I lived in Dadaab refugee camp for 22 years. I grew up in Ifo and was schooled there. I trained in Dadaab as a teacher and found work there as a primary school teacher in English, mathematics and social studies. I got married in Dadaab and have 3 children.
But I’m the only member of my family that has left Dadaab. My wife and children are still living there. I decided to return because I grew hopeless of going to the US and working there, which was my original ambition. I wanted to explore opportunities in Somalia. The wages in Kenya are very low and I wanted to see if I can get better work opportunities in Somalia especially with the education and work experience I have amassed.
I’ve been in Somalia for 5 years now. I first return Kismayo, which is where I’m from. I found a job with an international medical NGO based there working as an monitoring and evaluation officer. After 3 years, that contract came to an end and the NGO didn’t have any other contracts. That’s when I decided to move to Mogadishu where I got a job with a Somali NGO there as a field officer mostly collecting data.
My decision to return was a good one. I was initially apprehensive because of the security conditions but that decision has transformed my life. I was on a very low salary in Kenya but that improved drastically when I returned to Somalia. I was able to save and buy land, build a house for my family and buy livestock. The economic status and social welfare of my life has become so much better.
The difficult part is being separated from my family. They’re still registered refugees in Dadaab. But I have been able to double the income I bring in which has improved their quality of life. When I was still in Dadaab, I only earned around $150 per month but now I earn much more than that and I’m able to send them $300. But the return experience has not been all positive. I struggled to integrate with the local community in Kismayo for the first 6 months. Although I am from Kismayo, most of my family members, relatives and extended kin have been displaced and no longer live in the area. I had very few friends and people I could connect with.
Moving to Mogadishu has made me more hopeful of what the future can look like for me and my family. I plan to move my family from Dadaab soon. I think the security situation has improved although there are pockets of instability but overall, the quality of life I can establish for my family is better in Mogadishu than in Dadaab. But I understand that I’ve been quite lucky in terms of how my experience of return has been a positive one and not every returnee has that experience. Nor are the opportunities that exist equally accessible.
My challenge now is to convince my wife, who’s still apprehensive about the security situation. In Dadaab, people often hear of the security challenges but not when things are calm and about the opportunities that exist. Once you come here and see what it’s like, you begin to have a more tempered understanding of how to live in Mogadishu. I’m hoping to convince her through that angle. Living as a refugee is unsustainable.