Column 2: Conversations between Mohamed and Dina

August 16, 2024

In 2022, a Somali community leader asked Dina if she could help a young community member in prison at Walla Walla. They have been talking on the phone ever since and soon began working together on these columns. Here is their First Column published in the JCIJ newsletter in 2023 and originally published in The Retiree Advocate. Almost every word attributed here to Mohamed is a quote from Dina’s notes of conversations with him in 2023. Mohamed has served almost ten years of a forty year sentence in the WA State Penitentiary at Walla Walla. He was convicted of three counts of first degree assault and one count of unlawful possession of a firearm during an altercation in which one person was shot in the hand and sustained minor injuries. 

In today’s Second Column, Mohamed talks about growing up in Mogadishu and the challenges he faced as he adapted to life in Seattle. 

What was it like back home in Mogadishu?

We couldn’t go outside for years because of the civil war in Somalia, lots of shooting around our house, army bazookas exploding in the sky. Once my dad won the green card lottery and left for the US in 1996, the house was attacked a few times. They stole stuff and beat up my mother. 

Were these soldiers who attacked your house? 

No, they were regular people, our neighbors. People were starving. People were dying. They had to survive. There was no law and no accountability. Then my older cousins came to live with us and protect the house. After about 6 years, my dad sent money so the family could travel to Kenya, where we lived in a refugee camp. 

What was it like to move from the refugee camp to Seattle?

We were happy to leave the camp. We had no water running, no flush toilets. Coming to Seattle in 2005 was a big change. At first we lived in Lake City and I went to an ESL program at Ingraham High School and night school at Marshall. I was hella quiet, nervous. I met all different kinds of kids I had never seen before; Asian, Mexican, American, Black. They had such expensive shoes! But we had no money. They looked down at us. 

I remember being amazed at how American students treated adults. To the African in me, it seemed rude and disrespectful. To the kid in me, it seemed like freedom. For my siblings and I, it was shocking! We ran to those kids with their freedom and money.  But we ran blindly; we didn’t speak English well, we couldn’t understand a lot of what they said. We just ran with it, trying to experience that life. There was more freedom for kids here than we had ever seen. 

Back home, we had to be respectful of our elders. My teachers had 100% permission to beat us up if we were bad. I was beat up, literally. In our house in Seattle, my parents were religious and strict. We felt we were locked up in the house, we only went out for school or the mosque. No movies, no secular music. But I never talked back to my parents. That part never changed after we came to the US.. 

How did you start getting into trouble?

Marshall opened my eyes to how to be tough in the US. You had to be tough. There was weed everywhere. I got lots of pressure to smoke weed, just one hit…This was the start of the lifestyle, addiction to weed and alcohol. It became a normal thing for me. I would come home smelling bad. At first my parents didn’t know what weed was. To this day, my mom can not stand that smell! They both yelled at me. For a while I came home on time but high. Then I started coming home later and later. I kept falling, falling. After a while I was not comfortable coming home to my parents at all. I didn’t want them to see me like that. I know that seeing me like that hurt them, so I stayed away. 

Other guys took advantage of me. They would talk me into doing things I didn’t understand. I was slow with the language. That was my weakness. Other people had other weaknesses. That is how people related to you on the street, they would look for your weakness and take advantage.

What were you looking for?

I was looking to be accepted and to be part of something. Be known. Once I was under the influence, I wasn’t thinking right. All the old values got blocked by being high. The experience in the streets was totally new and totally opposite of life at home. It looked good to me at the time. We had nothing. I wanted to get my own car, buy my own stuff. Coming from a third world country to this freedom to have everything you dreamed of… I just wanted to have something. I didn’t want to be rich. I could see that to be rich you gotta be stingy. I was always open-handed.

And you started getting into trouble?

My early misdemeanors were all about fighting. I was under the influence. Everyone was under the influence. I started drinking. Then I had a DUI. 

Isn’t drinking and smoking forbidden for Muslims?

I know! Yes, It is forbidden because alcohol and smoking can influence you to do bad things. You become like a child who doesn’t understand the consequences of what he does. Hella easy to get in trouble. I kept getting into fights. I don’t think my parents could have done anything to stop me. It was all on me. I felt shame to be around them when under the influence. What they went through to bring us kids here! Don’t blame them! 

What about the night of the big arrest that got you into prison?

The arrest was a gift from God. You know how everything happens for a reason? 

I don’t believe that, you will have to talk me into that. 

He laughed. Time was up so he had to call me back. 

It was a gift from God. I mean my life was heading to dark places. God pulled me out of those dark places and brought me all the way out here (to prison) so I can clear my head of that dark stuff that I was going through. Now my life is going in the right direction, I got my family back and positive friends. I’m glad I got a second chance. 

I hope you can get out of prison and have that second chance. 

No, the second chance is happening now! Freedom will come with time. This is the process I need to go through now. The system is not easy for poor people. If I were rich, it would be really different. It’s better for the rich. But I appreciate it. Every day I appreciate what happened, for pulling me out of that life. Hamdulillah. (Praise be to God)

Everything happens for a reason, it says over and over in the Koran. A man will be tested. All of life is a test of how strong is your faith. Do you get mad when stuff happens and say fuck everything? Or are you patient and ask the Creator for prayers? I can’t lose my patience and act crazy; it does no good, just makes me mad and miserable. I frequently stop what I am doing and say a prayer. 

What do you say when you pray?

Give me patience. Help me to be patient with it, guide me the right way. Open the good doors for me, to the road of what is right for me. Let me see my family again. So many new babies. They are all gifts from God. Let them know me as their uncle. Then I pray for stuff in the world, all the things people in the world are going through. First my parents, brothers and sisters, the rest of the family. Then all of God’s creation, the individuals I know and talk to. Including you. 

Thank you for that. I would understand if you felt anger or frustration and you can share that with me. 

It does cross my mind sometimes that God is not listening.

Time up. 

Thank you, Mohamed. 

Thank you.