Warda My Journey from the Horn of Africa to a College Education

by Warda Mohamed Abdullahi

Set in the rugged shrublands of rural Ethiopia, the contentious neighborhoods of South Africa, and the icy streets of Michigan, Warda is the story of a fierce young woman on a tireless quest to become the first member of her family to go to college.

Born in Saudi Arabia to undocumented, ethnic Somali parents living hundreds of miles from their ancestral homeland, Warda Mohamed Abdullahi loses her mother in a horrific accident as a baby and must live apart from her father until she's eleven years old. As she grows up, she faces tragedy and triumph, from staring down a wild leopard to protect her family's sheep and goats, to carefully crossing borders and evading immigration officials across Africa, and traveling with her family to America to begin life anew.

Warda is a powerful memoir that will help readers understand the inequities and injustices embedded in a global system that determines who is allowed to move freely and live where they choose. It is the story of a father's relentless quest to give his eldest daughter the opportunities he never had and a daughter's perseverance, determination, and steadfast refusal to let go of a dream.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Adult, Somalia

256 pages, Paperback

Published December 15, 2020

About the author

Warda Mohamed Abdullahi currently resides in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, with her hooyo and aabo. She recently graduated from Saint Catherine University and is taking a year off to be with her family, including her daughter Rahma Abu Bakar Ibrahim. Warda looks forward to continuing her journey towards her doctorate in medicine, her lifelong learning in Islam, and spending time with her family.

Reviews

[Zainab Bint Younus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir about a Somali girl's journey across the Horn of Africa to America, fulfilling her dream of getting an education, truly stands out!

Unlike so many "inspiring stories" written by people of Muslim backgrounds, filled with anger towards their cultures/ family/ Islam and adoration of the West as a savior, Warda Abdullahi's memoir is filled with love & respect towards her family, her culture, and Islam.

She makes a point of providing historical context to her family's story, praising her grandfather for raising her & crediting her father for his determination to get her the best education possible.

Even when topics like polygamy or FGM come up, Warda never falls into blaming Islam or trashing her culture - she recognizes the horrors of FGM gravely, without comparing her culture to the West.

Most importantly, her dedication to Islamic values holds throughout: from her fasting in Ramadan despite her massive school workload & Islamic center volunteering & family responsibilities; to maintaining her hijab staunchly & refusing to touch student loans because of the riba involved. In the end, the barakah is clear: through her relentless determination & hard work, she is able to cover almost the entire cost of her college tuition through scholarships alone.

There is one odd segment about her "boyfriend" - a Somali boy in South Africa whom she has never met, but communicated with online. Thankfully, it turns out that other families & relatives know of him, & from her author bio, it seems that they eventually got married!

Highly recommend this for lower YA & above - a powerful story of struggle, perseverance, & success of a Somali Muslim woman who has truly earned her accomplishments. This would make a wonderful youth book club read!

4.75/5 🌟

[Amber VanDrunen · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing inspirational life story.

[Shangread-La · Rating 4 out of 5]

Warda is a young Muslim Somali woman who went from rural African farm girl to American college graduate in an arduous life journey that took her thousands of miles from her birthplace in Saudi Arabia. Her father’s belief in the value of education and his desire for his daughter to have the benefits it could bring her inspired a dream that Warda worked incredibly hard to realize despite obstacles that arose at seemingly every turn. Through poverty, political strife, bigotry, and culture shock, Warda persevered to make her plans come to fruition.

Warda’s story is truly fascinating and inspiring. She talks about her life in a way that invites admiration and wonder. In spite of all the difficulties she faced, she always had her eyes on her goals and her faith in her heart. Her memoir brings to life the struggles of living in a politically unstable environment and the extreme stress of becoming a refugee in a completely unknown foreign country. Her ability to see the positive and believe in herself are a testament to her amazing resilience.

I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to have a better understanding of life in an unstable political environment and the refugee experience. Though I had a general idea of how hard it is to live through this, reading a personal story brought home a more concrete picture of the intricacies of immigration under the duress of escaping a dangerous situation. The stress of being thrown into a completely foreign culture is daunting, and I have an even greater appreciation for the hard work that immigrants like Warda and her family put in to assimilate into a new life in such a short period of time. This story will make you more empathetic to the plight of refugees and inspire you to go after your dreams.

