As seas carry people.

What happens when a discarded book in the streets of Kenya changes the course of a life? Join us as we share the transformative journey of Somali poet and writer Hani Abdel, whose encounter with Paulo Coelho's "The Alchemist" ignited a relentless pursuit of freedom and self-discovery. Hani's story weaves through the perilous escape from an arranged marriage, the trials of navigating cultural boundaries, and the solace found in poetry. Through her words, we witness resilience and courage, as she clings to her dreams amidst the challenges of her Somali roots and new life in Australia.

Hani's passion for education and her dreams of making a difference shine as a beacon of hope for refugees everywhere. Her story is a poignant reminder of the profound impact of storytelling in connecting people across borders. Embark on this emotional exploration of resilience, hope, and the enduring power of the human spirit.

Chapters

• 0:02 Surviving the Journey to Freedom
• 12:11 Global Refugee Crisis and Australia's Response

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Voice Within, a collection of short stories, letters and poems narrated to you. Get cosy, warm cup of tea in hand and take your ears and imagination to places a number of authors aspire to take you with their tales. Hello, hello, are you? So I have another story to share here on Voice Within. This story was written in 2015 after speaking to a beautiful Somalian lady called Hani Abdel, and she's a poet and writer, and it's a few years now that I have been in contact with her, but I wanted to share this piece that I wrote after interviewing her, so I hope you enjoy. It's called as the Seas Carry People.

Speaker 1: 1:46

It all began when Honey came across a copy of the Alchemist by Polo Koyolio lying discarded in the street while visiting her sister in Kenya. The book was in English, a language that the young Somalian teenager didn't understand at the time. She picks it up and flicks the book's pages. The pictures are enough to entice her to carry it with her on her way to the shops Collecting the needed oil for her sister's home. Honey returns excited to recount her curious find. Her sister chided her. Let me tell you what is more useful than what you have in your hand, what is needed from the store you are always collecting papers A seed had been planted towards this momentum of a journey, honey of Diz's personal pursuit of happiness towards a country unknown, australia.

Speaker 1: 2:48

If I didn't know Honey's story on first meeting her, I might have mistaken her for an innocent in her understanding of the world. It could be her youth just turned twenty, or it could be her animated kindred spirit. Both masks the experience that Niall tied two entirely different cultures together within her the Somalian culture of her birth that pushed her to run towards freedom, and the culture of her adopted Australian home that has given her hope, although not always a welcome. Beyond the shine of her coffee-coloured cheeks and eyes, so deep, she speaks with such strength and zest that she captivates those around her with every word. My memory goes back to when I first met her in the small café in Newtown. The engagement was felt from as all as she read out original written poems With a smile so warm it seems an entire room is needed to contain its radiance. Honey's hand forcefully strokes her forward to brush her short curls. When I ask what is your story? She has lived the journey that carries the tales of the many, many lives put into the hands of the sea. Let us return to her journey's planted seed. Her home is Somalia, in the town of Kismayo.

Speaker 1: 4:16

After finding this book, when at home she would take every possibility to have an English literate friend read her, the Alchemist. As Hanny eagerly recounts their events, she reaches for the book and pulls it out from under her single bed in a modest room in southern Sydney, coverless, soaked up with the traces of seawater curled at the page's edge. It too shows of its journey. She fix through the pages to the story that brought her here today, the story that reminds her of her own father, santiago. The main character, an adventurous Andalusian young shepherd, finds himself in the company of a king. The king shares a story about a shopkeeper's son who visited a wise man's castle. The boy is asked to explore the beauty of this home, all while not spilling two drops of oil from a spoon in his hand. The boy returns with the oil. The wise man asks if he had observed all the beauties of the castle. The boy admits to have not. Then go back and observe the marvels of my world. He goes back, but this time he spills the oil. This parable translates into the secret of happiness Look outside yourself, but never forget to look within, know who you are. On his own, father's last words before her travels were you can see all the beauty of this world, but never forget who you are, where you come from. This passage from the book keeps her heart close to home.

Speaker 1: 5:59

As a young Somali woman, hani says her choices in her life were like running from a cheetah into a lion's mouth. Imagine your childhood innocence being no different to the previous day or the many days before that. Yet everyone around you no longer sees your innocence. Your family, your cultural upbringing, the only society you know, tells you it is time to grow up. It is time for a girl to become a woman through marriage. This is the destiny written for a child in Somalia this day. Marriage this is the destiny written for a child in Somalia this day. It was this awakening that Hani, in her tender teenage years, had to be burdened with. Being a teenager is late for a Somali woman to marry, as girls are married as early as nine years of age.

Speaker 1: 6:45

Many Somalians believe that it is good fortune to marry a man with an income rather than a poor man. So girls push themselves forward to wed before they get too old and undesirable, often to men three times their age. It is an accepted conviction, a resigned justification to the limited opportunities in being a good girl. And such arranged marriages are a blessing compared to the other fate that might befall Somalian girl finding herself in the hands of militants in the Ashram Bahad, condemned to a life of violence and rape. Somalia is changing, but the country's unrest still locks young women into the ways of the past. They are a burden. They have no prospects of an education or a career, just the weighing up of potential suitors by older relatives.

