Student’s Writings

With the recent passing of Jesse Jackson, the students were reminded of his association with the poem, “I Am Somebody.” They were asked to consider this concept.

ETHAN…pays homage to his diverse family roots as the clay that has molded the unique somebody that he is.

I Am Me

I am somebody. Most people call me Ethan, but others call me “E.” To myself, however, I will always be the Mofongo Man. People who know me best know many things about me, but there are some things you might have forgotten. To understand who I am, you have to understand the two main sides of me: Jobita and Jemadari. They may be my two last names, but they carry two totally different meanings.

Let’s start with Jemadari. For the basics, Jemadari has four syllables. It translates to “general” or “hero,” with origins in Swahili and Hindu. Speaking of Swahili, I am from Tanzania, though my grandfather originally came from Afghanistan. As a Jemadari, my role is to be a role model for the younger ones. I am the eldest son, and while I’m not as close to my little brother as I would like to be, I’m working on it. I usually keep to myself when I’m with the Jemadari side; I’m not very talkative with them. I get my music taste from this side of the family, and for a fun fact: I am actually the tallest on the Jemadari side. My father’s tribe, the Chaga, are generally very short.

Now for the Jobita side. It is the complete opposite. Everyone on this side is different. Some of you may have met my Aunty Peninina or my mom, Ms. Rita. They are chill, but different in their own ways. My mom and I act exactly alike; we love to get on my aunt’s nerves. In another universe, we might have been brother and sister with my aunt as the mother. Since we have more family visiting us right now, there are even more people to tease my aunt. My other aunt and cousin from London are here, and let me just say, my London aunt is a trip! She’s great, but she can be a lot to handle sometimes.

I am a different person when I’m with the Jobitas. For starters, I am probably one of the shortest males on that side. My tallest uncle is 6’5″ and my grandfather is 6’0″, so you can see how my father’s 5’6″ height interfered with my mother’s side! On the Jobita side, I am much more talkative. Like I said, I am very close to my mom and my aunt. I love to shop and I love to have fun; I just feel like I can truly be myself when I am with the Jobitas.

When you combine all of that, I am Ethan Jobita Hassan Jemadari. I am Swahili, I am Tanzanian, I am Kenyan, and I am American. But most importantly, I am me.

Ethan Jobita Jemadari

February 20, 2026

With the recent passing of Jesse Jackson, the students were reminded of his association with the poem, “I Am Somebody.” They were asked to consider this concept.

MINGO…reflects on the work in progress that she is, toward becoming the somebody she doesn’t yet know.

 The Passage of Time

I am somebody who I don’t know yet, and I don’t know what I want to be. There is a lot that I do not know at this point, things I think that I should have figured out by now. What career do I want? What religion do I follow? Where do I want to live? I don’t even know my name! Am I Mingo or Tallulah? Recently, I’ve been thinking about that question. From a silly little nickname I got in fifth grade, to my name, to what everyone in my family knows me as, and friends call me. I never hear ‘Tallulah’ anymore. That makes me sad.

I think about my past a lot. I definitely had a great childhood, (I can thank my parents for that). I have memories that I can review for hours. Being a little kid was so fun. Using imagination, playing on the playground that seemed to tower over me, and sitting with my best friend at lunch.

Sometimes I felt overlooked in school, when I wasn’t able to understand something that everyone else could. And I’d watch as the teacher moved on, and me, afraid to say anything. I am hard on myself, even back then. I got upset when I was slower to complete an assignment than my peers. I got upset when I had to beg for the extra time on work that I was owed. I got upset when I couldn’t spell a word that was easy for everyone else.

In third grade, I noticed the ways that I was different; my friend at the time pointed it out to me. I remember being in art class, and my friend said that I was dumb because I was in specialED, and I believed her. When I told my mom about it, she started crying and I didn’t understand why. 

Being at The Community School, I have realized that I love learning, and that I actually care about my grades. Maybe a bit too much. The mindset that I have been struggling with can be simplified down to: The higher my grades, the more self-worth I feel. And anything that drops below 94% is disappointing. This type of thinking was so sudden. In eighth grade I comfortably lived with B’s on my report card and didn’t bother to change them. But now I think that if I’m not the best at everything, then I am failing. I want to believe that I am worth more than my grades. I want to believe that I am somebody outside of school and academics.

