Life skills 101: Utah has rich history of resettling refugees

» Photo galleries: Refugees reborn

Second in a six-part series

The family of Farah Abdikadir arrives in Utah on an afternoon flight from Atlanta. Nine in all, the refugees from Somalia huddle together at a baggage claim turnstile, waiting for three plastic bags that are the only possessions to pass from the old world to new.

The young children — there are four tangled in the legs of their mother and older sisters — match their parents in clothing issued from the United States Refugee Program.

Members of the family dressed in white canvas tennis shoes do not look oppressed. Rape, trauma and persecution are not evident in the demeanor of the three women in yellow head scarves, who stand proudly in matching sweat shirts watching the strange lighted signs and the rotating counter that delivers their belongings.

The sweetness of the children's faces belies their circumstances. It is not obvious all they have known is the northern Kenya refugee camp where they were reared with no electricity, flush toilets, telephones or appliances. It is not apparent that this family was exposed to little hygiene and little education in their homeland. They had little food and even less freedom.

But this is the case for Farah Abdikadir's family and other refugees from one of the world's most ruined countries.

They come from the Bantu clan in Somalia, a group of people brought to their country from Tanzania and northern Mozambique as slaves 200 years ago and treated as such still. They cannot return to their homes.