A Homemade Museum in a Refugee Camp

Summary

Podcast Summary: The New Yorker Radio Hour

Episode: A Homemade Museum in a Refugee Camp
Date: March 20, 2018
Host: David Remnick
Guests: Nicholas Niarchos, Abdullahi Bashrahil, Tracy K. Smith

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Overview

This episode shines a light on the human side of conflict through the story of Abdullahi Bashrahil, a Yemeni refugee in Djibouti who copes with loss and exile by building a “homemade museum” in his refugee camp. Reporter Nicholas Niarchos recounts his visit to Bashrahil’s unique sanctuary, exploring themes of resilience, creativity, and hope amid hardship. The episode closes with a reflective segment from U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith, who shares thoughts on nature, creativity, and renewal.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Context: The War in Yemen and Displacement

• [00:28] David Remnick sets the scene: The war in Yemen is a devastating civil and regional conflict. Saudi Arabia and Iran are involved; the U.S. supports Saudi airstrikes. Hundreds of thousands flee, many ending up in refugee camps in neighboring countries like Djibouti.

"The war in Yemen is both a civil war and a regional war with more powerful neighbors Iran and Saudi Arabia involved at the same time. The United States is supporting and enabling the Saudis’ air war. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled Yemen..." – David Remnick [00:28]

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2. Arrival at the Refugee Camp: Meeting Abdullahi Bashrahil

• [01:23-03:00] Nicholas Niarchos describes the oppressive heat, the discomfort of camp conditions, and his encounter with Bashrahil—a man who, despite dire circumstances, exuded warmth and invited visitors to his tent.

"You walk through the camp... people come up to you and say that they want to talk to you... But at one point this man approached me and he was smiling, lovely, isn’t he? And laughing. And I didn’t really understand, you know, what there was to smile and laugh about." – Nicholas Niarchos [01:23]

• Bashrahil's pride in his space is immediately evident. He invites Nicholas, saying, "You must come to my tent. You have to come and see my tent... you'll go to this place and you'll hear the birds singing and then you'll have arrived at my tent." [02:28]

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3. Inside the "Museum": Creativity Amid Hardship

• [03:00-10:09]
  • Bashrahil's "museum" is constructed from found objects: animal skulls, wood, doll parts, spent ammunition, and an array of scavenged treasures.
  • He cultivates a small garden inside his tent—a stark contrast to the arid surroundings.

“So this is a civilian museum. Look this.” – Abdullahi Bashrahil [03:39]

• Bashrahil shares his pride in his garden: “What sort of green paper and bidingal. I don’t know what you call in English...” [03:56]
• The space is described as an oasis, “a little paradise,” where the harshness of life outside melts away. [04:05]

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4. Bashrahil's Story: Loss, Resilience, and Eccentric Artistry

• [05:09-10:09]

  • Bashrahil jokes about his past and reflects on his character:

    “I was more handsome than you. Believe me, I’m sure I was very, very, very handsome. And I was also very, very bad… I am a soft person. This is my problem.” – Abdullahi Bashrahil [06:07]

  • A former road surveyor, educated and once well-off, Bashrahil lost everything when war broke out. He escaped with only his clothes.

    “Before the war. It was very, very good. Until they started the war. We became like animals.” – Abdullahi Bashrahil [07:08] “We became like slaves.” – Abdullahi Bashrahil [07:28]

  • In Djibouti, he copes by collecting objects and creating art—a kind of "found-object artist" transplanted to a refugee context.

"If somebody were to act like this in, you know, New Mexico, they could be called a, you know, a found objects artist. But this is somebody in a refugee camp in Djibouti." – Nicholas Niarchos [10:09]

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5. The Symbolism of Birds and Hospitality

• [10:42-12:19]

  • Bashrahil keeps birds as companions and symbols of freedom. He releases them as gestures of kindness or hospitality, notably when the American ambassador visits.
  • The release is both meaningful and sacrificial; birds are scarce and valuable in the camp.

