2004 for New Zealanders: Abdikarin Ali Haji

Abdikarin Ali Haji

Last year was the happiest of Abdikarin Ali Haji's life. But the smiling Somalian, usually known just as Haji, remembers when life was not so good.

He had arrived in New Zealand as an asylum-seeker and lived peacefully for six years, finding work and making friends. But in late 2003 Immigration Service staff caught up with him and tried to send him back to his lawless country, where he believes he would have been killed.

Haji was caught on television at Auckland International Airport screaming in distress and flanked by policemen, shortly before he was to be put on an aeroplane.

The 28-year-old comes from a minor tribe and did not believe he would make it through the gangs who infest Mogadishu's bomb-flattened airport.

Haji got lucky. the High Court granted him a reprieve that came just two hours before he was to leave. He was sent to Auckland Central Remand Prison where he stayed until February last year.

He was then issued a temporary permit allowing him to stay for a year and was freed from jail. He made the most of that freedom.

Haji is a qualified boner and he headed to the freezing works in Mataura, Southland, where he had worked before. When he was laid off because of a poor season, he went to Queenstown and found a job as a construction worker, then a job at a flash resort.

"I gone the skydiving, worked in Millbrook Resort, driving van for the laundry," he says. "I've been the happiest I've ever been in my life, in my whole life, especially after I done the skydiving and all that. It just seemed to me like I born again.

"Like, where I was living in Queenstown, I get up in the morning and sit on the balcony and can see The Remarkables, by the lakefront and town and all that. The house I had really had the best view in town.

"Sometimes after work I'd sit there, all the ice on the mountain, and I'd think like, wow, like where I've been and where I was, like just sitting Queenstown balcony, peaceful. I'm lucky, I swear I'm lucky. But the thing is, can it stay like that or not?"

Haji has now moved to Wellington, where he knows other Somalis, and is again at a freezing works.

But he is worried. He desperately wants to stay in New Zealand but does not know if he will be allowed to.

"The thing is, like in Somalia, it's the same situation as before, if not worse."

Haji, who dreams of getting permanent residency and studying social work, does not understand why people would want to deport him.

He has always worked and is proud that he has never taken a benefit.

"I work, I'm a taxpayer, I'm the same like those people [at the refugee centre]. I'm a refugee and they bring in those people into this, and they given a place here with taxpayer's money. And me, I'm here, I'm not taking taxpayer money, I'm working. I'm taxpayer and they're kicking me out and they bring in new ones.

"I don't know what might be this year. I believe this year will be rough.

"I had really good year last year since I been out of jail, been happy, I had the best year ever. I mean, I always been happy but this has been the happiest I ever been."