Mogadishu Memoir (Part IIX: Crimes & Concoctions

“Glory is the worst enemy of power, and nostalgia the worst poison for the future,” said Jacques Attali, Economic Advisor to French President Sarkozy after condemning the disgraceful performance of the French National Football team in the 2010 World Cup tournament.
***
I was either 10 or 11 years old when some of the children in my neighborhood told me that a young prisoner named Aweys, who was with a group of state prisoners doing construction work at Isku-Raran, was asking about me. I feigned ignorance and denied having any connection with a criminal. Well, Aweys happened to be my older brother and sadly he took the wrong path in life because he was involved in petty crimes, assault, and various schemes which subsequently made him spend a great deal of time in and out of prison, and when he was out of prison, instead of learning from his past mistakes, he would go right back to hanging out with hoodlums. Some of my family members had told me that he had a big heart but he also had a volatile temper. His propensity for trouble-making and constant run- in with the law had rendered him the status of being persona non-grata among relatives. My brother seemed to show an interest to know more about me through other people, but never made any attempt to contact me or connect with me. I never had the pleasure of personally meeting him and tragically he met his fate in Mogadishu in the 1990s at the hands of bandits “Mooryaan”. One of my older brothers aptly summed up Awey’s fate when he said, “If you live by the knife, you die by the knife.”

Every time I heard about “Gaalshiro” (Carcere in Italian)–the Central Prison in Mogadishu-I remembered my brother Aweys; a frequent guest there. Gaalshiro was located close to Hamar Weyne and De Martino Hospital (Maartiini). To add insult to injury; criminal offenders and political prisoners were housed together because food was so scarce and horrendous at the prison that relatives of prisoners had to bring meals to their loved ones. As many people flocked to Mogadishu from the provinces in 1960s, the rapid urbanization of the city contributed to the rise of crime. In that period, the types of crimes committed were pick-pocketing, house burglaries, alcohol-abuse, petty theft, assault and battery. There was no proliferation of firearms and the criminals’ weapon of choice was lethal, widely available, and cheap which was a dagger or “Toorrey” as the Somalis call it. The Civilian government was not successful in dealing with criminals because of the intrinsic nature of corruption in its unreliable judicial system. It was common for certain criminals to bribe their way out of incarceration. But the military government of Siad Barre showed a grasp of the magnitude of the task at hand and started imposing tougher enforcement. Capital punishment, which was in the book but rarely enforced, was re-introduced for those who killed. In early 1970s, “Geedka” or the ‘pole’ became popular because that’s where criminals and some of Siad Barre’s political opponents were executed. The executions were administered behind the Police Academy and they were widely publicized. As a child, I had witnessed at least the public executions of two or three violent criminals. People in Mogadishu somewhat appreciated the introduction of capital punishment because it deterred many of committing violent crimes.

One constant tactic to use for both the civilian and the military governments was the use of torture to illicit confessions. Suspects were normally slapped, shoved, beaten, and at times even taken to the ocean to be subjected to something similar to ‘water-boarding’. Political prisoners also suffered the same torture tactics and were deprived from due process. “Godka” or ‘the pit’ was basically a detention center that specialized in all kinds of torture under Siad Barre. The East German Communist government helped Siad Barre’s regime in the construction of “Laanta Buur” and “Labaatan Jirow” prisons where political dissidents were incarcerated.

KU-DHAC
In my neighborhood and close to Dhagax-Tuur, there was a market called “KU-Dhac”. It was primarily thieves’ market but there were of course legitimate vendors as well. Petty thieves sold stolen goods clandestinely to either customers or third parties. The market was like a big pawn-shop and practically one could get all kinds of merchandise; new, used, stolen or legitimate. The old anecdote about a family that was being burglarized is worth-mentioning here. A wife tells her husband to go and confront the thieves but the husband, sensing danger, tells his wife “Don’t worry, I will go to Ku-Dhac market tomorrow and purchase the stolen products.” I used to go through the Ku Dhac market on my way to Dugsi even though I had once witnessed a man being chased by a dagger-wielding fellow. The military government later demolished the market and installed the statue of “Mohamed Somali” or Dhagax-Tuur.

Jamal-Jaan
One of the famous hide-outs of criminals in Mogadishu in 1960s was “Jamal Jaan”. It was located on “Aw-Aweyska” neighborhood of Hamar-Weyne and next to a perilous section of the Indian Ocean that locals called it “Geel-Laq”. Alcohol addicts and fugitives used “jamal Jaan” as a place to evade authorities. It was rumored that the law-enforcement agents of the civilian government were afraid to venture into that notorious hide-out.

Gangs
I remember hearing about the stories of individuals that were notorious for their long list of criminal activities especially the infamous gangster named “Jaykey” (Shiikhaal) who was as rugged as a rock, cruel, and had dramatics for flare. Moreover, he had imperious way of dealing with people and he once proclaimed to be “Il Dio Di Benadir” or ‘The God of Benadir’. I used to see Jaykey in the streets close to Afar-Irdoodka and I remember him emulating American cowboy actors by the way he dressed and smoked cigarettes. There was another gangster in Boondheere neighborhood called “George” (Abgaal) who was as popular as Jaykey. It was ironic that these two gangsters joined the Somali National Army in the 1970s and were later court-martialed and killed for allegedly orchestrating a mutiny.

Tough kids
Among the youngsters in Isku-Raran neighborhood, there were some tough boys that I knew but did not socialize with. Some of these tough youths used to hang around as a group and play soccer together; on rare occasions, they bullied other kids, but they were not criminals. Among these were the boys of Reer Hassan Geesood, Cadow, Miiraaf, and Mohamoud Haji Adan to mention a few. On rare occasions, these youths would get involved in power struggle that led to physical beating. One of the women that lived on my street, Caanood, used to yell at some of us children for playing in front of her house. She would bark, “You mama-boys, why don’t you play with kids like Burhan Hassan Geesood”. Burhan was our age all right, but he was a tough kid that neither I nor the kids I played with wanted to mess with. He had two tough older brothers (Caato and Muse) that were pugnacious and belligerent.