    "I freed you for the sake of God. Opening the cage, letting the birds into the sky." – Abdullahi Bashrahil [11:04] "And when the American ambassador arrived, he released the two birds into the sky as a sort of message of greeting." – Nicholas Niarchos [11:49]

• The ambassador is touched, but Bashrahil’s hope for resettlement remains just a dream.

  "Bashra Hill told him about a dream that he had which was to be resettled in the United States or somewhere in Europe and to build a new museum... It just seems to me a very, very long shot that he will be coming here after." – Nicholas Niarchos [12:19]

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6. Reflections on Hope and Endurance

• Bashrahil grapples with hope and uncertainty:

  "I don’t want to talk too much, he smiled. I know his smile. He’s keeping for me something. Maybe one day he will collect me and I don’t know, maybe soon. He’s ambassador." – Abdullahi Bashrahil [13:31]

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7. Poet Tracy K. Smith: Nature, Healing, and Creativity

• [15:08-20:59] The episode closes with U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith describing a walk in the woods near her home in Princeton, New Jersey.
  • Smith shares insights on how moving from the city to nature transformed her experience of grief and creativity.

    "I was anticipating having heartbreak about leaving Brooklyn... then I came here and I was like, oh, My God, this is. This is the real world. Like, there are these trees that are just electric, electrically green. And I feel like something in me has changed as a result." – Tracy K. Smith [16:11]

  • She discusses overcoming writer’s block and learning to trust imagery in poetry rather than relying on overt statements.

    "If you can just describe, a feeling can emerge that the reader can't help but participate in." – Tracy K. Smith [19:19]

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• Resilience and Humor Amid Tragedy:

  "I was more Handsome than you. Believe me, I’m sure I was very, very, very handsome. And I was also very, very bad… I am a soft person. This is my problem."
  – Abdullahi Bashrahil [06:07]

• On Loss:

  "Before the war. It was very, very good. Until they started the war. We became like animals."
  – Abdullahi Bashrahil [07:08]

• Agency Through Art:

  "He’s not just a collector, he is an artist. He had this artist sensibility of wanting to leave his mark..."
  – Nicholas Niarchos [09:29]

• Symbolic Generosity:

  "And when the American ambassador arrived, he released the two birds into the sky as a sort of message of greeting."
  – Nicholas Niarchos [11:49]

• Nature and Renewal (Poetry Segment):

  "I think they’re these old souls that kind of console in different ways. And so there’s something beautiful about this as a backdrop of what feels like a new beginning or the beginning of what comes after youth."
  – Tracy K. Smith [16:41]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:28] — Context and introduction to the Yemen conflict
• [01:23] — Arrival at Djibouti camp and meeting Abdullahi Bashrahil
• [03:39] — Bashrahil introduces his “museum”
• [07:08] — Bashrahil describes life before and after the war
• [10:09] — Artist’s sensibility and creative adaptation
• [11:49] — Host ambassador visit, bird release, and meaning
• [13:31] — Bashrahil holds onto hope for a new future
• [15:08] — Poet Tracy K. Smith segment: walking in the woods, reflecting on nature and writing

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Tone

The episode is deeply human, both sober and uplifting. Bashrahil’s humor and creativity bring warmth and resilience to an otherwise bleak camp life. Nicholas Niarchos reports in a thoughtful, reflective tone, and Tracy K. Smith adds a contemplative, poetic dimension.

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Conclusion

This episode offers a moving look at how creativity and simple acts of kindness can create meaning in the face of war and exile. Abdullahi Bashrahil’s museum is a symbol of dignity and hope, offering beauty where little is expected. Through both Bashrahil's story and Tracy K. Smith’s reflections, listeners are reminded of the enduring power of human imagination and the small sanctuaries we build for ourselves.

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Transcript

[Tracy K. Smith]

Floor 38.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

These are just anecdotes, but it's building.

[David Remnick]

Up into something more coherent and I.

[Tracy K. Smith]

Think it'd be interesting to really try to unravel what his ties.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

There's this sort of country city divide, their own convenient ends and it's not.

[David Remnick]

Clear where it goes next.

[Narrator/Producer]

From one World Trade center in Manhattan, this is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker.

