Romanian refugee camp.<\/p>\n
He informed him his sister was alive and well in Holland, but Abdi\u2019s father died in the war.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very emotional. If you don\u2019t know what happened to them it\u2019s like having a hole in your heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abdi\u2019s story is one of hope, resilience and the courage to build a life from nothing.<\/p>\n
His book Shining: The Story of a Lucky Man details his journey. Before it was written, Abdi had never spoken of the horrors he experienced when he fled Somalia.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really didn\u2019t want to write my story because I didn\u2019t want people to know what I went through.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the war, it\u2019s very shameful to speak about it\u2026 I didn\u2019t want to talk about it. But then being a youth worker and being educated, I realised maybe I can make a difference to people in Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce I saw my story was published and people were reading it, it was therapy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abdi Aden was scheduled to speak about his book at Waurn Ponds Library on March 25, but the event has since been cancelled in response to the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n
All Geelong Regional Library Corporation programs, events and outreach services have been suspended until at least April 13.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Abdi Aden was 13 years old when Somalia\u2019s civil war first broke in Mogadishu. He remembers playing soccer one afternoon and hearing an explosion that reverberated across the field. Abdi said the sound was a prophetic indicator of what was to come for his country \u2013 a place he described as once being beautiful. \u201cI\u2019d […]<\/p>\n