Attempted Political Assassination
During the civilian government, I heard a bizarre story of an attempted political assassination of General Jama Ali Qoorsheel (Warsangeli) who was Deputy Police Commissioner. My recollection as a child of this incident is murky. A distant uncle of mine and a police officer was shot several times for foiling the attempted political assassination of Qoorsheel. The conspiracy had taken place in Qoorsheel’s house in Hamar Jab Jab in the wee hours of the morning but the General was not harmed. This uncle of mine used to visit my mother from time to time after the incident and after he had recovered from his wound, but I have been unable to locate him as a source for this memoir. Perhaps, members of General Qoorsheel’s family can elucidate the intricacies of this attempted political assassination.

Political Crimes
The military government waged a campaign of fighting “tribalism” and made it a state crime. I remember government officials holding countless rallies and even burning effigies of what was termed ‘tribalism’. It was one of these rallies in our neighborhood that I heard an anecdote in which Brigadier General Hussein Kulmiye Afrah had asked one of the dignitaries sitting next to him about a local leader who rose and denounced tribalism as a pernicious disease that needed to be extricated from Somali society. “Kan yuu yahay (who is this guy [clan-wise]?”, Afrah had allegedly inquired.

In 1969, Siad Barre was not an absolute leader of the military government but he was a master manipulator who was well adept in consolidating power incrementally. In the first few months of the coup, Barre maneuvered in sending Major General Mohamed Ibrahim ‘Liilq-liiqato’ (Shiikhaal) and the second highest ranking officer in the armed forces to Germany, Colonel Abdullahi Farah Hoolif (Majertein) to Egypt as ambassadors respectively. Officers Mohamed Farah Aidid (Habar-Gidir) and Abdullahi Yusuf (Majertein) were each offered diplomatic posts abroad because they were not in tune with the new regime. When these two officers refused to be posted abroad, Barre jailed them for a total of six years which consequently led to Aidid suffering from a bout of nervous breakdown in Mandhera prison. Liiq-Liiqato, on the other hand, was seen by Barre as a threat because of his ranking status and older age in contrast to the younger members of the SRC. General Mohamed Abshir (Majertein), a retired Police Commissioner, was arrested along prominent civilian government officials and they were all sent to a presidential guest house in Afgoi which was made a make-shift detention center. Farah Gollalleey (Abgaal) a former parliamentarian and one of the detainees best known for his acerbic and biting assessments summarized that early period of the military government as the following’
“Ama afkaaga hayso’
Ama Afweyne ammaan
Ama Afgoi aad”.
“You either keep your mouth shut,
Or flatter Afweyne [Barre]
Or Go to Afgoi”

After getting rid of some of the disgruntled officers outside the Supreme Revolutionary Council, Barre began conspiring against his own colleagues. Major General Ainanshe (Isaak) had opposed Barre on critical issues like who would be the head of the military government. Major General Salad Gabayre Kediye (Abgaal and the son-in-law of former President Adan Abdille Osman) was perhaps the most charismatic officer who had posed a clear threat to Siad Barre. Gabayre apparently wanted to be the head of the armed forces but Barre favored Mohamed Ali Samatar instead. It was said that Barre had secretly campaigned against Gabayre and wooed SRC members one by one. In a mock election within the 25-members of the SRC, Ainanshe and Samatar emerged as frontrunners and Gabayre lost. Then, in the run-off, Samatar defeated Ainanshe. To placate Gabayre, he was offered the position of Defense Minister. Gabayre became more sullen and embittered because he realized that his political fortunes were coming to wane. Incidentally, the 25-member SRC body had 10 Darod, 7 Hawiye, several Dir (1) Isaak (4), Isse (1) Gadabursi (1) officers; two minority officers, Samatar (Tumal) and Fadhil (Arab) and, to the dismay of 4.5 clan system proponents, no Digil and Mirefle representation. Those who knew Gabayre characterized him as an uncommonly leader and a brave man not known to cower or cringe, but his ambition, like Barre, took a quantum leap. In fact, in a speech given by General Mohamed Ali Samatar at Somali National University in late 1970s, he profusely praised the impeccable character of Salad Gabayre and his wide popularity among officers. Samatar also mentioned how close he and Gabayre were as the two had attended the same military academies abroad. In essence, Samatar admitted that the incarceration of Gabayare was a preventive measure on one hand as the latter was feared of toppling the regime. Mohamed Ali Samatar Interestingly, Samatar, in that lecture, gave a much abbreviated account of the roles of General Ainanshe and Colonel Abdulkhadir Dheel (Majertein). Ainanshe or “Odayga” (the old man) as Samatar referred him was not part of the planning and the execution of Siad Barre’s military coup in 1969 and hence became an afterthought. Moreover, Aninanshe, according to Samatar, had asked to be named as an ambassador. “Why would the Vice-President of the country downgrade himself to the rank of an ambassador?” Samatar inquired. This odd request raised serious suspicions in the minds of Barre and his minions that, perhaps, the ‘Old man’ was up to something. Samatar also accused Ainanshe as an unengaging man, bereft of discipline, dedication and commitment. Barre, perhaps, used Samatar and Abdallah Fadil, two good friends of Salad Gabayre to elicit nuggets of information about Salad Gabayre’s plans of staging a coup. It was no secret that Fadil testified against Salad Gabayre in the kangaroo court the regime set up to convict the alleged coup organizers. When Barre’s regime fell in 1991, Abdalla Fadil was mercilessly butchered by Aidid militia in retaliation, among other things but not exclusively, for his early double-crossing of Salad Gabayre. The inclusion of General Ainanshe and Colonel Dheel were perhaps a pure political ploy by Siad Bare to get rid of his opponents once and for all. Abdi Warsame Isaak (Dir) was a member of the SRC and, in an interview with VOA Somali service “Ifbixii & Dhicitaankii Kacaankii 21kii October 1969” on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the “revolution”, hinted that the inclusion of Ainanshe and Dheel in the coup plot was at best suspect. Ainanshe was a cautious individual not known for undertaking impetuous actions and Dheel had already left the army because he had falling with Siad Barre before the 1969 coup. Dheel was a man of sanguine temper and he had, according to my sources, physical confrontations with Barre during the civilian government. There was even an incident in which Dheel grabbed General Siad Barre by the neck in an official meeting and the two were separated. Dheel had ridiculed and insulted his superior, General Barre, for being “provincial” and “pedestrian”. In that same interesting VOA program, Osman Jeelle (Hawadle) and also former SRC member opined that the coup plot, perhaps, was blown out of proportion and the killing of these officers was unnecessary and “avoidable”. “Prison could have done the job better”, Said Osman. At the risk of oversimplification, a long-time confidant of Siad Barre and former high-ranking government official who knew Barre since the colonial period told me that Siad had always misgivings about the Majertein and the Isaak; the Majertein for “their guile and treachery” and the Isaak for their “uppity” attitude. It is interesting to note here that Prime Minister Mohamed Ibrahim Egal tried to remove Siad Barre from his position as the head of the armed forces but that his efforts were thwarted by Darod leaders at the time. Mohamed Ali Samatar, in his lecture at the Somali University, mentioned that General Ainanshe placed an early call in the morning of October 21, 1969 to Egal to find out what the curfew was all about but that the latter was already under arrest. Whatever Siad Barre’s attitude toward the Majertein whom he ruthlessly targeted after the 1977 War and Isaak tribes had been, his genocidal campaign against the latter remains crime against humanity; from the massacre of Jezzira in which 47 innocent Isaak were shot point blank to the all-out war against the rebel group Somali National Movement (SNM) when the latter launched desperate military offenses and the regime responded with iron fist; thousands of civilians in the north were massively killed, maimed, and dislocated.

