I don’t feel foreign. Like everyone else I meet new people, and when I get to know them, we cease to be strangers to one another. I haven’t applied for citizenship in Denmark, because I consider myself a citizen of the world. Nationality is a category like skin colour and religion, aiming to split people up into different groups. The only ones who have anything to gain from that are the people in power, and I do not want to be a pawn in their game.
When I went to school, I got hooked on hip hop. I explored the lyrics and changed them so as to tell about me and my life. Later I began to write lyrics myself. To capture my thoughts on paper was like seeing myself in the mirror. It is sometimes hard to know where it hurts, but when I write it all becomes clear to me. A lot of people in my family don’t understand me. I don’t fit in anywhere, and I have always taken pride in going my own way. People can’t understand why I haven’t started my own family, but I am not in a hurry.
I haven’t seen my mother since I left Somalia, but we talk on the phone, and I send her money. I was with her during the most difficult time of her life, the war. From Denmark I can give something back to her, and that makes me happy. I would love to see her again of course, but I am scared to return. If something happens to me, she will be on her own again. Maybe I will have children one day, maybe not. Perhaps I should open an orphanage instead. People tell me that you cannot love a child which is not your own, but of course you can.
31 years / female / single / HF student / Gentofte / from Somalia / came to Denmark via family reunification in 1996