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Arrival at Umsegata
The Asgedom family left their home in Ethiopia and walked trough the dessert to get to Sudan. They were fleing war between their country and Eritrea. He was 3 years old. -
Heading to America
The World Relief Foundation helped the family to Imigrated to Chicago, Illinois. They were not able to fnd a sponsor at first but Bethel Presbiterian Church was able to find them a place to live in Wheaton, Illinois. -
Thank You
As baby brother boy named Hntsa-Eyesus was born bringing joy to the family. The baby's name means " Thank You" or "Temesgen. What means for we are thankful to have made it to the United States safel,and thankful for their new lifes in the America land. -
God Angels
Charlene was a God's angel as she would play soccer and play her acoustic guitar to Mawi, his borther Tewolde and young sister Mehret. What a blessing she was. -
Listen to your parents advice
Lecture from Mawi's father as children need to work hard at school and finish the university for them to be able to have a better live than being poor and to never give up as this will slowly win the race someday. -
The bullying starts
All started in second grade when Mawi and Tewolde were attending Longfellow Elementary School. -
Tewolde to the rescue
Tewolde exploded with anger when he saw the bully guy name Sam mistreating his brother Mawi. Tewolde acted without hesitation and he cocked his hand back and smashed it against the side of Sam's think fat head. -
Sam the Bully Boy
The bullying never stopped specially from a third grader boy named Sam started fighting with Mawi.
Sam was overweight, brown hair and one day cornered Mawi along the North fence of the playground. Sam yelled and screamed to Mawi and getting louder by the second making this almost impossible for Mawi to escape. Mawi started to cry for help and one of Tewoldes friend came to rescue Mawi -
Never ending fights
Mawi and Tewolde were in many fights along their elemetary school years. This is the way how they grew up in the Sudanese refugee camp. They were accustomed to fighting every day using simple weapons such as: stones, wood chips, rocks or what ever else they could get their hands on. -
Brian Willmer- Tewolde's best friend
Brian lived right up the street from Tewold and Mawi. Brian was a good-natured white boy. Brian mentioned many times that baby Hntsa should be a pretty model and told the family to send her pictures to a modeling agency. -
Frank and Mbago
Second grade brothers from Nigeria that had confrontations with Mawi and Tewolde. -
Mbago
Was always provoking Mawi. Mawi believed this was because they both were looked andpoor and he was ashmed to be African as Mawi was. -
Mawi & Tewolde teach the African brothers a lesson.
On day the African brothers Frank and Mbago sprang on them and tought them a lesson. Tewolde telling them that if they touch his little brother again it will get worse. The African brothers told their parents, consequently they went to see the Asgedom family. The Asgedom mom and dad lectured their boys in front of the other parents. Later in life their families became close friends. -
Warning from Longfellow Elementary school on not to fight anymore
A warning from the school administration was sent to the Asgedom children to stop the fighting or tehy will be consider expelling both children out of school. -
Lecture from Father to both sons- No more fighting
There was a powerful message/lecture from Haileab to his sons on not to fight nor find revenge anymore and let it go , even though it was easier to say than done. Run instead of fight because if you fight and expelled you from school no schoolarships will be given to them -
Dennis & Marc
A light-skinned black boy named Dennis and a skinny white kid named Marc. jumped Mawi on his way home. Mawi kicked Marc in his groin. Dennis tried to run but Mawil caught him and made sure that there was not going to be a next time -
Jake Evans- Middle school bully
Jake Evans was the deadliest kid at Franklin Middle School. He was the school head burnout. A boy that did drugsand didnt care about anything. Jake hated Tewolde. -
End of Jake Evans
Eight or more boys followed Jake everywhere and Tewolde was very scare that he would not survive any attacks from this band. The day came and Jake and his friends surrounded Tewolde. Tewolde prayed and 4 brothers of one of his friends came to his rescue and threatened Jake and his friends to stop and Tewolde never heard from them again. -
Chinese Stories
Tewolde used to tell stories to Mawi about some chinese people and how they have mastered some martial arts, kung fu, karate, etc. They could beat up any kid at school that bother them easily. -
Hoyo Hoyo Hoyo
Muslims, Christinas, Eritreans and Ethiopians celebrate on one night and leave away all the differences and getr united. They Celebrate crying Hoyo, Hoyo, Hoyo. Thechildren get candy, money, food but not on refuge camp as noone could afford this. Either with presents or no , everyone enjoyed the Hoyo celebration. -
Halloween
What a night to get lots of candy and for Mawi and Tewolde they took advantage of this as they got to go around 2 times . The first time they would take all the candy from the houses and the second round they would go with everyone and fill their pillow cases with tons of candy. -
Hallowen!! and Kiros
Kiros a friend from Sudan joined Mawi and Tewolde in Wheaton. Kiros was a pretty agile child that love to climb trees and joined the brothers. Kiros only joined them for trick or treat and they did round one and round 2. They robbed an old woman her candy . They felt bad like robin hood robbin the rich to give to the poor. -
Parking Meters
taking and removing the meter from the stall was not easy however Mawi and Tewolde saw an opportunity to get easy cash from the meter they removed. They went under a bridge with it and they saw the police lights and they ran and they were never get caught. They got home and hide. they were really scared. -
Wheaton Pulbic Library
Mawi and Tewolde made some ham sandwiched from Aldi supermarket. There was an older man out side the library and both boys gave him their sandwich -
Bench and weights
Tewolde wanted to lift some weights in college and got some free stuff from the wealthy dumpsters -
Jim encourages Tewolde
And taught him to build a business from almost nothing. -
Tewolde starts his own cleaning Businesses
at the age of 17 making his own money. -
Tewolde works with Jim Settacase
Jim a nice man that had his cleaning service business that paid the boys $7.00 an hour and he smiled and laugh alongside the boys. -
Tewoldes donation
to sponsor a child from South America for $240.0 dollars when he even did not have money for himself -
Tewolde died
and he never finished nor graduated high school -
Haileab
He was born in Seraye, Eritrea in 1934. His father died shortly after he was born and his mother grew sick. -
Haileab Hurled by the coffee grinder
By his relatives so he fled as he feared to stay. at the age of 14 he turned from his homeland Eritrea and wander deeper in to Ethiopia in to the province of Tigray -
Haileab passes the governments standard test
with an score of 84% . so he earned the right to train as an advance dresser. -
Enemies of Haileb
Threaten his to destroy his business if he helped some people with medical needs. He didnt risk to stay and settle in Sudan and he will get someone to get his family to him. -
Mawi kept on reading
He read thousands of pages a wwek out whole sections of the Wheaton Public Library. -
Hard work pays off
Tewolde warned Mawi about his Junior English class " She doesnt give A's" Mawi was close , he needed 96 to get the A in that class. He reread all the books from that class and needless to say he scored the class and passed with an A -
Mawi and Milke "Halloween and Reese's"
Mike and Mawi ran track and cross-country together. -
National Honor Society
Mawi told Mike to nominate him and he won president. Mawi treated everyone as an angel that is why people voted for him -
Applying for college and being accepted
Paid off due to words of encouragement from many of his close friends and family. "Let the admissions committees say no". "Dont say no for them. You're ranked in the top one percent of your class. You have top test scores. you never know, they might say yes." -
Full scholarship from Harvard and gradutaion
Mawi accepted the Harvard full scholarship and graduated in 1999.
