Issabre Hamadoun's autobiography

Born in a Malian upper middle class family, I spent all my childhood in Bamako, the Malian capital. Sometime for other people it’s hard to understand that a Malian upper middle class family is not a rich family because those people refer to their own country to analyze it.

Even if we were not that rich, thanks to my family, I never lacked anything. I and my two brothers grew up in different areas ,and I believe that this little difference has an influence on the way we are. I was born and I grew up in an area called Bks, at the boundary of the city. The area was almost empty and I was at home all the time.So it was hard to create social interaction by this manner. That can explain why I’m reserved.

As a typical Malian family from our social class, my parents divorced, and as I’m always trying to find the positives in everything, this event made me grow up both in my character and my state of mind, as my parents no longer live together, we moved a lot so I learned to adapt myself to every kind of environment.

My religion, which is Islam, permited me to acquired self confidence and independence. To not judge people and accept them as they are, to be forgiving with people, to want for others what I want for myself and to avoid violence as much often as possible even if people try to burn our holy book.***



Nowadays Malian youth are easily influenced, that’s why most of them fall in drug addiction, alcohol addiction and so on. Thanks to my strict education, I stand far from it. But something I couldn’t avoid and which is as a religion in my country was the soccer. Some people noticed that, when there is important soccer matches, mosques get empty. If you do a survey, more than 70% of Malian children want to be soccer players and almost the 30% want to be singers. It sounds strange but, in my country, people who had a ''successful life'' are not people who had success in school.

One of my faults according to people is my inability to separate my achievement from my dreams, but I think that dreaming without trying to make it became real is only a waste of time. So, since the age of 13 years, I decide to be a professional soccer player. (Some people did it, so why not me?).
I have always loved soccer but I was not good at all, and people made fun of me except my brothers, who always trusted in me. I worked the best I could and am still working. People noticed that I improved and see how well I’m determined. I know that we cannot achieve everything, but we can at least try. Today, I'm as determined as five years ago but as we don't know how things are going, I continue my studies so I could do somethimg else if the soccer doesn't works.



I'm usually very busy and don't really take the time to look back because I'm young and haven't really achieved anything yet, but this writing experience acts as a "pause "button and permits to have a overview.