The Execution of a Father
The American journalist Philip Gourevitch chronicled the Rwandan massacre in his fascinating book, We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with our families: Stories from Rwanda (1999). The title of his book was a telegram presciently sent by a group of Tutsi individuals surrounded in a church. These terrified souls were well-aware of the painful fate awaiting for them as their extermination became imminent. Imagine being a ten year old Somali girl coming home from school and the kids in your neighborhood tell you that your father would be killed tomorrow at GEEDKA. This is what happened to the daughter of Abdulkadir Dheel Abdulle. Ms. Dheel was evidently traumatized as she told me many years later, about that painful news. “I was very close to my father and loved him dearly,” she said. The children’s’ words proved prescient when the next day, on 7/3/1972, Siad Barre sent Gabayre, Ainanshe, and Dheel to the gallows. The government portrayed the ‘coup’ plotters as power-hungry sycophant bent on destroying the nascent regime. During the court proceedings, Salad Gabayre questioned why Ainanshe and Dheel were being lumped together with him because the two had nothing to do with his failed attempt to topple the Barre regime. Moreover, Gabayre and Dheel were rivals and that Dheel had indeed threatened the former to kill him due to personnel disputes in the army during the civilian government. It was Gabayre, with the blessing and the full knowledge of Siad Barre who dismissed Dheel from the armed forces in late 1969.


When Dheel was arrested in 1971 for the coup plot, he was a businessman operating a pharmacy. The killing of these officers ushered a new era in the country when political dissent became synonymous with self-destruction. When the Somali populace heard the song, “Danaystow dugagu waa daldalaad aan dacwa lahayn. Sama Diidow Dabin baa kuu Dhigan Lagugu Dili Doonoo” (You) opportunist, your demise is lynching without due process. You rejected peace and there is a noose waiting for you”, over the radio, it was an ominous sign that someone was arrested for a serious political breach and that the individual was inevitably making his way to the GEEDKA. I have never heard a song that filled many Somalis with terror and apprehension than this song. The military government not only killed the bread-winners of these families but it went after the women and the children in some cases. The effect was catastrophic for these families as some were reduced to abject poverty.


After the Somali army was defeated in 1977/78 during the Ethiopian War, Siad Barre’s henchmen began a massive campaign of house searches in Mogadishu. Soldiers would come to houses and search for anti-government forces or weapons. The husband of my sister’s best friend, Hawo Haji Abdullahi Qore, was involved in an attempted coup staged by Majertein officers. Colonel Abshir Muse happened to be in Italy when the botched coup, led by Colonel Cirro, was prematurely staged. The government’s response was swift and heavy-handed. Several officers, including Colonel Cirro, were sent to the gallows. Abdullahi Yusuf escaped to Ethiopia. It was ironic that, several years later, Siad Barre was successful in luring a small number of these Majertein defectors, including Colonel Abshir Muse, back to Mogadishu. One of these officers was my relative, Said Ali Haji “Said Garaame” and an artillery specialist. I last saw him in one of my visits to Mogadishu in the 80s. Siad Barre had heard about an incident of heavy artillery firing by the rebel group, the Somali Salvation Democratic Force (SSDF) and asked who was directing them. “Said Garaame”, he was told. “I never heard that name,” Barre muttered. Of course, he could not have because Said Garaame was a young officer trained in then the Soviet Union. When Said Garaame became disenchanted with the SSDF, he decided to leave the group and return to Somalia, but he was already a wanted man. Garaame turned to a relative and a government official in order to intercede. Enter; Mohamed Hassan Barre “Shimbiralaaye” (Majertein), an intriguing fellow, and highly educated who had spent many years with the United Nation’s FAO as an agricultural specialist. Shimbiralaaye was later appointed as Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Planning, and Finance respectively. This seemingly quiet and low-key politician, perhaps, had secret mission for Siad Barre for a while; luring disgruntled Northeastern officers who had defected to SSDF back to Somalia. In return, Siad Barre, once these former rivals came back to Mogadishu, would pardon them and they would go back to their old jobs. Siad Barre was targeting the ‘Osman Mohamoud’ officers because they had a great deal of respect and admiration for Shimbiralaaye; a self-made man not known for being an ideologue. At any rate, Shimbiralaaye was successful in being a go-between-guy between these Majertein officers and Siad Barre. Barre, who had waged a brutal campaign against the Majertein (‘Omar Mahamoud) clan in late 1970s was facing a new, and perhaps, a formidable clan in the Isaak and he could not have afforded fighting in two fronts.

