A personal lifeline to Somalia

Nuuh Hassan strolled into Butterfly Coffee in Roxbury Crossing after a recent week on the job as a sheet-metal worker. Passing tables full of customers, he headed to the back of the cafe where a glassed-in counter houses a money transfer service.

There, in a matter of minutes, he sent a lifeline to his family in Somalia -- $150.

Six thousand miles to the east, in a coastal town south of the Somali capital, Nuuh's father, Hersi Hassan, received the cash in dollars at a rundown money transfer shop.

''It means survival," said Hersi Hassan, standing in the sandy courtyard of his home in Merca. He said it means that he, Nuuh's stepmother, and his nine siblings could eat that month.

For hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the United States, monthly money transfers to their families overseas are a matter of honor and a fulfillment of vast expectations from home. The exchanges, called remittances, amount to one of the largest sources of foreign investment in many poor countries around the world, particularly in Africa.

The story of how one Boston man saves and sends money home, and how his family on the receiving end uses that money, reveals much about the evolving ties and dependence that bind countrymen half a world apart.

UN specialists say Somali expatriates send as much as $1 billion back to their lawless and volatile country each year -- a stunning amount that arrives mostly in small wire transfers, sometimes as low as $5.

But even the smallest amounts have an impact. Nuuh Hassan knows intimately that scrimping and saving in Boston will mean a world of difference for his family -- whether his father can go on a pilgrimage to Mecca, whether his stepmother can buy clothes for his siblings, and whether someday some of his brothers and sisters can join him in America.

In families across Africa, dreams of furthering educations or expanding job opportunities are usually grounded in a truism: the more relatives overseas, the more help for those at home.

As it is for many immigrants, the path for Nuuh Hassan, a youthful-looking man of 33, has been complicated and difficult.

At 17, he left Somalia for neighboring Djibouti, where he studied and worked at his aunt's grocery store. He said he moved to Yemen in 2000 in hopes of obtaining a US visa. (Since the United States has no diplomatic representation in Somalia, Somalis must seek US visas elsewhere.) But after the bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000, the United States sharply curbed the number of visas issued in Yemen.

Hassan said he then moved to Syria, where he was supported by periodic money transfers from a relative in Britain. In 2002, he finally won a visa as part of a State Department lottery program. Later that year, he flew to Texas, where he had heard about possible work.

But after a disappointing search there, he moved to Boston in early 2003 on the advice of other Somalis who told of job opportunities and a larger community of thousands of Somali expatriates.

Hassan found work at a Somali restaurant in Roxbury. It paid poorly, but at least he had a job. Three days after arriving, he had another break -- a friend introduced him to Abdillahi Abdirahman, a fellow Somali.

Not only is Abdirahman a source of vast local information. He also owns Butterfly Coffee, a popular gathering place for Somalis, and operates a branch of Dahabshil, a company that concentrates on money transfers to Somalia and other parts of East Africa.

Soon after receiving his first paycheck, Hassan wired $250 to his father. Within a few months, he found the job as a sheet-metal worker in Dorchester, earning $1,600 a month.

While that amount -- $19,200 annually -- makes it difficult to support a life in Boston, Hassan said he finds ways to save. He decided against owning a car and takes city buses to work and walks to many other places. He finds $1 deals on produce at Save-A-Lot grocery in Roxbury, combining the vegetables with fish from inexpensive Haymarket stalls to make Somali dishes that remind him of home.

About his only extra expense is $108 for a three-month English course that meets on Saturdays, which Hassan believes is a good investment toward building a better life in America.

''I'm responsible for my family, only me," Hassan said on a recent evening at Butterfly Coffee. ''I have to respect my family. There are a lot of problems over there, in our country. They need help."

Every month, he pays about $540 for rent on his apartment in Charlestown, including utilities; $250 for food; and about $35 for transportation. Almost all the rest he sends to his relatives -- $150 to his father and stepmother; $150 to his mother; and sometimes $75 to an uncle in Kenya. His father, like many Muslims, has two wives who live in different homes.

In addition to what he wires home, Nuuh Hassan is able to save a few hundred dollars each month, hoping that it will eventually help four brothers travel to Egypt, a first step toward joining him in the United States. Somalia has been racked by problems faced nowhere else: It has had no government for 15 years, warlords rule patches of the country, and few can find work.

''I need my young brothers to grow up in another country, to get an education," Hassan said. ''I want them to learn the customs, cultures, and traditions of another country. Our country has been in civil war; if they grow up there, they don't learn anything."

For his siblings in Merca, Hassan's monthly phone calls are like a window to another world.

''He just keeps saying that it's brilliant over there in Boston," his sister, Nadifo Hassan, 16, said at the family compound. ''He says, 'Wherever you are in America, you are in a better place.' "

When his first money transfer of about $250 arrived about three years ago, Nuuh Hassan's stepmother, Halima Mohammad Afrah, 40, said she danced around her yard. Asked what she did with the money, Afrah laughed.

''We ate it!" she said, setting off giggles from seven of her nine children, all stepbrothers and stepsisters to Nuuh Hassan. ''If you're hungry, what do you do if you have money? You spend it on food."

She recalled that she purchased goat's meat for the first time in many months; that night, they feasted on goat and rice.

''Before, we were only surviving on cereals, porridge. And we only had a little bit each day for each child. Sometimes just one portion a day," Afrah said. ''So you can see that goat meat was so delicious to us."

Now, she said the $150 monthly transfer covers the family's food, utilities, and some school fees, but little else. Each day, she buys two pounds of sugar for 70 cents; one pound of porridge for 35 cents; a half-liter of cooking oil for 35 cents; a half-pound of meat for 45 cents; and assorted vegetables and fruits for $1. The monthly cost to feed the family is $100, she said.

In addition, the family pays private companies about $8 a month for electricity; $4 a month for gas; $10 a month for water; $3 for detergent; and about $20 a month in school fees and books.

Hersi Hassan, Nuuh's father, listened quietly as his second wife recited the bills, then he broke in.

''I miss Nuuh very much, but I prefer that he stays in Boston and continues to send the money. We have no other income," he said.

In years past, Hersi Hassan, 52, worked as a receptionist and a cleaner at a fruit company. But in the last decade, he said, he has had just three months of work. He said he has tried hard to find a job, but no one is hiring in Merca, which has a population of 40,000.

Hersi Hassan said he would like the rest of his children to immigrate to America eventually, but he wants to stay in Somalia.

In Boston, Nuuh has plans for his own future -- he thinks about starting his own family and perhaps bringing his sheet-metal skills back to help in Somalia's reconstruction. But those plans will wait while he continues to focus on helping his family back home.

''If they're having problems, they're not happy, I don't feel good," he said. ''If they're happy, I'm happy, no problem."

Janiec reported from Boston and Donnelly from Somalia. Janiec can be reached at cjaniec@ globe.com; Donnelly can be reached at donnelly@globe.com