By Eric Gorski
The Denver Post
My introduction to the Somali Muslims of Fort Morgan came in a meeting with The Committee.
The meeting wasn't planned. Like a lot of things in the course of reporting on these new arrivals to small-town Colorado, it just sort of happened.
I had contact information for local Somali elders, or community leaders. I called one of them, Ibrahim Abdi, and told him I was about to interview the police chief at the police station.
Could he meet with me afterward? Maybe at the mosque downtown?
Abdi was willing to meet but the matter of location was lost in translation.
He would come to the police station, he said.
No amount of explaining — reporters like to interview subjects on the subjects' own turf — swayed him.
Police Chief Keith Kuretich was nice enough to loan out a conference room for the interview with Abdi.
Only when the appointed time came, it was not just Abdi who showed up. It was The Committee.
The Committee consisted of 10 men, one of whom I recognized as the imam, or prayer leader, of the Somali mosque that occupies space behind a real estate office on Main Street.
It was never clear exactly how one became an elder. Age and clan identity both seem to be factors.
I asked whether I should introduce myself and explain what I wanted to talk about.
The meeting translator, a tall man named Daud who wore a shiny suit, explained that Abdi had something to say first. The translated message: They didn't have time to talk. Perhaps another time?
We ended up talking for a half-hour anyway.
"The reason we came to Fort Morgan is the reason we came to America," said one elder, Abdullahi Mohamed. "We came because of the insecurity in our country. When we came to America, we found Fort Morgan is a place we could find a job. And everybody likes the security and income he can get."
Simple enough. And it rang true.
The conversation veered off the tracks when I made the mistake of bringing up complaints about Somali driving.
The Somalis grew defensive. The subject dominated the rest of our short time together.
"Because we are all new," said one man, "they just point to us for all the bad deeds."
The Committee turned out not to be vital to our story.
We found other ways to overcome the language and cultural barriers to getting a rich picture of the refugee experience: through translators who served as our guides, through a generous community college official who set up a meeting with a student who turned out to be a key character, by knocking on an apartment door and getting lucky.
It wasn't just our interactions with Somalis that proved challenging, either.
One night, photographer Joe Amon and I stopped by The Club Tap, a bar on Main Street, to talk to locals. A female employee who was smoking out front saw Joe's photo equipment and asked who we were and what we wanted.
She called the bar owner. No, we were not welcome to talk to the patrons of The Club Tap.
Another day, our videographer, Anne Herbst, had a run-in with a third-party security guard unhappy Anne had set up shop on a public sidewalk across from the Cargill meatpacking plant.
She was told, "The First Amendment does not apply to Cargill."
Within a few minutes, a company spokesman called me. He apologized after hearing what happened.
Despite the roadblocks, we met plenty of warm and welcoming people in Fort Morgan — the people you see reflected in the words and images of the story.
I also learned how to say "thank you" in Somali.
It's "mahadsanid."
Muslim in America: 10 years after 9/11
PART I: A diverse Muslim population confronts a choice: step forward or retreat.
PART II: A mosque founded in the aftermath of 9/11 experiences trials and success.
PART III: Somali Muslims drawn to work in rural Colorado remake the face of Islam in America
Source: www.denverpost.com
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