When officer Said Ali Haji returned to Mogadishu, he was taken to Siad Barre by Shimbiralaaye. That was the first time Barre met the pesky young officer face to face. Barre, the consummate politician, was capable of charm and lectured the young officer about patriotism asking him to use his exceptional skills to defend motherland. “I know that you “Bah-Gareen” [a sub-clan of Osman Mohamoud] are not going to listen to me since you had disobeyed your own king long time ago,” Siad Barre ruefully added.

Mogadishu Memoir (Part VII): The Cultural Milieu

Politics
In 1960s, Somalia had a functioning, but somewhat corrupt, democratic government. The ruling party at the time was the Somali Youth League (SYL). Elections were as rampant as vote rigging because there were so many political parties that almost every major clan identified with specific political grouping; the plethora of political parties was astounding. As a young boy, I even remember a party named “Laa Ilaaha Illa Laah” (There is no god but Allah). My mother and my neighbors would cast their votes and come back home, wash off the stamp stain on their hands and go back again to the voting center to vote.

I would hear from neighbors what party won or which one was robbed from votes. Years later, my mother would tell me how I used to play with toys and make them fight with one another. Often, one of the toys represented Adan Abdille Osman ‘Adan Adde’ (the first president of the country) and the other Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke (Adan Adde’s successor). After what appeared to be a tough fight, I would make the Sharmarke toy win over the Osman one. Of course, Sharmarke belonged to the same sub-clan my mother did. My mother always told this story in order to show off my political, and definitely, clan ‘acumen’; my toy-fights were the essence of political acculturation. I wonder how my mother would have reacted if I had made the Adan Adde toy win. I had positive feeling toward Sharmarke while growing up because he seemed to me a decent human being and a popular leader. Of course, I knew nothing about his political leanings or agenda, but somehow, to me, Adan Adde represented something different and unknown. Only many years later, in mid 1970s, did I come to meet Mr. Adan Adde in person and I saw what a remarkable and ethical man he was. As a retired politician, he used to come and pray in Teacher Maryam’s mosque, which was located two blocks away from his residence. I remember an incident in which an Egyptian cleric insisted Mr. Adan Adde to give the Friday sermon but the former president gently pushed the cleric forward to the podium, and when the cleric finished his sermon, he asked Mr. Adan Adde to lead the prayer, but Mr. Adan Adde once again refused and insisted that the cleric lead the prayer.

'In 1969, a military coup transformed Somali political landscape. Like many people in the country, I was excited about the military coming to power. On October 21, 1969, I still remember the military patrolling our neighborhood, Isku-Raran, while people stayed indoors. I recall some soldiers chasing some of the children off the streets. It is no exaggeration to say that the whole country was itching for a political change. Siad Barre, initially, was not corrupt and dictatorial. As a child, I was eager to participate in school activities that celebrated the ‘revolution’, and there was high level of nationalism among us children in part because the level of indoctrination at school was also high. The mass media bombarded the populace with songs and plays that extolled the virtues of the revolution and denigrated the ‘corrupt’ and ‘self-serving’ civilian government. One of the major accomplishments of the new regime was the adoption of Latin script for the Somali language which enabled me, as a lad, to teach my mother and some of my neighbors’ how to read and write. As time passed, I became disillusioned with the regime and it mainly had to do with the fact that I was not being a conformist. Simply put, I became non-cooperative in the eyes of others.

“Your son does not want to sing ‘Guulwadow Siyaad”, a Guulwade militia man complained to my mother one time. It was a song that celebrated Siad Barre as a “victory-bearer” and as “the father of knowledge” while glorifying Socialism as a complete system that leads to prosperity. My mother laughed and acted as though she was disgusted with my brazen act of intransigence. But when my relatives were around, my mother would mockingly repeat the militia’s complaint of me as though she was indirectly endorsing my defiance. In reality, I was not trying to make a political statement but I was just bored with chanting the same song over and over. Some of my housemates did not make things easier for me as well. These Majertein youngsters were not in tune with the new regime. I recall one of their friends, a Dhulbahante high school student, being arrested and accused of being part of what the government called ‘a subversive conspiracy’.
My mother was not into politics until 1973 when she became, to the befuddlement of my family, an active organizer. She became one of the ‘Mothers’, or ‘Hooyooyinka’ as they were known, at a local orientation center in our neighborhood. Until today, I am puzzled by what made my mother join the women’s group. I can only speculate that she did it for social reasons more than anything else because my mother never imbibed the regime’s vacuous rhetoric. She and her female friends were having good time being part of something they thought to be special. My mother was not the kind of person who would neither lionize the regime nor revile it. She was, interestingly, non-committal about the political issues that were gripping the country at the time, but after 1978, my mother’s attitude toward the regime became positive. Of course, my sister got married to a government official and mother became defensive of her son-in-law and the government he represented. My mother’s change of heart was more or less a reflection of her attempt to be civil to her in-law than a political realignment.

Religion
Like most Somalis, I was born Muslim in an overwhelmingly Muslim country. My mother, my sister, and I were not religious when I was growing up. In the sixties and seventies, Somali women dressed modestly, but the veil, as we know it today in contemporary Somalia, was non-existent. The Reer Hamar women, however, had traditionally worn what is called “Shuko”; a dress that resembles the veil used by Arab women. Men did not wear Arabic ‘Thawb” or ‘Qamis’ unless they were religious clerics. There was an anecdote of an Issak cleric who went to Saudi Arabia in the 1960s and saw, in a Jeddah market, a Saudi man wearing the traditional Arabic “Thawb’ or Qamiis and singing. The Somali Sheikh was shocked and exclaimed, “Alla Shiikhani miyuu waashay”. (Oh my God, has this cleric gone mad!). The Shaikh was not aware of the fact that the “qamis” is the traditional dress for Arab men.

The level of religiosity among Mogadishu residents was moderate. People generally emphasized on good character rather than religious rituals. One can safely argue that people cared a great deal of being good neighbors to each other and eschewed spilling blood or causing mayhem. Religious indictments or excommunicating people from Islam were not common except in few narrow circles of Sufi groups. A Qadiri follower would treat a Salihi follower with contempt and derision, and the opposite was true.

