Of Beetles and Angels (15 page)

1. If you had to flee America today with your immediate family, several suitcases, and $100, where would you go? How would you get there? What would be your biggest challenges once you got there?
   
2. One of the last things the villagers told Mawi’s family was, “Remember us.” When Mawi gave his commencement address at Harvard, he started out by sharing a piece of advice that his mother always gave him: “Always remember where you came from.” What does it mean to remember where you came from? Is it important? Where do YOU come from?
   
3. Were Mawi’s parents good parents? What are the attributes of good parents?
   
4. If you wrote a memoir of your life, what experiences would you share with readers? What wouldn’t you share? Do you think that you would learn anything new about yourself?
   
5. Mawi dedicates his book to the “true hero of this story, [his] mother, Tsege.” But he hardly mentions her in his book. If Tsege is so heroic, why doesn’t Mawi write more about her?
   
6. What does the book’s title,
   Of Beetles and Angels,
   mean to you? Are there angels in your life? Who are they? How would you title your memoir?
   
7. What different forms can terrorism take in a classroom, community, or country? How might playground warfare lead to civil or international warfare?
   
8. Stealing a parking meter is a serious crime. What if Mawi had been caught by the policeman and sent to a behavior-disorder school? Would his life have turned out the same? Can we use Mawi’s story to argue that young people should be given multiple opportunities to “develop a heart”?
   
9. Rudyard Kipling once asked, “And who should know England, who only England has known?” What does it mean to know America? Do you know America?*
   

Haroun and the Sea of Stories
by Salman Rushdie

Kaffir Boy in America: An Encounter with Apartheid
by Mark Mathabane

Cry, the Beloved Country
by Alan Paton

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain

A Prayer for Owen Meany
by John Irving

The Island on Bird Street
by Uri Orlev

Gifted Hands
by Ben Carson

Night
by Elie Wiesel

The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream
by Paulo Coelho

About the Author

M
awi Asgedom fled war-torn Ethiopia at age three. For the next three years he lived with his family in a Sudanese refugee camp and eventually immigrated to the United States at age seven. Growing up, he overcame language, cultural, and financial challenges and earned a full-tuition scholarship to Harvard University.

Mawi majored in American history and went on to win many honors at Harvard. His classmates elected him to be one of eight class marshals, and he delivered the commencement address at his graduation in 1999.

Today Mawi is a highly sought-after speaker for students, community groups, and businesses. He lives in Chicago, where he enjoys playing basketball, hanging out with his family, and listening to his favorite group, Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals. Mawi maintains a Web site at
www.mawispeaks.com
.

Also by Mawi Asgedom:

T
HE
C
ODE
:
THE
5
SECRETS OF TEEN SUCCESS

W
hat is
The Code?
It’s not just a book—it’s a simple, powerful system that will help you lead yourself to success. As a teenager, Mawi Asgedom discovered The Code and turned himself from a shy Ethiopian refugee into a star student at Harvard. Now, through entertaining stories, Mawi demonstrates how you can use The Code to take control of your life. Read
The Code,
and you’ll learn to set your own goals, build stronger friendships, overcome challenges-in short, make yourself the person you want to be.

Praise for T
HE
C
ODE
:

“Asgedom’s book is a surefire way to motivate teens and set them on the road to success.”

—
Kliatt

“He leads by example, and teens will be inspired by his per sonal story…. Readers standing on the edge of their futures will find that this quick read offers some valuable guidance.”

— School Library Journal

“His practical advice will motivate teens to greater levels of success.”

—
BookPage

I
NTRODUCTION

A
s soon as I had finished my speech, I saw them moving toward me. A teenage boy, head bowed, like a prisoner being marched to jail. Behind him, his mother, pushing him forward. Since their school’s assembly had just ended, other students lingered nearby.

The mother, brimming with confidence, grabbed my hand and shared her problem.

“Mawi,” she said, “I told my son that he shouldn’t dye his hair. He should have enough self-confidence based on how he is naturally. But he keeps arguing with me. Can you tell him that he doesn’t need to change to stand out?”

Dang! Either the son or the mom was gonna be mad at me!

“I hear you,” I told her. “Self-confidence is definitely the number one thing a teenager needs, and I’m glad you’re teaching your son to value himself.

“To be honest with you, though,” I continued, “I think he can have self-esteem
with
dyed hair. I never dyed my hair, but I used to let my friends shave designs into the back of my head, and we had a blast with it.

“Since you’re the parent, it’s your decision. But my honest opinion is that you should let him do it. Show him that he’s cool, with or without dyed hair, and that you’ll always support him for what’s inside him.”

The mom’s jaw dropped halfway to the floor. She’d been sure I would side with her just because she was the parent.

But that’s not what I’m about. And that’s not what this book is about. This book isn’t about taking sides between parents and teenagers. It’s not about preaching old-fashioned messages.

It’s about being honest. I promise you that in this book, I’ll be honest. I’ll be straight-up. I’ll tell you what I think, and I won’t water it down, because I’m not writing it to satisfy any particular reader. I’m writing it because I want to give you knowledge that can change your life.

Before I go any further, though, let me introduce myself and explain how I learned about success.

Who Am I?

