Mohamed Turay took the day off Tuesday to receive an award for all his hard work. It’s been a steep path from refugee to celebrated Connecticut citizen.
Originally from Sierra Leone, Turay traveled from his current home in New Haven to Hartford on the occasion of the 11th annual Connecticut Immigrant Day, to be honored for contributions to his community. Turay was one of 15 honorees, coming from all over the state and representing 14 different countries, from Greece to Ghana.
Turay, wearing a dapper three-piece suit and shiny two-tone shoes, returned to New Haven on Tuesday afternoon holding a fistful of awards from state officials, including certificates of recognition from Governor Rell and Susan Bysiewicz, the Secretary of the State. Turay was nominated for the awards by Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS) due to his work as a volunteer in New Haven, helping new immigrants to adjust to the city.
Turay first came to New Haven in 2001 with nothing but a single suitcase. After living at the YMCA for a month, IRIS helped him to find a job and an apartment. Now Turay volunteers with IRIS as a translator, driver, and an all-around helper for new arrivals in New Haven. He helps immigrants adapt to life in New Haven, including dealing with paperwork and negotiating the path to U.S. citizenship.
“I just love, love giving,” Turay said. “Because people helped me to come to this country, I just have to give myself,” he explained. “This is what motivates me.”
After starting his American employment as a bellhop at the Colony hotel, Turay attended evening classes and now works as a Certified Nurse Assistant, both full-time at Harborside Healthcare in Madison and part-time at the Fowler Nursing Center in Guilford. His Harborside supervisors Angela Racki and Marcia McGowan also took the day off work, to drive Turay to Hartford and attend the award ceremony.
Contacted by phone, Racki was bubbling over with praise for Turay. Among other qualities, she commended his work ethic (“He works a 40-hour shift, plus extra hours. And he’s always willing to come in for others.”), his relationship with patients (“They just love him. He inspires them just by his presence.”), and even his attention to personal grooming (“He always looks like he just stepped out of the shower, even after a double shift.”) “He’s just amazing. He’s an amazing person,” she concluded.
In addition to his other duties, Turay is also an active member of New Haven’s Muslim community, volunteering at his mosque and acting as a youth leader. And while Turay has been busy here in New Haven, he’s also been doing his best to support his relatives in Sierra Leone. Since he first arrived, Turay has been putting aside money from each paycheck to pay for the schooling of young members of his extended family in Sierra Leone. He supports the children of his female cousins and cousins’ cousins, many of whom lost their husbands in the country’s long civil war.
Paradise City
Stepping inside his apartment with his awards in one hand and an Arby’s sandwich in other, Turay cleared a space to sit on one of two leather couches in a dark living room. The room was cluttered with a rolled up carpet and piles of clothing on hangers, wrapped in plastic. Turay apologized for the mess, explaining that he was in the process of moving from a small apartment to this bigger space in preparation for the arrival of his wife, Kadiatu, from Sierra Leone. A newly acquired toddler’s car seat rested on a pile of belongings in the kitchen. His wife will be arriving with Turay’s two-year old daughter, Mariamaseray, whom he has never met.
Turay gave the Arby’s sandwich to a pair of neighborhood kids that ran noisily into the apartment and then shooed them away. Then he sat down and described his journey from living in war-torn Sierra Leone to being honored by the state of Connecticut.
In 2001 Turay had left Sierra Leone temporarily for Egypt, where he was studying Arabic. But because of the ongoing civil war in Sierra Leone, he found that he was unable to return. “Things went bad in my country. It was not safe at that time,” Turay said. “There was no way to go back, no hope.”
After hearing that his whole village had been demolished and being unable to find or communicate with anyone in his family, Turay applied to come to the U.S. as a refugee, leaving behind his fiancée in Sierra Leone. Turay ended up in New Haven because of a friend, a fellow refugee that had settled in the city.
In 2005, still unable to get back to Sierra Leone, Turay traveled to neighboring Guinea to meet his fiancée and get married. He spent two months in Guinea with his new bride and then returned to New Haven. His wife returned to Sierra Leone and shortly Turay received the happy news that he was to be a father.
Since acquiring his U.S. citizenship in 2006, Turay has been working to bring his wife and daughter to New Haven. Between his wife’s mandatory trip to Senegal for an immigration interview and the expensive DNA tests for Turay and his daughter, it has been a difficult process. Although he talks to his family everyday, he said, “For me there is no peace of mind. For them there is no peace of mind.”
At this point it’s just a matter of waiting to be contacted by the U.S. immigration services. Turay said that he had been calling the embassy in Sierra Leone regularly, but stopped because he was burning through entire phone cards, waiting on hold.
“Right now, all I want is my family,” he said.
Still, even without his wife and daughter, Turay remains positive. “I don’t believe in negativity,” he said, before describing New Haven as “like heaven on earth. A paradise.”
“We have to be productive and keep away from negativity and have dreams,” Turay said. “I’m really happy to be in America, because my dreams are coming true.”