From Baghdad To Fairfield: A look at the Life of Visiting Fairfield Student Ali Abdul Majeed
Posted by Brendan Monahan at 10:34 am 333 Comments Print
Life was going pretty well for Ali Abdul Majeed. A University of Baghdad student with a loving family, exciting friends, and adored girlfriend-everything seemed to be coming together pretty well for him.
Then the War in Iraq broke out in 2003. Things were bad, but bearable. At first, the six foot tanned Baghdad native even made friends with American troops as they swarmed his home city of Baghdad.
“They were so cool. I was…hanging out with them, we talked a lot,” Majeed said.
As conditions worsened, though, soldiers became wary of not knowing who was an Iraqi they should befriend or who was a terrorist. The friendliness Majeed had appreciated disappeared.
Majeed, currently an undergraduate sophomore at Fairfield University, knew the ongoing war could take a turn for the worse.
Then, it did.
The muscular young man with a dark haired mushroom haircut saw the worst of humankind.
“Explosions…sometimes I was lucky by like one minute or two minutes. Like that day we left late from my house to go to school and exactly like 2 minutes time difference big explosion happen ahead,” he said.
The constant discovery of body parts, the fear of making the wrong step, the seemingly ticking time bomb on his own life grew all too familiar.
“At the end you just get used to it- everyday when you’re leaving you put in your mind, in your head [that] you might not come back. You are leaving this morning to go to the school- [and it] could be the last day of your life,” Majeed recalls thinking each day.
His parents never left him alone, and Majeed never minded. While living in Iraq they would call “30 to 40 times during the six hour school period,” Majeed recalls. They had to make sure their kids weren’t the latest victims in the ongoing violence.
And then his family joined millions of fellow Iraqi refugees and headed for Syria.
But Majeed knew that he needed a mere eight more months in Iraq to finish his dentistry degree.
And with that, the thinly built athletic young man made his Syrian visit a short one. He was determined to continue to work towards a dentistry degree.
“Life could not possibly get worse,” Majeed thought.
But it did. Seeking peace, Majeed received anything but a warm welcome when he arrived at the University of Mosul in northern Iraq. A cross between a religious war with Muslim extremists and the ongoing global war, Mosul was the epitome of a warzone.
“This can’t be,” Majeed recalled thinking as he began to discover the horrifying conditions he would call home.
Yet again, he began to fear for his life. Only this time, he was alone- no family and certainly no friends to comfort or protect him.
“I was sharing the room with very, very conservative religious people that I was probably opposite from. Just living with them was… dangerous,” Majeed said. “I couldn’t talk …or even listen to music or do anything because that’s … forbidden for them so I was forbidden.”
The roommates were Muslim extremists and although they were not violent extremists, the area surrounding Mosul was an extremely violent environment.
They were students- students who made it difficult to do everything. When doing anything from sleeping in the same room to taking a simple shower, Majeed was in misery.
“No power, no hot water, and it’s just freezing. Water drops coming from the ceiling,” he recalls thinking again and again. “It [was] so hard.”
The days were filled with horror, the nights and weekends anything but fun.
“I just have to fight through this and get out of here,” Majeed remembered thinking.
He had traveled from an international warzone in Baghdad to a religious war zone in Mosul, finding himself counting the days until he would graduate from Mosul and flee the entire country.
With a four year college degree in hand, Majeed finally retreated to Syria with no plan for the future and dreams in the dust.
At one time, like most college students, he had a dream plan.
“Have my own clinic, get big money, live my life. I can do whatever I want, I can get married, I can get a girl[that] I like, that I love,” he recalled dreaming.
Suddenly, his focus wasn’t his dreams. It was his survival.
“Hey I just want to live, screw everything,” Majeed thought as the days passed.
Mosul was miserable, and Baghdad was barbarous. Syria was the only option for retreat and it allowed the aspiring dentist to rejoin his family.
