Finding refuge in friends and mountains for Somali teen girls

ESTES PARK — The tight, nervous expressions of the Somali girls give way to giggles and bright smiles shortly after arriving at “The Outpost,” an out-of-the-way swale at the YMCA of the Rockies.

The 10 teens don’t have much, if any, high-country experience. Most are still getting to know each other here at the beginning of an overnight adventure.

As soon as they move to the rope swing, where they try to swing across an 8-foot pine-needle covered patch without touching, there’s no containing the joy. Or the good-natured teenage smacktalking.

As Sacdiyo Adan, 18, reaches high on the rope in preparation for her swing, Faisa Hayir, 14, glances at Sacdiyo’s khaki skirt and says, “It doesn’t count if her skirt is touching the thing! It doesn’t count!”

Sacdiyo swings, but it’s impossible for her to keep her skirt from touching the rope.

And it’s impossible for them not to be feeling touched in general on this Saturday afternoon outside Estes Park. Touched by the mountains. Touched by newfound friendships. Touched by the generosity of the people who made this trip possible.

“I like the view,” Faisa said, looking through the trees toward burbling Glacier Creek. “It’s all beautiful.”

The Volunteer East Africa Support Group, a group comprised mostly of University of Northern Colorado faculty and staff, raised money and coordinated the trip. The excursion featured a cookout, hike, scavenger hunt and bunk-out in a cabin.

The idea of taking the girls, ages 14-19, into the woods for the weekend was to bolster self-confidence and create friendships — but mainly to have a good time. They are members of Somali refugee families, part of the growing community in Greeley that’s been lured by jobs at the JBS USA plant.

The refugee camps in Kenya remain a close, and sometimes painful, backdrop in these girls’ lives.

“They’ve seen things kids shouldn’t see, and they’ve had experiences kids shouldn’t experience,” says Anita Fleming-Rife, an Africana studies and journalism professor at UNC. Fleming-Rife handled the fundraising — she raised $1,200 to cover expenses — while Chris Talbot, an assistant professor and coordinator of UNC’s Women’s Studies Department, coordinated the activities and lodging for the trip.

Talbot hopes the trip helps the girls establish closer ties back in Greeley — a peer group to fall back on when they need support or information.

Building those friendships in the mountains makes sense, Talbot adds, because the outdoors are “such an important part of who people are in Colorado and what people are about. … They’re having a blast. There’s a lot of giggling.”

Sacdiyo visited the mountains once before during her year in Greeley. Already, though, this excursion is a summer highlight. “It’s so fun,” she says, clapping her hands in front of her face.

Sacdiyo, who is a junior at Northridge High School, plans to become a pediatrician. College is the key “to get a bright future,” she says.

Kuresha Noor, a medical assistant at Sunrise Medical Clinic in Greeley, joined the adult chaperones on the trip. She says the Somali community in Greeley is still mostly riding a single-track existence.

“Most of them work out at the plant, and they don’t have free time. There’s no leisure time, really,” she says.

In other words, there isn’t time — and probably little money — to take their children on mountain outings.

Noor smiles as she watches the girls mingle and play games here at the Outpost. The apprehension is gone. Comfort zones easily abandoned.

The girls are absorbed in the moment, stepping out and having fun, staking new memories to this place, this foreign land that’s now home.

Sacdiyo says she can’t wait to get back to Greeley and tell her mother about the trip. She has an uncle, her mother’s brother, who lives in the mountains in Eastern Africa. “My mom, when we were back in Africa, loved to visit the mountains.”

She beams as she speaks. In the background, the visitors’ giggles and nature’s burble blend together and fill the swale with song.

Source: greeleytribune