THE POWER OF EDUCATION IN THE EYES OF AN IMMIGRANT

Text messages are the highest height  of communication revolution in Africa,they have a way of passing the intended message  conveniently across senders and recipients in a communication chain.But unique in an African context is its ability to provide a user a friendly platform where communication happens almost anywhere and anytime, this is despite the landing of big social media platforms that are continuously  overshadowing the power of messaging in sharing experiences and stories across much of Africa.

There is something quite unsettling about a text message that checks in right past midnight,it could be those relatives who always get stranded in town and want a roof over their head or maybe some random ninja on a night out who wants some bill sorted out in an upmarket coffee house downtown.But all the same these late night messages elicit some kind of standard panic attack especially if you happen to be awake at this time of the night.It leaves you wondering why some people are just so good at nocturnal communication.

Such was an encounter i had a couple of weeks ago,it was fifteen minutes past twelve o'clock when some random message came straight through,it hang in there,not moving an inch from the phone's notification bar.I decided it was that time i clicked the notification bar and see what it had for me,you never know i would have been a lucky winner of some mega jackpot, with all the lottery money being splashed  around in adverts, i would have just been a lucky winner. And kaboom It read.

Hey its me Saleh, the big guy who always sat at the back of every class in school,remember me ?the Somali guy with a funny last name.I made it bro and i know it..Meet me on the southern side of town at 10 to be precise..Am set to fly to the states in the evening.Just secured a grand scholarship to study at the UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO-ILLINOIS.(Incase you didn't know this is where Obama taught a whole lot of other black guys constitutional law) the message came to an end,it was remarkable and incredibly a tell it all kind of message.

It is amazing and rather funny how the world around you and the events that shape it can change in span of years or months.Here was Saleh an average secondary- school educated skinny immigrant from Somalia now going to the states to study in a prestigious university,one that he only had contacts with in a rusty newspaper at home.He'd managed to cross over to Kenya when he was young and we'd gone to school together during the last formative years of primary school education.He'd been a smart fellow in fact the most brilliant Somali guy i had ever met never mind the fact going to school in his home country is akin to going for  a suicide bombing mission.

Then somewhere along when we were done with primary school,the long forceful arm of the law extended its swiftest hand to Saleh's family and another host of his fellow country men.They were arrested and rounded up in a football stadium thanks to a counter terrorism operation that had Somali nationals living in the country undocumented encrypted within the operation's DNA.At a court proceeding he remembers looking at a middle age judge in his long chilly learned judgement reading something that finally had them deported right back into a country he had decided never to call home let alone a safe educational haven.

Right back into Somalia, a country devastated with decades long civil war he decided to subscribe to American optimism,the belief and faith that the future holds great for all of us.He decided to go back to school,schools that were a pale shadow of themselves.He'd decided whatever happened he would cling to the transformational power of education.Back at home education  provided something close to normal life,he would read books and play with friends from close quarter neighbourhood  who would inspire him that the future  indeed was great for him.


Education as Saleh says has opened ways that fighting did not,it has changed the way he looks at war and the fanatical followers it draws from every quarter.Furthermore going to school in and out of the country has helped him see why education still remains the solution to his country's instability,He tells me education helped him see the bigger picture ahead,a picture in which he sees himself being a teacher without borders disseminating unlimited knowledge to his fellow country men.

At the airport's passenger lounge,he waves at an immigration official who waves right back at him,a symbolic reflection that education has helped bridge the hostilities associated with being a skinny illiterate immigrant in a country that sees herself at the apex of countries with  higher literacy rates.And off Saleh checks in for his evening flight,a flight that is going to leave a mark in his life and maybe a mark in the eyes of his fellow countrymen.