Waiting and wishing for an opportunity to come his way while lacking a dentistry license, Majeed’s cousin garnered information on a program called The Iraqi Student Project while learning to teach English language to Iraqi refugees living in Syria. Majeed’s younger brother, currently enrolled in a university in Indiana, agreed to go to the interview and take the test. He fit the program’s goal of attracting Iraqi collegiate students who had their education cut short due to the ongoing war. Majeed did not fit that characteristic, but he scored a 560 out of a possible 570. He was difficult to turn down. He had little reason not to go and was even willing to start his undergraduate studies all over again. Majeed’s brother also had little reason to remain in Syria after his acceptance into the program.
“I have no future, I have nothing to do…worst day of my life. I made my decision to start over again and the applying process took… 6 months,” Majeed said.
With no legal employment and no direction, he took a chance to come to the United States when his acceptance letter arrived. Majeed knew months of preparation and English practice would be needed, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make.
Shortly after Majeed’s acceptance, Charles Katter was approached by the Iraqi Student Project program about being a potential sponsor. Katter, an executive at Morgan Stanley, stepped up to help Majeed out both financially and, more importantly, personally. A Westport native, Katter wanted to do something to help the situation in Iraq. A college connection at the ISP talked him into funding Majeed’s trip to the United States.
“I have pretty strong feelings about the US action in Iraq and this is a good way for me to participate in making some restitution,” Katter said.
Finally, Majeed had put every piece of the puzzle that was going to get him to the United States. He said goodbye to everything he knew and everyone he loved on August 23rd, 2008, boarding a plane from Syria bound for New York City. It was a long task saying goodbye.
“The goodbye was awesome. All my family [and] my friends went out and we rent[ed] a bus to the airport because my friends came from Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon to say goodbye, so it was really nice,” Majeed said.
When he touched down, he would be arriving in a place where not only were his parents not obligated to check on him 30 to 40 times, but they simply couldn’t.
At last, he was off, not to be seen in Iraq again for four years and anxious to see the sights of the United States.
“While I was in the plane I was so excited to com[e] here, knowing that this would be a new start for me and a new chance to improve myself and to learn more about the world,” he remembers thinking as he soared to a new life.
He was greeted with a true American arrival- security checks and constant interrogation.
“The first thing that I remember [was] a ton of question[s] and investigation for more than six hours after that they said ‘welcome to United States,’” Majeed said.
“The first night I stayed in New York City. I was so fascinated. I was like, ‘Oh my God, everybody just running,’” he said.
At last he was escorted to Fairfield by Katter. Having departed a war zone and arrived at a mansion overlooking the Long Island Sound, life seemed good again. Dreams were beginning to be reformulated.
His first thought told it all.
“Beautiful. I went the Presidents House-Bellarmine-I was like you see the beach. The beach with the blue and the green. It’s beautiful,” he thought.
Soon, though, the beauty of the looks would be replaced with the hard work of the books.
Majeed was put through a rigorous orientation to help him learn the ins and outs of the English language, the Fairfield campus, and the country as a whole.
He moved into Townhouse 37 a week before other students and was immediately struck with comfort.
The life he had departed and the life he had just received could not have been more different. From the dreaded University of Mosul to Townhouse 37, Majeed was rushed with feelings of comfort and peace as he moved his few suitcases upstairs.
Chris Winslow ’10 was one of Majeed’s housemates. He had learned that a fifth student had been placed into his townhouse on his way to campus.
Originally bothered by the fact that a student he didn’t know had taken the double room in the house, Winslow was blown away when he realized the type of individual he’d be living with. From the very moment he pulled up to the house, the Long Island native was struck by Majeed’s efforts to help move bags in and become true friends with his new roommates.
Enjoying the hot and cold water, the heat and air conditioning, beautiful surroundings, and party after party, Majeed quickly impressed his housemates. Winslow chalks Majeed up to a lifelong friend.
“He’s the man. I love him. He’s one of the chillest people I know, always willing to do everything the right way with a cool head. Nice guy, [and] always willing to give,” Winslow said.
Katter has noticed the same qualities, only in a bit more of a professional sense.
“He is bright, determined, has a clear idea of where he wants to go and what hurdles he needs to get over.” Katter said. ”He’s also very adaptable and seems to have adjusted very quickly to his new environment.”
