Hani Abdile

refugees_hannie_2

(image still Rodney Decker)

Hani Abdile is a poet who performs around Sydney and is the Sydney faciliatator of Writing Through Fences.  Her book I Will Rise is available through our SHOP here.

Hani was detained in Christmas Island for 19 months and is now in community.

I am

I used to think I am alone

and hold myself back.

Scared to express my feelings

and make my life a mess,

I sat silently

and agreed with my thoughts.

I forgot I had a chance.

They pushed me back

and broke my heart.

I stood for nothing

but a waste of number.

They held me down

but I got up.

I am ready to brush off the dust.

Here I am.

You will hear my voice,

that is my sound.

Now I am flying like a bird.

You can see me

diving up so high.

I fight for my rights

and go from zero to hero.

They locked me in

but I got out.

I am ready to brush off the dust.

Here I am a Somali girl.

I am not a waste of number.

I am not a victim.

I am a hero

and I am a leader.

– Hani Abdile 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oooh old friends

My beloved friend

 

Many days

We laughed

We chased each other

We tickled

 

But that wasn’t my favourite

 

We rolled in the mud

So thick, double to our skin

Danced in the rain

As we thought we could bless the land.

 

We re-owned our lost childhood

Your smiles fully healed my wounds

So shiny and sharp.

 

I was addicted to your company

I felt disgrace to leave you behind

But my friend you have chosen the traditional way.

 

Seeing your photos my perfect friend —

Life always takes unexpected turns

You dive into abuse and rise like a sun

Blessed to be a mother of two

My ship has sailed on unknown shores

While yours still floats on the garden of your birth.

  • Hani 2018

Creative piece

thanks to Carita for helping out.

Ramala’s tongue was tied to her throat. Her heart beat like a speeding train. Sweat ran like waterfalls within the creases of her body.  She stared at the path in front of her that looked like a tunnel. Unfamiliar darkness choked her.  This was the place her real parents called home. Parents. That word seemed so strange to her it caught in her mouth and evaporated like a drop of rain on a desert plain.

It was her summer break and Ramala had finally made her journey to her beloved home.  All her life from her luxurious bed in Miami she dreamed of a quiet village that smells like grounded cardamom and dry earth, filled with the laugher of children. The image wrapped her with a sense of safety, but it was not real.  She created it through Internet searchers and memories of others.

She called herself “take away” because 20 years ago Ramla was found by an NGO in an orphanage and adopted by an American couple at the age of three.  She had learned about her country’s traumatic history in a high school classroom, which ripped her from her middle-class life and forced her into this significant and life-changing journey.

Now at 23 she stood in front of the burning heat stared at the left over of her family. Small hut crumbled into the earth. Rotted defeated and abandoned. “Home was mouth of a shark”. The whole village had run away.

  • Hani Abdile 2017

Screaming night

I hear screaming within a silent night

The one that you hear, but can’t see
The one that you know is a human voice, but you can’t help

The one whose suffering you feel, but you can’t share their pain

You hear their steps, but you are waiting

for the time they can appear
to talk,
to be heard and be helped.

They are still screaming

It sounds like a storm on a summer night.
Their world is dark and everyone around them

pretends to be blind or deaf, of the reality.
They talk carefully, when they tell their awful past.

This is their story.

It’s part of their history.

This is what is worthy to write.
Screaming

Screaming.

  • Hani Abdile 2015