[Kayla Tornello · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved Warda's story of her life journey. She faced so many hardships throughout her childhood, but has remained positive and determined to succeed. She has journeyed all over Africa and eventually to the United States. Even after starting her education much later in life and having to learn new languages, she has managed to become a college student, with a goal of becoming a doctor. Through it all, her family has remained the most important thing in her life. This was a very inspiring story!

I received a copy of this book from Books Forward.

[Abby Hargreaves · Rating 4 out of 5]

With thanks to Books Forward and Beaver's Pond Press for a finished copy: The title and subtitle just about sum up this memoir. Born in the mid-90s, Warda Mohamed Abdullahi depicts her family's origins in Africa, her birth in Saudi Arabia, and the travel that made up the bulk of her life including immigrating to the US as a refugee after living with many family members and friends over the years. Driven by the prospect of success by education, Warda describes how she discovered education as a tool to lift oneself up and the many people who helped her arrive at achieving her goals.

Throughout this memoir, Warda -- who feels much like a friend, making it difficult to refer to her with anything other than her first name -- employs a unique voice. For readers unfamiliar with conflicts in the Horn of Africa, Warda speaks with deep knowledge and authority, explaining the situation with simplicity while still getting at its seriousness and impact. At the same time, Warda's voice is youthful and deeply optimistic, even when expressing doubt and apprehension. This combination of wisdom and youth makes for compelling prose and a fascinating "character." Meanwhile, Warda keeps chapters short, making the book even more compulsively readable. Despite the somewhat low page count, the memoir is fairly sparse with dialog, making it perhaps denser than it appears overall. So while readers may be tempted to avoid putting the book down (especially with those bite-sized chapters), they may find having to do so in order to process all of the material Warda offers.

Warda also has a great handle on depicting the people in her life, perhaps most strongly her mentor in America, Mackenzie. Described with high energy and a strong desire to see Warda's succeed, Mackenzie is easy to imagine from Warda's words. Mackenzie also provides an afterword to the book, helping to further emphasize the important role she has played in Warda's life and success. Others in Warda's life like Uncle Omar, her eventual stepmother Sahra, and her father are written with such detail and described through such specific scenes that it's very easy to imagine and become attached to -- or, in some cases, horrified by --them all.

I would have liked to see more of Warda's relationship with Bakar. We know from the family tree that she married and had a daughter with him, but these events are entirely left out of the memoir. Bakar's presence weaves in and out of Warda's story, which sometimes feels a bit off-kilter given how strongly he impacts Warda in the moments he does appear. Warda's story also ends before she really digs into her college life and, while it's true the subtitle only promises up until college, it seemed unusual not to offer some of that narrative as well as a pay-off to Warda's hard work and the journey her readers took along with her. A short epilogue hints at some of these things but is not fully satisfying. I'd love to see a future edition that includes an additional or updated epilogue including these pieces.

Warda: My Journey from the Horn of Africa to a College Education is a great option for readers interested in refugee stories and stories of resilience and perseverance. With a clear narrative, it's a great story overall and likely to inspire folks to learn more.

[Reading Our Shelves · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full review at: https://readingourshelves.wordpress.c...

This book is so good! It’s not a long read, anyway, but the amazing tales within it makes it go fast.

Near the beginning, before we really get to know the main character, we learn about her family. Warda doesn’t even remember her mother, who died when she was just a baby. Because of financial woes and ethnic prejudices, her father was living away from Warda and her mom. But when baby Warda got sick, her mom was determined to take her back to where she was born to get medical help. While crossing the Red Sea, the boat they were in capsized. Her uncle was also aboard, and found Warda floating on a blanket. He also found her mom, but she was already deceased. Her father didn’t even know they were traveling.

And that’s only the beginning.

