Abdi’s mother is born a nomad. She spends her youth wandering the Somali countryside, tending to her family’s herd of animals. She meets a young man, marries, and then starts a family and a herd of her own. She has no fixed home in the bush, a world she loves, and the only world she knows.

The drought in Somalia changes everything for nomads, who are driven into the city. Madinah’s family lucks out when her husband finds a job as a basketball player. Though the family is rich and successful during this period, they still worry about money and clan identity. Madinah recounts stories of her nomadic upbringing to her children—a simpler life that she misses.

During the civil war, Madinah and her family are driven from the home that they have made in Mogadishu. She works desperately hard to protect her children, though loses a baby daughter to starvation. Again, Madinah and the family bounce from house to house, from Mogadishu to Eelasha, a displaced persons camp on the city edges. The war brings irony—Madinah again has no fixed home. She roams with her family, as she did as a child; however, the instability, danger, and desperation of her life are nothing like the nomadic idyll she remembers.

Abdi’s brother is much more practical and realistic than Abdi. If Abdi is the dreamer who never loses sight of his ambition, then Hassan does what he believes will help him stay alive. The brothers’ reaction to the American movies they saw as children reflect their divergent personalities. For Abdi, these movies were the introduction into a world that obsessed him. For Hassan, they were just a minor distraction. Abdi learns English, dreaming of America. Hassan does not learn English, but is much more determined to leave Somalia.

Hassan tells Abdi that he wants to go to America before Abdi even has the idea. However, Hassan abandons this seemingly impossible dream in favor of escaping to Kenya when he is a teenager—a more practical, realistic aspiration. It is an aspiration he realizes, making the perilous journey while still very young. In Kenya, Hassan finds a country that does not appreciate Somalis. Eventually, Hassan marries and has children—the result of another practical decision, since he knows that a married family man is more likely to win a visa to the United States. Though the brothers have very different outlooks on life, both are equally determined to create better lives. 

Abdi’s father is a fleeting presence in the text. At times, he is a towering figure who provides everything imaginable for his family. At others, he is a pathetic failure who runs away from his responsibilities. At all times, however, he maintains the love and support of his son.

Like Madinah, Nur Iftin grows up as a nomad, part of a clan treated with contempt by the rest of Somali society. When Nur and Madinah are pushed into Mogadishu by the drought, Nur finds a way to get around the sectarian oppression he experiences. He becomes a famous basketball star. This makes him financially stable and a hero in his son’s eyes. The respect and awe his father receives from the rest of the community is fleeting, however. As they flee the civil war, the family realizes that Nur’s status does nothing to protect them—the fact that he is a man places them all in a more dangerous situation. He departs, believing that his family will fare better without him.

Years later, Nur returns to Mogadishu a different man. His skills are no longer wanted and the trauma of the war has left him broken. He can provide nothing for his family and the city does not suit him. He departs again pained at not to be able to provide for his family. He returns to his ancestral home, finds a new wife, and starts a new family. Though Abdi remains in occasional contact with his father, Nur’s failure in Mogadishu and his decision to remarry cool their relationship. Abdi insists that he understands his father’s fears, seeing them reflected in his brother-in-law Omar, who finds himself in a similar position. 

In the early parts of the memoir, Macalin Basbaas, a teacher at the madras (religious school) in Mogadishu, is an antagonist. Every day, Hassan and Abdi must recite verses from the Koran or Basbaas will viciously beat them. They fear his beatings, as do the other neighborhood boys. Basbaas functions as a strict moral arbiter in a collapsing world. Even as war wages around the community, tearing down institutions, the madras continues. It represents the small amount of hope many parents have: they hope that their children will grow up to be religious teachers like Basbaas rather than militiamen. Thus, they are willing to forgive his violence.

At the end of the book, Abdi also forgives Basbaas, realizing that the man was trying to help the boys. Abdi sends money to Basbaas, who is still running his madras in the same fashion. Perhaps the most important lesson Basbaas teaches Abdi is how not to teach. When Abdi thinks about how he would raise or educate children, he swears to do it without violence.

Faisa is Abdi’s first love. She is the first girl he kisses, and the memory of her never leaves him. She represents his struggles with traditional Somali culture. Abdi’s clan identity, his cultural interests, and his ambitions mean that Faisa’s father thinks that he is a sinful, foolish boy. Because of this, there is no chance that Abdi could marry Faisa. Though they still date sporadically and do what they can to see one another, their relationship is interrupted by the war and then never recovers.

In later life, Faisa reaches out to Abdi and they reconnect. She now lives in a refugee camp and is married to a Somali man in Sweden. One day, she hopes that she will be able to join her husband there.