Hawa Adam is one of our longest-term employees, but is now an owner of the Blue Nile affiliate. She started working soon after we started Safi.
As Hawa prepares to visit her home continent for the first time in 20 years, we would like to honor her by remembering this brief interview we did with her 5 years ago…
Hawa: I started working when I was seven, taking care of my little sisters and brother while my parents were out in the field. By age 10, I joined my parents taking care of the fields and the animals. My parents had many cattle, hundreds, and goats and sheep also. The army sometimes raided and took them, and little by little the numbers dwindled. My husband’s family had so many cattle, much more, a thousand or more, but little by little the war destroyed their herd, also. It is complicated to explain the details. My husband went to Egypt, and then called to me to join him, so I left for Egypt, with my four children. In Egypt I gave birth one more time, to my youngest son. In 2005 our family gained visas to the United States.
How has life here been?
Hawa: In the United States all of my children have gone to school–this is the best thing here, the education. Everybody can learn to read! I could not go to school, but my children are one in high school, two in Pima college and one in University. One of my sons joined the army.