Speaker 1: 7:42

Honey's destiny, however, was not set in stone once her family decided to support her in rejecting an arranged marriage. It was not a decision to be taken lightly. Her parents, six brothers and seven sisters were threatened, violated and harassed in their home. It was then that Hani pleaded with her parents to put her future into the hands of the people smugglers. The left hand and the right hand are the same. You need one as much as the other. She says, dismissing my comments about the profits people smugglers make from the misery of others. She speaks about those on her journey with tenderness. I feared rape on my journey, but he, the people smuggler, was kind. He wanted to help me. The smugglers themselves need money to survive, and Honey needed them to survive. Home was always the same. I could have died in the hands of a man I did not love or died a sex slave. I would rather take the risk to die at sea. There are two options die at sea or survive. Honey is undoubtedly a survivor.

Speaker 1: 8:55

Her escape from Somalia was organized by a single smuggler all the way to Australia. Although she found herself surrounded by different people each leg of the journey, it was always the same operation. The journey began by plane destination Malaysia. From Malaysia to Indonesia, she hid with five others in a small fishing boat that she described like being in a coffin. For 18 hours she tucked the alchemist under her head as a pillow to protect her neck from the hardwood. From Indonesia, she boarded with forty-five people onto another boat, set to sea for eight more days as the Timor Sea seeped in feeling the boat. They were rescued just in time by the Australian Navy. Their boat was towed to Darwin and docked the next day day.

Speaker 1: 9:52

Honey was taken with her fellow sudanese, somalian and lebanese travellers to christmas island detention centre. This was the resting place. Eleven months in this one place where the physical pain of the travels had long passed, but the mental anguish takes a hold, little known of what lays beyond the detention facilities, surrounded by the melancholic heartache of the many carried by sea, only the flame of hope of having survived carries the imagination further into the realm of possibility. As she speaks, honey sits sipping from an oversized mug and eating a late evening snack from a best breakfast bowl. A canvas hangs behind her, given to her by a support worker from a community detention centre where she resided upon her release to Sydney. And I ask her what does it say? The rainbow-coloured words say Follow your dreams. Create peace. Fall in love. Show gratitude. Enjoy the little things. Dream big. Believe in love. Show gratitude. Enjoy the little things. Dream big. Believe in miracles. Discover your passion. Be spontaneous. Embrace every possibility. Believe in yourself. Your life is now, your life is now, repeats Honey as she reads the canvas she has taken off the wall for me to see. The bearer of the gift has now passed. She died in a car accident nine months ago. Honey hangs the lift on the top of the bedhead. Treasured and yet another memory of loss.

Speaker 1: 11:46

Honey explains the fear many Australians have of refugees arriving on their shores by boat. It is, she says, like having a spider in your room and then it hides away. You don't know where the spider is anymore, perhaps gone somewhere to die. You do not see it anymore like people seeking refuge. Everyone fears so many people coming in, but no one actually sees them.

Speaker 1: 12:11

In Australia, we hear of the refugee crisis in our weekly news. We are shown the despair of overcrowded boats, sinking boats, children like driftwood washed ashore. In many other nations, people are opening their arms to those crossing borders, receiving those living in conditions where survival, even in the most basic of conditions, is no longer possible. Around the world, people are living in climate crisis, warfare, violence and constant despair. Yet Australia accepts only some 15,300 refugees per year and is the only place in the world to use offshore processing and mandatory detention. Australia's 15,000 people a year is such a paltry contribution when there are 20,000 people seeking asylum every single day worldwide, according to the Salvation Army. Australia has some of the world's harshest border protection policies and there's little understanding to why. Of the 11.7 million people around the world who are officially recognised by the UN as refugees, australia houses just 0.3%. Honey is one of them.

Speaker 1: 13:31

The media readily criminalises the victims who seek out help. There is little truth, little knowledge of what drives refugees to flee and little scrutiny of the turmoil that is created by the powerful. Few Honey understand what it is to feel like a criminal, with the alchemist protected, nestled within four plastic bags as she travels on this boot boat with 45 other people and it is tied around her wrist for the eight days of her sea journey to Australia. Upon being rescued, she is singled out. The Australian Navy, suspicious of what was in the bag, trained their bright eyes and their bright lights on this young girl. Gloves were doned and scissors appeared snipping at the plastic. The book was revealed. She chuckles to herself. They must have thought I was mad for travelling with a book that I couldn't even read at the time.

Speaker 1: 14:34

It is this zeal for life that is so breathtaking. She acknowledges with respect her challenges throughout this journey, but expects that this is her story. Her temporary protection has not stopped her from pursuing the HSC through college, from dreaming of the future projects or from becoming enthusiastically involved in her community. My treasure is education, she says, and he's a poet, a writer. This is how we bonded at our first encounter on King Street, newtown in Sydney. On the night of our meeting, she showcased poems written by those inside detention centres, read out to the audience by the audience she represents writing through fences here in New South Wales, an initiative started by her friend from Melbourne who she met whilst detained at Christmas Island.

Speaker 1: 15:29

One word you write can change somebody's life, change the world. She claims she's determined to continue getting poems from within the centres, even though it is so hard. It takes numerous emails and Facebook messages to connect with those locked inside who have little access to the internet. Honey explains those in the centre think you are talking crap. They want to hear their points, to enjoy with their tears. I know it is more than that. It is a way people can connect to those separated, where the outside world don't believe they exist, with every poem showing that they are important and deserve to be free. I have a lot of dreams. I want to go to university, publish a book and start an orphanage in Somali, make them believe they can do better than an AK-47. I want to help people here, but I don't want to forget back home. Help people here, but I don't want to forget back home. This was written by Simona Gallimberti in 2015. Of course, stats these days, all the statistics shares would have changed at this point, and Honey did publish a book, a book of poems. Thank you,