Gerry Adams, a current housemate and fellow International student graduating with his master’s degree in December, is also impressed with the way in which Majeed has adapted.
“Ali has adjusted seamlessly to college life here in the US,” he said. “Given the stark contrast between our cultures and the fact the area he is from is still considered a war zone, one would believe it would be quite difficult to assimilate to the American culture. However, Ali seems to have done just so.”
Majeed progressed through his sophomore year just as every other undergraduate- but with a horrifying past and fascinating story to tell.
As the year went on, that story began to get out and was met with intense interest. From partygoers to professors, everyone wanted to hear about Majeed’s past.
“First year a lot of people were interested to know more- like what’s going on there, what’s the situation like there,” Majeed recalled. “There’s a lot of people that don’t know anything. They only know about what’s going in if they see… the media or news, which is not the true picture.”
The only freshman living at the townhouses and able to purchase beer, Majeed certainly made friends quickly. If nobody asked about his past, though, nobody would know.
“I can’t imagine what he’s gone through and nobody can,” Katter said. ”And it’s that resilience that makes you want to help the guy out.”
From the silly questions to the serious ones, Majeed never minded answering.
“‘Do you wear jeans in your country? Do you have a camel?,” Majeed recalls as some of the strangest, most intriguing questions.
He doesn’t take students’ ignorance personally, but continues to embrace it.
After traveling the country and visiting with his brother over the summer, Majeed has embraced his second year at Fairfield.
He has started an International Club at Fairfield. To date, the club represents 20-25 countries and 77 members. It’s brand new and is catching steam as fast as Majeed has himself.
Majeed says the mission of his club is to “make students be more open to other cultures.”
His room proudly sports a once-plain white poster board in his room, now covered with flags from each of the countries that his club represents.
It’s a room he doesn’t get a chance to see much of.
From International Student dinners with dignitaries in New Haven to television commercial advertisements to public relations work for Fairfield University, Majeed maintains an ever-busy schedule.
He was contacted last summer to appear in a commercial for a pledge for international peace via a moment of silence last September 23rd.
“Someone called me and was like ‘Will you come to New York?’ and I was like ‘Yeah I’ll come,’” Majeed recalls with a laugh.
But that’s not all. He has been featured in American newspapers. He has videos documenting his time at Fairfield on the Iraqi Student Project website. His mug is seen smiling on Fairfield big screen televisions across campus as well as prospective student brochures.
Majeed is humble about his fame.
“It’s not a big deal,” Majeed says with a playful grin that almost admits his increasingly visible role in the United States . “It’s not like people are running after me to have signatures.”
Through his double major and recent week of repeated “all nighters,” Majeed doesn’t let his media requests and University marketing schemes get in the way of truly embracing his Fairfield experience.
He never passes a moment to head to the Seagrape Bar or throw a party, such as the “Pirate” themed party he held on his October 10th birthday.
From the girls to the games, Majeed has taken it all in.
“The girls are very outgoing,” Majeed says with a sly smile.
But he also admits, “I like the drinking games!”
He recently acquired his license. He still meets with the Katter family once or twice a week. He continues to indulge in the finest beers college sophomores can enjoy. He always leaves time for his studies. And yes, he still honors media requests.
He still never forgets where he came from.His Facebook photo features himself as a baby with his mother. If everything works out, he will return home to give back to Iraqis in need of dentistry work.
If that is to happen, though, the war conditions must improve.
“If the situation is still the same, then I don’t know,” Majeed says.
There’s no question he appreciates his new life but never forgets to think of his past.
“For me, I left a lot. Just leaving left … my dignity and starting over as an undergrad. That’s… totally enough,” he said.
On this October day, Majeed won’t arrive home until late in the evening following this latest media request. He will do his homework and Skype his parents. He will make weekend plans and along the way cram in an agenda for the International Club meeting and perhaps one more Fairfield marketing camera shoot.
His busy schedule benefits everyone.
“His presence here greatly enhances the student community and his sharing of culture echoes that of any other student who has great appreciation for their own heritage,” Adams said.
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