The pictures of my years as a little girl are important to me. My yearbooks, school pictures, and photoshoots with my family remind me that I still am that girl. It is hard to imagine it, but she is me, and I am her. 

I had been thinking about my summer camp recently, and decided to google it. The camp is still rounding year-round and posts frequently on Instagram. I was scrolling through the page, while thinking about all the friends and memories I had made there. I wondered if I would be there. In one of the pictures amongst the group. To be honest, I was scared that I wouldn’t recognize myself. I kept going until I got to the year that I went. Going slower, I looked at each face in the photos. There I found it, posted in July of 2018. I was about 7 years old. A picture of me that I had no idea I’d see eight years in the future. When I saw that photo, I burst out into tears. I don’t remember the picture being taken, but it happened, and the evidence is there. Looking at that girl, I thought about all the times that I couldn’t fathom growing up. Like the time I sat in my 3rd grade math class, drowning out the sound of talking and chalk on the board. I was thinking about how long it would take for me to graduate 8th grade. Five years sounded like an eternity to little me. I concluded that it would never happen. And then I blinked, now I’m a highschool looking right back at that girl. I know everything about her, and yet she knows nothing about me. 

Tallulah Cord

February 20, 2026

With the recent passing of Jesse Jackson, the students were reminded of his association with the poem, “I Am Somebody.” They were asked to consider this concept.

 MADISYN…personifies a mirror to grapple with the reflection of one’s true self.

Someone

If I’m not somebody or someone, I can be anything. A mirror, perhaps, I could be a reflection of every person that walks by, but when one particular person does, I catch their eye. They stare for a bit because in the reflection is someone else, not them. All I did was reflect on who they were inside.

This mirror doesn’t reflect what you want to see, but it reflects who you are as a person. You should know that it doesn’t define you because it’s not all the aspects of you or me. As somebody myself, it’s hard to understand that one thing doesn’t define me, not even my reflection. So I would rather reflect others than myself. It’s easier that way.

Madisyn Hall

February 24, 2026

The students were presented with two poetic lines about angels & demons and asked to consider those competing concepts.

 ETHAN…channels his father’s struggles with these concepts from his Tanzanian roots to his American reality.

Angels & Demons

As a father of four, I have faced many Angels and Demons. My Angels include moments of beauty, love, inspiration, and spiritual discoveries. On the other hand, my Demons include moments of insanity, depression, and mental breakdowns.

My life has been a roller coaster of experiences. If you don’t mind, I would like to take a little time to explain parts of my journey. I was born in Tanzania; more specifically, Arusha. I was the firstborn in my family, followed by my three little sisters: Dorbibi, Mahabibi, and Mya. Dorbibi was a “demon”; she was the terror of the house. She would always snitch and be mama’s pet peeve. Mahabibi, on the other hand, was cool; she was the chill one of the family. Mya and I never really had much of a relationship; I was 11 when she was born, and during that time, I was sent to boarding school in Kenya by my father’s choice.

My father and I were very close; he was a loving family man. However, he would get angry when I did not focus on my studies or when I skipped school to play sports, so he decided to send me to Kenya to focus on my education. Being in Kenya was a different experience: no family, no good food…just me, myself, and soccer. During my second year of boarding school, I was called back home urgently. I thought my family was calling me back for vacation, but when I arrived, there was no vacation. There was only a crushed car in the driveway. I had been called back for my father’s funeral.

Two years after his funeral, I dropped out of boarding school to return to Arusha and work to provide for my mother and siblings. I worked on the streets selling food and washing cars, but I knew that wasn’t enough. I decided to make the hardest choice of my life: to leave Tanzania and go to America for a better opportunity. I told my sisters, my mother, and my aunts and uncles; they all tried to hold me back, but I could not watch my family suffer any longer.

When I arrived in America, it was different. I wasn’t used to being this alone. Instead of home being a country away, it was tens of thousands of miles away. I had many jobs when I first arrived, but in one of those places, I met an outstanding woman. Let’s call her “Baby.” She says she got her nickname from her mother, who thought she was done having children, so they called her Baby.

