NEWS
MANCHESTER, N.H. - The African Market, selling cola beans and Nigerian rice, sits just a few blocks from the usual stops on the presidential campaign trail, but no candidate has come to deliver a sound bite. Two blocks away, the Beech Street Elementary School, where half of the students are immigrants, is waiting to hear from a White House contender.
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MANCHESTER – Nasir Abdi Arush planned to be back in his native Somalia by now, helping farmers sow better crops, teaching women to read and write and helping poor villagers advance themselves in a society torn by civil war.
Instead, his sister's brutal murder in 2002 and the arrival of the first Somali Bantu refugees in New Hampshire the next year conspired to keep him here.
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CONCORD--In the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, Mohamed Mohamed harbored no illusions about the wealth that might greet him in America, only a vision of a place where his children could be safe for once, and where - if he was willing to work hard - he could earn enough to support his family.
After 10 months in Concord, Mohamed, a resettled Somali Bantu refugee, has learned he was half right.
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CONCORD--Fadumo Yussuf is happy to have a home, though it's a challenge for her to get out to the market or to English classes with seven gregarious kids in tow. Mohamed Mohamed and his wife, Mariam Musse, are comfortable now that they've moved from Concord to Manchester, though they may leave if their friends do. Shamsa Osman is a proud worker, though she struggles with some bills.
The three families were among the first five Somali Bantu refugee families to move from a camp in Kenya to Concord in October 2004. The other two in that group have moved to Maine and Pennsylvania. They highlight some of the successes and ongoing challenges for what has been one of the largest and most needy groups of refugees to come to New Hampshire.
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MANCHESTER--The gymnasium was chaos — children running in a dozen different directions, balls flying in a dozen more.
In the lobby just outside the gym, people kept streaming in over the course of an hour, bus after bus. Brendan McCafferty held a walkie talkie in his hand, testing it by doling out orders.
“We’re gonna have the CityYear kids assume their positions,” he said.
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