My name is Selamawi Haileab Asgedom — Mawi, for short — and I shouldn’t even be around to write this book. I should have died a long time ago — eaten by a hyena, killed by black fever, or blown up by a rebel group. But I wasn’t killed. I’ve made it to age twenty-six and feel blessed to be here now.

I was born half a world away in Ethiopia, in a small town called Adi Wahla. I’d have grown up in Adi Wahla, except for one problem: Ethiopia was in the midst of a thirty-year civil war with its northern region, Eritrea. Unfortunately for my family, our village was located right on the Ethiopian-Eritrean border.

Men from our village fled the brutal armies, and one day, my father fled as well. He walked hundreds of miles to Sudan, leaving the rest of us in Ethiopia. Six months later, my mother took my five-year-old brother Tewolde, my baby sister Mehret, and me on the long trek to meet up with my dad. I was three years old.

Along the way, some of our friends were eaten by hyenas. Others were kidnapped and sold into slavery. Still others died from sickness or hunger or thirst.

My family was fortunate to reach Sudan safely. We found my father and settled in a refugee camp. After three years in the camp, our lives changed forever: We moved across the world to Wheaton, Illinois, a town just outside Chicago.

Was the transition to America easy? Not for a minute. I had to learn a new language, get by on welfare, and make friends in a town where I was different from everyone else. Time after time, I wanted to give up: when bullies picked on me; when my school threatened to expel me for fighting; and even in high school, when a drunk driver killed my best friend, my brother Tewolde.

But I kept going, and by using the Secrets you’ll find in this book, I eventually earned a full-tuition scholarship to Harvard University.

Now that I’ve graduated, I work as a professional speaker. I travel all over the country, showing students how to succeed.

By “succeed,” I don’t just mean getting into a famous college or becoming an all-state athlete. I’m talking about real success — being comfortable with who you are, choosing your own goals, and making yourself the person you’ve always known you could be.

The 5 Secrets

Working as a professional speaker, I’ve met every kind of teenager there is: confident and insecure, happy and miserable, overachieving and underperforming.

I’ve spoken in middle schools and high schools, in expensive private schools and old, rundown schools. I’ve even spoken with teens in jail. Wherever I’ve gone, I’ve always asked myself: what makes these teenagers who they are? What qualities separate the teens who are happy from the ones who aren’t?

I finally found my answer: The 5 Secrets of Teen Success. The 5 Secrets can make a weak teenager strong and turn a class geek into a class leader. They won’t change your life overnight, but if you keep applying them, they can make you anything you want to be.

While you’ll have to read this book to learn what each Secret means, for now I’ll reveal their names:

T
HE
1
ST
S
ECRET:
W
IN THE
I
NNER
B
ATTLE

T
HE
2
ND
S
ECRET:
W
IN
E
VERY
D
AY

T
HE
3
RD
S
ECRET:
G
IVE
F
IRST,
R
ECEIVE
S
ECOND

T
HE
4
TH
S
ECRET:
N
EVER
L
OSE
H
OPE

T
HE
5
TH
S
ECRET:
T
AKE
S
MART
R
ISKS

The 1 st Secret will introduce you to The Code and help you create your own Code. The other 4 Secrets will help you live your Code.

You’re probably wondering what The Code is and why it’s important. You’ll know in a few pages, but for now, I can tell you that
you
are The Code and The Code is you. That may sound strange, but I promise you: The Code has tremendous power. Used properly, it can change your life.

The Last Word

Over these past couple of years, I’ve read dozens of books on success. While many of those books offer useful information, most suffer from one problem: they’re so long, it’s hard to keep the lessons straight. By the time you get to page 200, you’ve forgotten what you learned on page 30. To avoid that, I’ve kept my book short and to the point.

I’ve also packed my book with captivating stories. Each one illustrates a strategy for success. I hope you’ll like the stories, but I need to warn you: The stories alone won’t make you succeed. To see why, think back to when you were a little kid. You learned how to ride a bike. Did you learn by hearing stories about biking? By watching your friends bike?

No. Watching and asking questions might have prepared you for riding a bike, but in the end, the only way you learned was by getting on the bike and finding out for yourself.

Success is the same way. I can tell you how others have succeeded or how I’ve succeeded. But in the end, I can’t make you succeed. If you want to succeed, you have to hop on the bike of success yourself, and make the wheels turn by applying the knowledge I give you.

To help you, I’ve closed each chapter with a section called “Your Turn,” where you’ll find questions that will help you unlock your potential. If you’re serious about success, get a pen and some paper, and answer every question you find in “Your Turn.”

And if you’re ready to discover The Code and The 5 Secrets, turn the page.

The desert, I remember. The shrieking hyenas, I remember.… I remember playing soccer with rocks, and a strange man telling me and my brother Tewolde that we had to go on a trip and Tewolde refusing to go. The man took out a piece of gum and Tewolde happily traded it for his homeland.…

So begins this unforgettable true story of a young boy’s remarkable journey: from civil war in east Africa to a refugee camp in Sudan, to a childhood on welfare in an affluent American suburb, and eventually to a full-tuition scholarship at Harvard University. Following his father’s advice to “treat all people — even the most unsightly beetles — as though they were angels sent from heaven,” Mawi overcomes the challenges of racial prejudice, language barriers, and financial disadvantage to build a fulfilling, successful life for himself in his new home.
Of Beetles and Angels
is at once a compelling survival story and an inspiring model for anyone hoping to experience the American dream.