[David Remnick]

DAVID welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Nicholas Niarchos is a contributor to the New Yorker and he has the challenging beat of reporting on a war that frankly many Americans don't even know we're involved in. The war in Yemen is both a civil war and a regional war with more powerful neighbors Iran and Saudi Arabia involved at the same time. The United States is supporting and enabling the Saudis air war. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled Yemen and many are in Djibouti in eastern Africa. Nick Niarchos visited one of the refugee camps there in 2016.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

Okay, 50, so should we go one like that and one of the other ones over there.

[David Remnick]

The camp in Djibouti was hot and dusty and people were miserable. But Nick met a man there who had a unique way of coping with tragedy and finding beauty wherever he could.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

So it's in the middle of the desert. You arrive at the camp, it's incredibly, incredibly hot. When you walk out of an air conditioned room into this heat, you feel like you're going to be physically sick. But you don't really smell anything because it's so hot. All your senses are overwhelmed by the heat and everybody's looking for shade. So you walk through the camp and people come up to you and say that they want to talk to you about different things. They want to complain about, you know, not having air conditioning or not having adequate food and these are all really serious concerns. But at one point this man approached me and he was smiling, lovely, isn't he? And laughing. And I didn't really understand, you know, what there was to smile and laugh about. And he said, oh, my place in.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

Morning early is very, very nice. I wish if you come, he said.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

You must come to my tent. You have to come and see my tent. Walk down this way. He pointed towards the Aden sector and he said, you'll go to this place and you'll hear the birds singing and then you'll have arrived at my tent.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

You will be surprised when you see my free birds all around my fencing. They found freedom, they Found somebody to feed them. I show you. Come, please. Sorry. I have different kinds of food.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

His name is Abdullahi Bashrahil, and I hadn't been invited into somebody's house like that. People have come and said, you know, I want to speak to you about this and I want to speak to you about that. But. But this was just somebody inviting me to see what he'd built in the camp.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

Sorry, that's my gate.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

I see. Thank you very much. We went through a low gate. Wow. It's really quite a collection around here. And the fence was sort of posts joined by wire, and then there were sort of skulls hanging on the wire and pieces of wood and, you know, doll's arms and various different sort of bits and bobs, basically, that he'd collected from the desert.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

So this is a civilian museum. Look this.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

So walking into the museum, there's one tent which covers a series of plants that Bashra Hill is growing. Oh, wow. This is. So you've got a whole garden in here.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

Yes. What sort of green paper and bidingal. I don't know what you call in English. And that's.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

And there is a little sort of day bed in the middle of the museum and you look around and it's completely different from everywhere else in the refugee camp. I've been thinking about this a lot since I came back because it's this. This quality of sort of being inside a place that's walled off in this incredibly harsh climate, and suddenly you feel like you're in this little garden and this little oasis and this little paradise and the rest of the world kind of melts away outside.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

I will show you something. Look, look, look, look, look. A soul, a sword.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

Vashtrahil could sound crazy to people, but he's actually somebody who doesn't really come off as crazy when you meet him. He just kind of bowls you over with this great deal of energy. But he definitely is eccentric.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

A saw.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

Wow. It's a very, very small sword.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

Yes.

[Tracy K. Smith]

Wow.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

Why do you keep it in water like that?

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

It is not water. It's, you know, gas and oil. Because if it's gold, when you keep it for several weeks, it became shiny.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

Well, he's a. I don't know. He's a funny guy and he, you know, I was trying to ask him about his life before the camp, and he would always sort of crack these little jokes. Can you tell me a bit about your. Your life when you were in Adhan as a child?

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

When I was. As a child.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

Life beforehand?