A lot of people fasted in Ramadan regardless of their religious commitments. Restaurants, by law, were closed from sunrise to sunset. There were always people who broke the law and used their homes as makeshift restaurants. As a child, I would walk in the neighborhood in the middle of the day and smell the aroma of delicious food emanating from some of these houses while throngs of men would wait outside and stealthily go in and out of these houses. My mother fasted during the month of Ramadan and so did my sister. There were occasions that I was irked when I saw my sister eating during the daytime in the month of Ramadan. “Why is Lul eating when everybody else is fasting? Mom, this girl is embarrassing us”, I would protest. No one explained to me about something called women’s ‘menstruation’. I was simply upset by the display of what seemed to me as a clear violation of fasting in Ramadan. On the other hand, I am embarrassed to admit that I was hiding under the guise of childhood to even fast. In fact, I only started fasting when I turned 14 years old which is late for a Somali boy to start fasting. My mother never suggested to me that I should fast and, in all fairness to her, I never wanted to do so. Since my mother and my sister were fasting, no food was prepared until two or three hours before sunset which left me without a hot meal for most of the day. My mother used to give me money to purchase food, and I used to go to the market to buy bread and dates to make sandwich out of them---There were plenty of dates available at the market during Ramadan. Then, I would eagerly wait to break fast with my mother and sister. My mother, like most Somali mothers, cooked variety of food that was mostly prepared during Ramadan. I always loved Ramadan meals and the oeuvres like the samboosa and ‘bur’. I remember one particular Ramadan when I was 12 years old; for the whole month of Ramadan, I broke fast –even though I was not fasting- with my uncle and his guests at his house in ‘Dabka neighborhood. My uncle always had friends and relatives breaking fast with him and the food prepared in his house was quite elaborate. First, dates, soup, and samboosa were served, which was followed by a typical dinner of rice/lamb/spaghetti/fish/sabaayad, and then tea and deserts. The meal was too much for me as a child, but the adults apparently did not mind. In our neighborhood, Ramadan brought people more out of the confines of their homes, and it made them socialize or interact more with one another.

My record of praying five times a day, while growing up, was cause for alarm. Practically, I prayed only whenever I was in the mood of being religious. From time to time, I would start praying and going to the mosque; then after a week or two, I would regress back to my old habits of insolence. However, one experience had a major impact on me. I think I was either 11 or 12 years old when a young boy-who was half Arab and half-Somali-took me to the famous Abdiqadir Mosque, better-known as ‘Maqaam’, to attend a Tafseer session by Sheikh Mohamed Moalim. This mosque was a block away from the National Theatre and behind my school, Moalim Jama. Sheikh Mohamed was an Egyptian-trained cleric and a high official of the Ministry of Justice and Religion. He graduated from the prestigious Al-Azhar University, and he had an M.A in Philosophy. The Sheikh’s well-attended Tafseer lesson was between Maghrib and Isha prayers, and was held every night except Friday. The Sheikh used to sit on a platform covered with a white sheet and a microphone placed on top of it. The audience sat on the floor surrounding the platform.

Initially, I found Sheikh Mohamed’s style of Qur’an interpretation stale and boring, but after a week of attending his lesson, I started liking this new arena of knowledge. This Hawadle cleric, though from the south, received his early Islamic education under the tutelage of Somali Sheikhs in Western Somalia. He was short and overweight man with non-traditional accent. To the novice, the Sheikh’s public speaking skills left a lot to be desired. From time to time, he would repeat the monotonous phrase, “Maanta ma Arkeysaa…” which roughly translates in colloquial English, “You know what I mean…” His Quran exegesis, though, was gratifying. He always succeeded in presenting the Qur’an as lively and engaging as it was supposed to be. He was neither a fanatic nor a traditional Somali Sheikh. It was tragic that the Somali government under Siad Barre imprisoned him in 1976 and kept him locked at the notorious prison Labaatan Jirow for more than eight or nine years without any charges. Ironically, the Sheikh, at the time of his imprisonment, was the Director of Religious Affairs in the Ministry of Justice and Religion. It was only after the Shaikh’s imprisonment that Somalia experienced a wave of Islamic revivalism led by the Shaikh’s young disciples. Of course, the Shaikh will be turning in his grave had he known the current state of militancy in Somalia and the crimes being committed in the name of Islam. I had the pleasure of meeting the Shaikh one more time in his house during my last visit to Somalia in 1987 and I found him to be pleasant, not bitter, and full of humor. The Shaikh was disappointed with some of his former students and he accused them of being “myopic, intolerant, and disrespectful”. Sadly, the Shaikh died in late 1980s.

Back to the Shaikh’s Tafseer lessons, the first time I attended, he was explaining the story of Prophet Abraham’s wife being given glad tidying for bearing a baby. Abraham’s wife slapped her face in disbelief and asked the angels, in essence, how she could bear a child when she was an old woman. As a child, it was fascinating to listen to the human drama that seemed as if it was unfolding before my very own eyes. After a week, the Shaikh started the Tafseer of Surat Yusuf---the longest story in the Qur’an. I was mesmerized by the story of Yusuf because it had all the elements of drama, tragedy, comedy, and the usual stuff that we humans succumb to such as jealousy among siblings, treachery, sexual harassment, false accusation, false imprisonment, loss of faith, etc. I do not know how long it took the Shaikh to finish that long and fascinating Surah, but by the time he finished Surat Yusuf and began Surat Al-Ra’ad (the Thunder), I had lost interest in the Shaikh and his Tafseer. I was longing for stories and surprisingly the surahs that follow Yusuf hammer topics of faith and the Hereafter. I became ‘bored’ and went back to my old habit of not praying. Nonetheless, that brief experience gave me a new understanding of the Qur’an and it changed my perception of the Qur’an because all I did before that was to memorize it without knowing its true meaning.

