AAMINA & BASIRA AHMED

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aamina and Bashira Ahmed have been chased by war. 

 

The sisters were born in Iraq, and spent three years there after the war broke out.  In 2006 their family moved to Syria, seven years later they left for Turkey and one and a half years later they resettled in the U.S. where they have been living for the last four months with their parents, two other sisters and one brother. 

 

During the war in Iraq, the Ahmed family had to store up food in their house because it was often too dangerous for them to go on the streets to buy food due to the war.  They lived in a constant state of fear.

 

“At home, we don’t think about anything, just afraid,” Aamina said.  “We don’t think about watching TV because we don’t have electricity.” 

 

The family only had electricity for two hours a day and didn’t have hot water to shower with.  “It was a very hard life,” Aamina said.

Now that they are in the U.S., living in a new country with a new culture, a new language and new people, it is difficult.

 

When Aamina landed in Lincoln, the first thing she noticed was all the people on their phone.  “I don’t like this life, they are not talking, there is no communication, and there is no connecting language.”

 

Aamina was happy to be safe, but afraid because she didn’t know how to communicate and connect with people.  All she knew how to say when she got here was “Hi, how are you?”

 

When the Ahmed sisters were growing up, they loved going to school and learning to communicate with people, but school was difficult—far more difficult than it is here, they said.  They would come home at 1 p.m. after their classes were over and would spend the whole evening studying.

 

“Studying in Iraq is difficult and I didn’t have time for anything else besides talking to my parents,” Aamina said.

 

But when the war came to Iraq, the schools were shut down and they could no longer go to school.  

 

When their family escaped to Syria they were allowed to attend middle school and high school, but when they continued to flee to Turkey they were denied entrance into the school because of their status as refugees.

 

Since she couldn’t attend school, Aamina decided she would teach Arabic to high school aged students in Turkey in order fulfil her need to be involved in education and improve people’s communication.

 

“It’s difficult for me, but I learned Turkish,” Aamina said.  “Then I found 20 students that

wanted to study Arabic.”

 

Aamina loved having students listen to her and being able to influence them for the better. 

She thinks she may even want to go to school to become a teacher now that she is in the U.S.

 

“I want to go to the university, that’s my dream,” she said.

 

But her current English teacher at Southeast Community College, where she studies high reading, has reminded her that she needs to improve her English before she can become a teacher. 

 

“I like teaching because it’s clean work...When I work like teacher, I feel free.  I can do anything.”

 

Aamina also hopes that if she can get her certificate for teaching she can be a better mom to her future children.  She wants to be able to help her children understand their homework, get a good job to help support her family and feel good because she believes in herself.

 

Sometimes Aamina doubts her ability to become a teacher because she knows how difficult university will be and she can see how simple her communication in the English language is.  “I can answer you, but when you ask me some difficult questions or on special subjects I think, ‘I don’t know this,’” she said.

 

To improve her English, Aamina spends 8 hours studying English every day—four hours in class and four hours at home doing homework.  Currently, her favorite English word is ‘merciful’ because she feels it describes her god.

 

Aamina and Bashira have two English tutors who meet with them once a week to study English.  These two girls are their only American friends and the only Americans they get to hold conversations with, but it’s their favorite time of the week.

 

“Some people here don’t like talking,” Aamina said in disapproval.

 

The greatest difference between the U.S. and Iraq is how we spend our time, according to Aamina.  “Some people here don’t have time to visit.  You have to call them, but in Iraq I could knock on their door and they would say, “Hi.  You can stay.”

Aamina firmly believes you build relationships through conversations and dislikes how little importance Americans put on communication.

 

She enjoys being able to talk to her friends back home on the phone.  They talk for hours

about what’s new, what’s happening in their friend’s lives and what they are cooking that

day.

 

A few weeks ago, a man was told about Aamina by some mutual friends and he came to

her house to see if her father would like to arrange a marriage for them.  The man spent

some time talking with Aamina and afterward she told her father she was not interested in

him. 

 

“It’s difficult because we can’t converse well because we speak many different languages. 

I have to ask him, ‘which language do you want to have our conversation in?’”

 

Aamina believes that the most important thing for a husband and a wife is communication, just like she thinks about most relationships and aspects of life.  

 

 

 

*Name changed for the protection of the sources