February 2022 Student Spotlight: Ishaq Albultamori
Ishaq is half American and half Yemeni. He was born and lived in Yemen until he was 14 years old. When he was seven, he became separated from his father by force. Finally, they were reunited, and he and his mother and siblings joined his father in the United States. Ishaq is now studying biology at MCC and plans to become a dentist in the future.
After Seven Years
"Ba-rring, ba-rring." Six kids ran toward the phone, but my mom picked it. "Asalaam alaikum" (Peace be upon you). The sound from the other end of the call was loud and not clear. "They got your husband. They took him!" the man screamed. My mom dropped to the floor, and we rushed to her. My mom was surrounded with six kids all yelling. Then she stood up with my big brother’s support. There were tears coming out of her eyes like a river in a windy day.
My father was born in 1942 and was raised in Baltimore, Maryland. His mom died when he was seven, so his life came crumpling on him. As a result, he learned how to depend on himself at an early age. At 16, he had his own house, and his dream always was to have a good family. His first wife was white, and it was the 1970s. As a result, he faced a lot of racism even from his own people. Later, in his 20s, he served in Vietnam. There, he suffered from prejudice because he was a black man and a very religious Christian. When he came back from the war, he joined the Nation of Islam in the United States. Later, he traveled to Saudi Arabia to study more. He decided to migrate to Yemen, and there, he found the light that he was searching for: Islam, a family, and no racism. After he married my mom, they went to a village called Damage. That small village had people from all around the world come together for only one reason: to study the Islamic religion.
When that phone call came, my father’s visa had expired, and there were some problems, and he couldn’t renew it. There was no police or government in that village at all, so they told him he would be safe if he didn’t travel to other cities. But the day before that fateful day, my brother got really sick, and my father went to the one and only pharmacy in the village. The pharmacist told him that he didn’t have the medicine he needed, and so my father would have to travel to the next city to get it. There, the police caught him because of his expired visa. They left us without a father, and they took him before we could say our goodbyes.
Every time we heard a knock, we rushed to the door, wishing that it was my father. We did it every day. A week passed, a month passed, years passed, but he never knocked at that door. At the mosque, I looked to every man who passed by and imagined with my little 7-year-old head that they were my father. "How would my life be if that were my father?" I asked myself sadly.
After a couple of years, his face started to vanish little by little from my head. I still can’t believe that a stupid expired paper separated a father from his six kids. The oldest was 11 and the youngest was 1 year old. My little sister didn’t even know him. If someone asked her "Where is your dad?" she pointed to the phone because whenever that phone rang, we all ran there yelling, "Dad, Daaad!"
One day at 10 years old, I was playing outside with my friend. When lunchtime came, my friend’s father came out of his house and called my friend. "It is lunch time, son."
"I don’t want to eat," he replied while laughing and running.
"The monster will eat you if you don’t come and eat," he said with a smile.
Then he started chasing him. He picked him up to his shoulder and they both were laughing so hard that a bird in the sky could heard them. While I was watching, tears came out of my eyes. I tried to hide them, but they were coming down like a waterfall. I wiped my face with my dirty hand and kept crying until I was tired of crying.
Seven years later, life decided to smile at us again. A way opened for us to come to America. We traveled to Oman from Yemen, and my father traveled to Oman from America. When we got there, we were very happy and excited. I asked my mom every minute, "Is he here?"
"Not yet, but soon," she replied with a smile.
My heart was dancing inside my chest, and my feet were moving nonstop like a warrior ready to attack. We were driving and looking out the window "Where is he?" we asked.
Then the light of the car shined on a 65-year-old man whose face was filled with tears. We opened the door of the car before it stopped completely. Happy tears met with the ground; we all were crying, and even the police officer who was there. After we left, the floor below us was a river of tears. We hugged each other for so long that it repaid me for some of the father’s love I had missed.
ESOL Voices is a collection of stories written by ESOL students at Monroe Community College. This publication highlights our MCC students who come from all over the world. Look for new stories in the Tribune. We hope you enjoy our students’ stories as much as we do.
— Katie Leite & Pamela Fornieri, ESOL Program, February 2022