It was in 1975 when I went back to the Shaikh’s lesson. One of my classmates, Yusuf Mohamed Elmi, a Shiikhaal, took me to the mosque. Yusuf and his late sister were devout young activists who used to give Islamic lessons at our Moalim Jama School. Yusuf and I struck friendship and he made sure that I accompanied him to Sheikh Mohamed’s lesson. Yusuf came to my house an hour before sunset one day in order to take me to the mosque but I told him that I had another important engagement that night. In reality, I was going to the movies! He was patient with me and sure enough he came back the next day and we headed to Abdulqadir Mosque. Yusuf introduced me to Shaikh Mohamed Moalim before the latter commenced his Tafseer. One day, after Maghreb prayer, we were shocked to find out that the Shaikh was arrested by the secret service.

Movies
Speaking of movies, I was a great fan of the cinema. In 1960s I often went to El Gab Cinema which was located in my neighborhood, but sometimes, I used to go to Cinema Nasr. I would never forget the first time I went to the movies. A young man named Mumin, a Geledi, and a friend of my family, took me to Cinema Super. The movie was an American Western. All I remember was seeing an image of a White woman and horses in the movie screen, and I became scared and I kept crying. I had never seen, prior to that point, a White person and horses. Mumin had no choice but to escort me out of the movie house and take me home. However, as I got older, I started loving all kinds of movies. All the American and European movies were dubbed in Italian. In essence, I can say that I grew up watching the movies of Kirk Douglas (wrongly called ‘Kirk Dabagalaas’ by Somalis), Gary Cooper, Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleve, Yule Brenner, etc. Somehow, the Spaghetti Western films resonated with us, Somalis, due to the immense Italian influence in Mogadishu. I still remember movies like, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and admiring Clint Eastwood and that slimy and devious Eli Wallach, and loathing Lee Van Cleve. Apparently, Wallach was indeed bad, but his nefarious deeds were done with flare. There were also Italian movies that were shown in Somalia and some were bad imitation of American Westerns, but Franco Nero of ‘Django’ was popular among movie goers including myself.

Indian movies were also popular in Somalia in 1960s and 1970s. I used to watch Indian movies even though I did not understand the language. These movies were laden with romance, songs, and dance. There was one thing Somalis generally frown upon: public display of emotions. For instance, it is common for adults to cry in Indian movies, and somehow Somalis would stereotypically refer to someone that cried or showed emotion as ‘Hindi’ (Indian). I don’t think that I will ever forget about such classic movies like, Ram Aur Shyam, Farz, Waris, Waqt, Jawaab, Sangam, Janwaar, etc.
Music

Radio Mogadishu was the only medium of mass communication that was available to Somali masses. Although it was only broadcasted several hours a day, it was very entertaining. During Siad Barre’s regime, the radio was a paragon of turgid political machine. I loved Somali songs but paid little attention to poetry. At the time, I did not understand the richness of Somali poetry but I felt that I could relate to the songs and the music. My favorite program was a live interview session during Eid day with Somali artists. I loved knowing tidbits of information about the artists’ lives and the creative process despite of my mother lamenting about the deception employed by some of the female artists. “They [artists] never age; every year they tell us a younger age”, my mother would scoff.

In early 1970s, there was a new program called “Heesaha Hirgalay” which featured a song contest. It was held every Monday night at the National Theater, which was built by the Chinese, and famous singers like Hassan Adan Samatar, Abdi Tahlil, Abdulkadir Bagaag, Salad Darbi, and Abdikhadar Hassan were some of the artists that emerged from these contests. I was a big fan of these contests and sometimes would manage to go there at least twice a month. It was a bit expensive but I looked forward to going there, and when I did not go, I would follow the contest through the radio.

Sports
I played soccer in 1960s and early 70s and was pretty good at it. My first soccer game which was viewed by many people required a jersey and I did not have one. Instead, I had to use one of my white shirts and soaked it in a bath of saffron, and later pasted number 3 on it. I was playing with youths that were a bit older than me, and being part of soccer contest at times, required money. Each player had to put some money up front in order to play against another team, and the winning team took all the money. For this memorable game, I played good defense even though my team lost. Later, I played soccer for fun.

I used to be crazed about professional soccer games and followed the matches by listening to the radio, but I rarely went to see actual matches in the stadium. As a child, I used to support HORSEED against JEENYO; these two teams were the best soccer teams in the country. Horseed represented the military, and Jeenyo represented the Department of Public Works. Somehow, Jeenyo players seemed to me to be rugged, tough and dirty. I was a great fan of Ismaail Gariile, a talented soccer player who had defected from Ethiopia. Players like Jeylani (Bantu), Antar Jeenyo (Murursade), Budiste (Abskool) and later Shaash (Bantu), Bin Shakir (Baajuun) were my favorite ones. Later, I became a fan of FIAT team which represented young players like Ganjab and Dhagoolka.

I used to follow the Somali national basketball team and on several occasions watched their practices. I loved basketball and admired players like Saciid Qorsheel (Warsangeli) and the kid in our block, Abdirizaak Haji Raage (Murursade). They represented excellence in a sport not known that much in the country.

Mogadishu Memoir (Part VI): Dugsi, School and Special Teachers

In 1970s, two men in a Mogadishu neighborhood –one Issak and the other Reer Hamar- were talking about another man. Both agreed that the man in question was a wicked person. The Issak said, “I don’t want to talk about this guy anymore because he is DAMEER (a Donkey). The Reer Hamar man stood up and protested, “War Kan Dameer maaha, GEEL waaye” (No, he is not ‘Dameer’ he is ‘Geel’ (camel). A true story.
***

Before Somali children started regular schooling, they had to attend Dugsi or Ardo (Quran School). Children as young as three or four attended Dugsi to study the Quran and learn how to read and write Arabic. In hindsight, I can only ruminate about the wasted resources and time for letting children memorize the Qur’an without ever teaching them its meanings. A typical Dugsi was coed and the children sat on the floor with wooden tablets. Every day, children wrote their daily lessons with charcoal ink and they would cleanse the tablets after the end of the school day. Teachers were religious clerics “Xer” who had memorized the Quran. Somalis view Dugsi as an integral process of their children’s educational development. It is very rare for a child not to have attended Dugsi before enrolling in public schools. Those who run or teach Dugsi are generally respected in their communities. Dugsi attendance fulfills the religious obligation of teaching the Quran to youngsters at an early age and also it serves as a necessary steppingstone for a possible success in regular schools. I heard the anecdote of men who were invited to lunch (Alla-Bari or Zab) and then after the meal each guest was asked to recite quietly twelve “Qulwallah” (Surat As-Samad; the shortest surah in the Quran). One man from Western Ethiopia stood up in disbelief and said, “Had I known twelve Qulwallah, I would have opened Ardo”. The man thought twelve Qulwallah meant twelve different Suras of the Qur’an which he thought were too many.