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

I was more Handsome than you. Believe me, I'm sure I was very, very, very handsome. And I was also very, very bad. I am very bad because God make me very soft. Okay, this is my problem. I am a soft person. This is my problem.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

Basher Hill worked as a road surveyor in Yemen. And he worked for a lot of Western companies. And he was actually a successful and pretty well educated guy. He is a 63 year old man. He doesn't have a wife, he doesn't have kids. He's from a sort of a well known Yemeni family. But he's not independently wealthy particularly. He lived in Aden in the Moala district. And he had built a good life for himself. Tell me about your life in Adan. In Adan before the war.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

Before the war. It was very, very good. Until they started the war. We became like animals.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

He escaped in April of last year.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

Discrimination.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

He didn't have anything. He had the shirt on his back and he had a pair of trousers.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

We became like slaves.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

He arrived by himself and he has made do in this camp ever since.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

So thanks for God that I'm in Djabouti. I reach this place.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

Bashar Hill has suffered a great deal. You know, he's lost his home, he's lost his country. He's been displaced and he feels like he can never go back. And that's something that profoundly affects somebody.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

So how come and how come to live with people like that, the government in their hands?

[Nicholas Niarchos]

Because of that, he tried to sort of root himself in this new place that he's found himself in. And he's tried to sort of leave a mark there. And I think this is kind of. He's planting trees and he's built this little museum. That's a. That's a bomb.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

That's a bomb. Exactly.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

It's a sort of small. Smallish. A mortar. Mortar shell really.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

This is, you know, this.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

It's a larger.50 caliber bullet.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

Yeah. Bullet, yeah. This.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

That's an unused bullet? Yes, 7.62. Probably from a Kalashnikov. He used to be a road surveyor in Yemen. And he is very, very aware of distance. And he's got a very good sense of distance. And he walks for 20 km every day by himself. He only walks by himself and looks at the ground and picks up objects.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

This is, you know, you can and a half seats.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

A pestle and mortar.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

Yes, this is an old radio. It's no use to bring it. But I like everything is old and new. I found it in the garbage. I add to my museum. Look.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

And this, he's not just a collector, he is an artist. He had this artist sensibility of wanting to leave his mark and wanting to kind of improve things by piecing material parts of his world together.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

And this is an eagle face. Look, eagle face. I make it from stone. And when you go few meters from, far away from it, it looks like an eagle face.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

From stone and wood.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

It's like wind. And this is the face of the eagle.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

You know, if somebody were to act like this in, you know, New Mexico, they could be called a, you know, a found objects artist. But this is somebody in a refugee camp in Djibouti.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

There is another story why I escape.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

Everything that he had in this life was taken away from him by the war. But he's a hopeful guy.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

There were two birds here.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

Basher Hill had two birds. He showed me the cage and I was looking to them and he said.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

There is a third bird that one.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

Day he looked over at the cage and there was a third bird sitting there looking at the two other birds.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

His eyes seem. He's very sad. He seems crying.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

He said that this was, you know, this affected him and he didn't want to keep these two birds caged. And he said, I free you for the sake of God. Opening the cage, letting the birds into the sky.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

By chance, in the same day where I freed the. The birds, they told me, the ambassador of USA will visit you.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

So the ambassador was coming and Bashill thought, what am I going to say? What am I going to do? How am I going to welcome him into my museum and show that this is a sort of big occasion?

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

I said, how can I greet him? I have no birds. I have only chicken.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

And he found two other birds. And when the American ambassador arrived, he released the two birds into the sky as a sort of message of greeting.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

I said to him, greeting you, you know, and let the birds to fly.

[Nicholas Niarchos]

Basher H. Releasing these two birds might seem to us like a very sweet gesture. And it was, but it was also a sacrifice because these birds are a very valuable commodity within the camp. And he, in doing this, showed a great deal of respect for the ambassador. And when I called the ambassador, he was effusive in telling me how touched he had been by the warmth of Basherahil's greeting and how interested he had been to look around the museum. And while he had been there, Bashra Hill told him about a dream that he had which was to be resettled in the United States or somewhere in Europe and to build a new museum. And he thought that by making his case to the ambassador, he would stand a better chance of being repatriated. The tragedy of the situation is that the ambassador is not in charge of refugee resettlement. It just seems to me a very, very long shot that he will be coming here after.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

When I saw his reply, I don't want to talk too much, he smiled. I know his smile. He's keeping for me something. Maybe one day he will collect me and I don't know, maybe soon. He's ambassador.