Baby and I had a son. I wanted to call him Omonde because he was born on a early Monday morning, but we just called him Ethan. Seventeen years have now passed, and life is still coming to haunt me. I have tried to make life easier for my kids so they don’t have to go through what I have endured, but some things in life you cannot stop. In a few months, I could be kicked out of the country, and my oldest will have to step up and be a man.

You may be wondering who I am? I am Mohamedi Sengumvia Jemadari.

Ethan Jobita Jemadari

February 6, 2026

The students were presented with two poetic lines about angels & demons and asked to consider those competing concepts.

JASON…speaks of the challenge to keep the demons of the past from shading the possibilities of the present.

Two Sides

There are different sides of your own mind: the angel, the demon, and something in between. No matter who you are or what you believe, there is no helping yourself from falling into one of these sides. It is not emotion but a collection, subsides of memories that come back when you don’t want them to. Most of the time, you’re somewhere in between, not thinking about anything substantial while going to work, school, the store, or nowhere at all. My point being that you don’t need to be anywhere or doing anything for things to come up to bite you.

I was walking to my house on a cold day while snowflakes were slowly falling, disappearing under my breath. I couldn’t think of much because I was hearing a beat, it was like listening to someone’s heartbeat who had no heart, or listening to someone talk who isn’t there. The feeling was so confusing I couldn’t really think of anything else. That’s why I walk; I try to reach something that isn’t there, trying to fill that feeling of longing. When you don’t have anyone to talk to or make new memories, that leads you to a door. Behind the door are all the memories you don’t want to remember… so you don’t open it and keep looking for something else. No matter how much you attempt to close this door, it keeps creeping open… at home, sitting down, tossing a ball up and down, imagining all the more productive things I could be using my time for at that moment. Recently, I was thinking about many different, uninteresting things, switching between sides of my brain like a game of hopscotch until I tripped on the crack of the sidewalk and found myself on the wrong side of where I want to be. Like being hit by truck-kun, the door was open, the demon I didn’t want to face stood right in front of me, looming down. I felt the pressure before I knew it was there. The door I saw before held more of my trauma than I could have imagined. Madness was consuming me and I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t want to lose myself. The things I was remembering gave me motivation to hold back from giving in and the people that helped me would hate to see where I am now. I persevered and was saved by someone else, again. 

I was always someone who needed help. I could never do anything for myself which is the important stuff I needed to realize. I didn’t need to come to terms with myself but I could learn to do things on my own so that I wouldn’t need to be saved by anyone. If I couldn’t suppress it anymore, I could at least help myself when I need to. It doesn’t matter what happened to you yesterday, you just need to learn how to love yourself for who you are today.

Jason Barnett

February 6, 2026

The students were presented with two poetic lines about angels & demons and asked to consider those competing concepts.

 KARLA…takes a poetic approach of her own, while bookending her piece with the two proffered lines.

Wings

I have felt the wind of the wing of madness 

Nothing more than a body full of sadness 

Anger flowing through my veins 

All I feel is pain 

My lungs deprived of air 

Voice is gone and not a thing seems fair 

I question why me, why me, why me 

My brain keeps telling me to flee 

But my body won’t move  

Frozen in place because I have everything to lose 

Or maybe I already lost myself 

In a pool full of madness 

Where all I can do is drown 

And the only place I am going is down 

But… 

There is something pulling me up 

The end of the depression race seems close up 

I want to feel this surreal sense of happiness

That flows in excess 

Making my body explode into a new being 

Going from fleeing to freeing 

How do I escape this anticipation? 

Taking me apart piece by piece 

Where I can never be at peace

What if I end this suffering before? 

Let my body and feelings pour 

I can feel my guardian angel close by

Maybe it’s just in my head but I do want to try 

I want to be with my angel now more than ever 

But, if it won’t come for me then I’ll meet it 

Just wait a bit 

I’ll grow my own wings 

I’ll fly so high that no one will mistake me for a bird 

Just the thought of it seems absurd 

I can’t wait any longer 

I want to become stronger 

Sore through the air without a care 

I will be free 

I won’t be as small as a pea 

But as big as a tree 

I will become the angel no one was for me 

I won’t have to plea or do painful things

I will become the breathless beat of angels’ wings 

Karla Rivas

February 6, 2026