Our Dugsi was owned by Teacher Maryam and she was assisted by a string of religious clerics, but everybody knew that she was in charge. It was rare in the country at the time to find a woman who had memorized the entire Quran and was also running a Dugsi. That was a feat unheard of in paternalistic Somalia. She was in her late fifties and never had children. I do not recall if she was ever married. Teacher Maryam ran the Dugsi efficiently. She was an assertive woman who evoked fear and respect among the students. Although she was a close relative of the Prime Minister, and later President, of Somalia at the time (Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke), she never exploited her unique position for personal gains. She lived in Hodan District, but she used to come, from to time, to our neighborhood and spend several days in our Dugsi. Children always tried to please her, and, when she was around, their behavior drastically improved.

Although Teacher Maryam was never violent with her students, her disciplining approach was nontraditional and crude. For those children who couldn’t memorize their lessons or misbehaved, she had something special for them. She would call their parents, report the infraction, and ask the parents to spank their own children in front of the students. I thought that was a mean and demeaning way of addressing the problem. One teacher in our Dugsi, for a while, deployed an inhumane method of punishment by blind-folding students who did not memorize their daily lesson and letting the rest of students pinch them as they pleased in a span of several seconds.

When Teacher Maryam was returning to her home, some of the students would accompany her to get a cab. She reserved those rare occasions for two or three students who did something exceptional. It was a great honor to walk with Teacher Maryam for several blocks and assist her getting taxi. She was a magnificent lady. In early 1970s, Teacher Maryam built a big mosque (Dhagax-Tuur Mosque) next to her Dugsi. Several years later, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia built the biggest mosque in Mogadishu “Is –Bahaysiga” two blocks from Teacher Maryam’s. Many people preferred to pray in her mosque rather than the government- run and Saudi -sponsored mosque.

Most of my teachers in middle school and high school were from the North. In elementary level, the majority were the South. When I was growing up, the school system was divided into three levels: Elementary (4 years), Intermediate (4 years) and Secondary (4 years). A student had to pass a national standardized examination before he or she could move to the next level. In elementary, all the subjects, with the exception of English, were taught in Arabic, but in Intermediate and Secondary levels, the language of instruction was English. Somali was not officially a written language at the time. It was odd that elementary subjects were taught in Arabic because Somalis are not Arabs. Sadly, I had difficulty understanding most of the subjects during my elementary years because they made no sense to me. The level of Arabic grammar offered to us was mind-boggling. I guess, all we did, as students, was to memorize the material. My first day of school was special. My uncle, Mohamed Farah Hilowle ‘Farmajo’- who was married to my aunt-Madino Said Muse- took his son (and my cousin) Abdinadif and me to Moalim Jama School. Mr. Hilowle, a product of an Abgaal father and a Majertein mother, was one of the 13 leaders who founded the Somali Youth League (SYL). This remarkable man became a diplomat and was one time stationed in Ethiopia.

The elementary school was all boys. But in the intermediate level, I was exposed to a coed education of a small magnitude. The percentage of the girls in Moalim Jama School was less than 10. There was a Caucasian girl in the school who spoke Somali fluently. Initially, I did not know who she was but it turned out that she was the daughter of Suleyman Mohamud Adan “Suleiman Gaal” (Issak); at the time the Director General of the Ministry of Education. The girl’s mother, obviously, was from the United Kingdom.

Our class had about 40 students, and five were girls. It must have been terrifying experience for these girls. Two of the girls, Zahra and Zuhra were twins who lived in Isku-Raran. I was very shy boy but my friends, Abdifattah Sheikh Khalif, a Majertein boy from the Somali-Ethiopian border (Gallaadi and Dhudub), and Aweys (Abgaal) were the ones who led the constant teasing of the girls. The girls were a microcosm of Somali society; the twins were Reer Hamar, one girl was Bantu, one Hawiye, and one Darod. The girls always fought back and were not to be bullied. Most of the time, I accompanied Abdifattah and Aweys and I silently observed the barbs and the playful spirit between these two boys and the girls. Abdifattah, teasingly and affectionately, called the girls the “Shanta Shimbiro” (the Five Birds) and the girls called him all kinds of names.

Abdifattah was a gregarious, flamboyant and well-liked boy who must have been older than most of his classmates. His father (Reer Khalaf) was an Islamic Judge in Western Ethiopia and the boy was living with his sister and her husband, a banker, in Boondheere; a middle-class neighborhood in Mogadishu. Abdifatah was not into academics but he had a veritable obsession of becoming a singer. Oddly, he was the one who introduced me to Somali music and the world of entertainers. I started knowing who was who in the music industry. His cousin, Abdikhadar Hassan, was an aspiring young singer who later became famous across Somalia. Abdifattah and I used to go to Abdikhadar’s house in the Weliyow Adde neighborhood and engage in idle talk about the latest gossip of musicians. I must admit that I myself entertained the idea of becoming a musician once but my bashful demeanor and, not to mention, my bad voice fortunately saved the day.

