![]() And right away, after winning the lottery, Abdi got a bad break. In fact, most years, over half the people who win the lottery never get their visas. The tiniest mistake means that you can be denied for good. After you win you have to wait more than a year, then you show up at an American embassy for an interview, and you have to gather all kinds of paperwork to bring with you, medical documents and school transcripts and a criminal background check. The thing about the lottery though, what Abdi learned, is that it does not guarantee you a life in America. You know those boats full of people who are trying to cross the Mediterranean to get to Europe, and sometimes they sink, and hundreds of people drown? Abdi knows people who have gone on those boats, and on boats like them, to escape to Yemen. So it was that or join the government forces who were fighting al-Shabaab, or he could flee the country. ![]() At one checkpoint on the way to his mom's they told him, basically, next time you come through here, you'd better be one of us. He tells stories of al-Shabaab members threatening him to join them, or else. You can't just be neutral and go about your life. Abdi says for him, or really for any man in his 20s in Somalia, it's hard to stay out of the fight. And there were bombings and attacks from the terrorist group al-Shabaab, which is affiliated with al-Qaeda. There was rival warlords and militias and just anarchy, dangerous and violent. For years there was no functioning government. And you can totally understand why he'd want to leave his country, right? And as he got older, he devoted himself to the goal of getting to America, not only studying English, but also teaching it.
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