Her dad takes Warda to his father’s farm, where she is raised with many aunts, uncles, and cousins of all ages. She thinks of her grandpa as her father, and does not understand that he is not. She faces several dangers – often in the form of wild animals trying to attack their herd of sheep – but gets no formal schooling. When she is ten years old, her dad wants her to move to South Africa so she can start receiving an education. The trip there takes her a little over a year.

After only a few years, her family has to move again. This time, they’re taking a big leap to come to the United States. When they land in Michigan, there is already snow on the ground – something Warda has zero experience with.

She also has another new language to learn. She wants to learn to drive. She needs to learn to navigate not only her American high school… but college applications, scholarship essays, SAT and ACT prep, and being away from others who share her culture and religion.

Thankfully, Warda is assigned a mentor who helps her immensely. With her mentor’s gift of keeping Warda organized, and her own passion for wanting to get to college, they come up with a plan to get Warda through high school in only a few years. To make up for lost time, she often has to take extra classes online and in the summer. She has to really push hard to get to her dream… which is to ultimately become a doctor.

If I had to describe this book in one word, I’d pick: triumphant. You’ll be hooked from the early scenes of Warda’s life, and you’ll want to cheer her on through so many more adventures and obstacles.

[Jaclyn Eccesso]

Warda: My Journey from the Horn of Africa to a College Education by Warda Mohamed Abdullahi is an inspiring and eye-opening account of one young woman’s determination, persistence, and grit.

This autobiographical narrative is told by Warda herself, looking back on her life, her struggles, and the people who helped her along the way. The book doesn’t just tell Warda’s story though. It tells the story of her family, the many countries she’s called home, and of how war and turmoil can tear apart families and dreams.

We begin with Warda’s father, learning about this own struggle for an education in the face of many obstacles. We learn about his passion for education and his drive to both obtain his own education and ensure his daughter’s. We also meet Warda’s grandfather: an old-fashioned man, a farmer, someone who knows his place and what he believes to be the place of others in the family. Then we meet Warda.

Warda was born in Saudi Arabia to Somali parents, but due to lack of opportunity and discrimination, Warda ends up moving all over Africa living with different family members, meeting new people, and receiving a different kind of education everywhere she goes. From farming to Islamic studies to eventually pursuing an education in the United States, Warda’s adventure is full of excitement and turmoil, but she never gives up.

Just in time for World Refugee Day, Warda is a memoir for anyone who wants to read a book that provides new perspectives, offers a unique lens through which to view the world, and that steps outside of traditional memoir storytelling. Warda illuminates the many inequities refugees face not only to survive but to maintain their wellbeing, peace of mind, and even the simplest of human rights: for families to remain together.

Published by Beaver’s Pond Press in December 2020, Warda: My Journey from the Horn of Africa to a College Education by Warda Mohamed Abdullahi is available for purchase now.

[Elysse · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful story of resilience and hope. Warda is someone I’ve enjoyed getting to know, and someone I genuinely needed in my life. She has opened my eyes to so much of the global system I never knew existed, and taught me what it truly means to preserver. This would be a great graduation gift to any strong female in your life 🥰 or honestly, any fierce young woman who is needing a bit of inspiration.

[Angie Hurtado · Rating 5 out of 5]

I believe every first, second, and even third generation immigrant should read this book. Then, their friends and family should, too. This book often was able to describe subjects such as culture shock, dual identity, and feelings of homelessness that come with immigration. I rarely read books that remind me so much of my own family. This book is a must-read.

[Mackenzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful read! The pictures add a nice touch to the story, and the maps are very helpful.

Highly recommend for teachers and students - but also anyone who enjoys a great story about a young lady trying to better her education with the help from her father.

[Angela Bavaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most incredible book about a young woman who overcame unbelievable circumstances to make it to America and pursue her dreams of an education, with the goal of bettering herself and her people. I can't recommend it enough!

[Melissa Schneider · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a motivational story about perseverance and overcoming challenges. Warda's quest for an education is an inspiration!!

[Books Forward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an inspiring, beautiful read. Warda overcomes so many obstacles to reach her goal in education. She is fierce, and her relationship with her father is so touching.