[David Remnick]

That's Abdullahi Basrahil, a refugee from Yemen. He spoke with Nicholas Niarchos of the New Yorker in 2016. And Nick will be back on the show next week with more reporting on the war in Yemen and its human costs. That's next time for today. We're going to close the show with the poet Tracy K. Smith. The first poem of Smith's we published in the New Yorker was a poem about Levon Helm, the drummer and singer of the band, which warmed my heart. And not too many years after that, in 2017, she was named the poet laureate of the United States. With signs of spring beginning to creep up, at least here in the Northeast, Tracy offered to take us on a little journey near her home into the woods.

[Tracy K. Smith]

We are at my home in Princeton, New Jersey, right now, and we're heading into what is known as the common land or the common wood that sits in this neighborhood, which is called the Grey Farm neighborhood. And it that's my dog who's jealous that she's not coming. And it leads out to Lake Carnegie, walking along like a bed of bark, this path. And there's some tree stumps that have been lined up to create like a little guide to the path. To the right, we see some of the houses that look out onto the lake. You can see the bridge up ahead, the cars going into town. To the left, one of our neighbors planted, I think, thousands of daffodil bulbs, so we'll pass those. Some people have what my kids call bamboo forests. You'll see some neighbors up here have bamboo at the back of their property. And it's just kind of this open space. I loved being a young writer in New York and having my community of people and our science of a hunger and excitement. And then I had kids and my father died. So we left New York City and moved here. And I had a little bit of I was anticipating having heartbreak about leaving Brooklyn, where I'd lived for for so long and was so happy. And then I came here and I was like, oh, My God, this is. This is the real world. Like, there are these trees that are just electric, electrically green. And I feel like something in me has changed as a result. Like my. I don't know. I feel like the trees are doing more than just giving oxygen. I think they're these old souls that kind of console in different ways. And so there's something beautiful about this as a backdrop of what feels like a new beginning or the beginning of what comes after youth. And maybe I feel sort of consoled by the fact that the landscape just keeps going despite all of the things that we do. That's really been the really most beautiful surprise of being here.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

How.

[Tracy K. Smith]

How much silence and green space has fed the inner silence that I think most writers are seeking. I had a teacher once who. Linda Gregg, the poet Linda Gregg, who said, if you are suffering from writer's block, it's really just anxiety that's keeping you from being quiet. If you're quiet after about 15 minutes, your mind is imaginative enough to come up with an idea to prevent boredom. And I feel it's so true. In my 20s, I couldn't write. I had so much anxiety about what people were saying, what my classmates and teachers were saying about what I was writing, that I just kind of stopped for about nine months, which really hurt. And my strategy at that time was to take a photography class just to be doing something creative and learning to look at things through that lens. And I think it helped bring me back to the page because I recognized something I hadn't quite articulated to myself before, which was that an image can do such amazing lyrical work, and it can free you from the need to make statements and explain. If you can just describe, a feeling can emerge that the reader can't help but participate in. And before that, I thought poems were a series of wise statements that someone who had discovered things laid out one after another. And so I was. No wonder I had writer's block. I could figure out maybe one thing that seemed genuinely interesting and then a couple of other things that were in imitation of a wise person. And then I couldn't get past that. The first thing I want to look for is something that has to do with a bird or something natural. I feel like there's an effortless sense of clarity that I can locate in some of those types of sources. Yeah, sometimes what I know is, look, there's a deer. There's several. Wow. No matter how many times you see one, you still get that same same feeling of wow. Lucky. I'm sorry, guys. I'm bothering you. Wow. I can't believe we made it back the way we came in. This almost never happens to me when I'm. When I'm by myself. Hi, Coco.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

You're such a good, patient girl.

[David Remnick]

The poet Tracy K. Smith. You can find some of her [e-mail] and she has a new book about to come out called Wade in the Water. And that's it for today. Thanks for joining us. I'm David Remnick. I hope you'll join us next time.

[Narrator/Producer]

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Ave Carrillo, Rhiannon Corby, Calla Leah, David Krasnow, Sarah Nix, Mytha Lee Rao and Steven Valentino, with help from Terence Bernardo, Emily Mann and Jessica Henderson. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Turina Endowment Fund.

[Abdullahi Bashrahil]

Wall.