Among the girls, was N.H.A. She was beautiful, confidant, and a hard-working student. NHA (Habar Gidir) lived in a distant neighborhood from the school with her single mother, a medical doctor trained in Italy. Her father, a driver, was a loving man who used to visit NHA in the school regularly. The girls and NHA found me as shy, nerdy, and reserved and I seconded that assessment. But, interestingly, I became infatuated with NHA for a short period. Since I was eleven at the time and too shy to express my feelings, I confided the matter in two of my friends in Isku-Raran who were not attending my school. One day, a story had it; NHA came to my neighborhood with her friends. Some of the kids allegedly teased her and called her, “Hassan’s girl friend”. NHA, not only was embarrassed, but she became incensed. Next day, I was summoned to the principal’s office. While I was heading to the office, I saw NHA and greeted her, but she did not respond. I was puzzled by her strange behavior. The principal, who belonged to the same clan as NHA, asked me my name and ordered me to leave the school immediately and bring my parents in the afternoon. I was flummoxed. “What did I do”, I pleaded. “Get out of here and bring your parents,” the Principal barked. I left the school dejected. Later that afternoon, I brought my mother to the school. There was only the janitor, an elderly man rumored to be Christian, and the principal in the school. The principal told my mother that I was harassing a girl in the school; an act unbecoming of any good student. I protested and told the principal that the charge was scandalous and vexatious. “Your son is given a warning to stay away from this girl,” the principal commanded. My mother thanked the principal and we headed home. I never had behavioral problem before and my mother neither reproached me nor did she say a word to me because she doubted the veracity of the story.

I was heartbroken by the entire episode. I was angry with NHA for the false accusation; angry with the principal for unfairly suspending me from school, and angry at what I perceived as clannish nepotism. Interestingly, after several years of that incident, I had another Habar Gidir principal that came to my rescue at a critical juncture of schooling. In 1976, I tried desperately to transfer from Hawl Wadag Secondary School to Benadir. The Gadubiirse principal at Hawl Wadag thought at the time that I was a militant because I skipped a technical class taught by a Russian widely believed to have been a KGB agent. The latter only came to our school two hours a day. The school staff believed that the Russian was no ordinary teacher because he had a flexible schedule and a jeep in his disposal. At any rate, one day, I skipped the Russian’s class out of laziness and became involved in an imbroglio with the principal. Since the academic year started only two months earlier in my new school of Hawl Wadag, it was a herculean task to transfer to another school. I pleaded with Mohamed Haji Abdi (Majertein), who was the Director of Hamar School District in the Ministry of Education, to allow me to transfer to Benadir Secondary School but to no avail. The Director’s name was not strange to me because he was the brother-in-law of my best friend, Abdikarim M. Farah “Wariiri” (Dhulbahante) and my classmate in middle school. “Wariiri”, a brilliant student and now an accomplished Economist with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) could have helped but I felt shy to ask him to intercede on my behalf. But then, Principal Mohamed Farah gave me a rare opportunity to accept me at Benadir. I was elated and felt like ‘walking in the air’. Benadir, to me, was ten times better than Hawl Wadag and more prestigious. In the 1990s, Principal Mohamed Farah became one of the top lieutenants of General Aidid.

Back to Moalim Jama School, I had difficulty understanding why a principal would punish a student for an alleged act that supposedly happened while the school was not in session? I did not harass NHA nor did I even make her uncomfortable. That incident made me cut my relationship with the five birds. I avoided them for months and acted that I did not know them.

Weeks before the end of the year, something weird happened. I left school one day heading home when one of the birds-Sa’diyo- came running after me. “Wait Hassan,” she said, “NHA is in front of the school and wants to talk to you.” I started walking back to the school apprehensively and wondering what the scheme was this time. I saw NHA, elegantly but bashfully, standing in front of the school gate. “Hassan, I apologize for what I did to you. Please forgive me”, she sheepishly said. I was stunned by her apology and, all of sudden, became speechless. “It is ok,” I said and then I left. Being eleven years old, I kept wondering what the underlying reasons for the apology was. My own theory was that the final exams were approaching and the girls needed my academic help since we used to study together. But one of the senior birds, Zeinab, told me two or three years later that she asked NHA to apologize to me. My mother and the caretaker of Zeinab became friends, and the girl, apparently, felt embarrassed that we were not in good terms. With or without NHA’s apology, I became somewhat cool, but civil, to the girls and steered clear of them.

People Who Made a Difference

Teacher Abukar
Teacher Abukar (no relations) was my sixth grade Arabic teacher. This Hawadle, tall, lanky, and reticent man seemed to be a typical Arabic teacher at the time; boring and uninspiring. But one day, our Geography teacher became sick and a substitute teacher who used to read to us the famous, but licentious, book, Arabian Nights, was not available. The principal sent Teacher Abukar to our class to fill the hour. We were disappointed with the sight of our Arabic teacher coming to our class to fill the void. But we were in for a big surprise. Teacher Abukar told us the story of Prophet Mohamed, Peace Be Upon Him, from childhood to his marriage of Khadija. Now, the way Teacher Abukar told the story was nontraditional. The Prophet Mohamed the school system was teaching us was a man who was sent to his people to fight corruption against a feudal Qureish lordship. He was a man who loved his hometown, Makka, and felt sad when he was expelled. This Mohamed was a man who taught his people basic morality, like telling the truth, helping neighbors and loving one’s country. But Teacher Abukar told us a side of Prophet Mohamed that we, children, could identify with and in which super natural tales did not mar its narration. It was, mostly, a tale of a small boy growing up in Makka; A boy who lost his father, and then later his mother, but had close relatives looking after him. What fascinated us the most, as children, was the love story between Khadija, 40 years old, a distinguished business woman known for her beauty, good character, and remarkable pedigree, and young Mohamed, twenty-five years old, an honest man who happened to be her employee. I had never heard this side of the Prophet’s background before, and it humanized the man and the legend. The Prophet I used to know was a man quick to dispense sagacious statements and who wanted me, as a child, to pray and fast. My mother used to tell me, from to time, bits of information about the Prophet. Initially, I thought Prophet Mohamed was Somali because everybody talked about him by relaying his Hadiths (Prophet’s sayings and tradition) in Somali. But when I found out that Prophet Mohamed was an Arab, I was very angry. This discovery, of course, happened before I was six and it was devastating to me because I had already formed an image of the prophet being a Somali figure. Like many Somali children, I was raised with a stable diet of Somali nationalism. I was taught that Somalis were the best and smartest people in the planet. Therefore, for Prophet Mohamed, the man who was my source of inspiration, being a foreigner was unfathomable. It took me a while to recover from that rude awakening and sophomoric belief. Professor I.M. Lewis, in his Modern History of Somalia, alluded to the notion that Somalis are generally respectful and courteous to foreigners but that they also have “deeply ingrained suspicion…an aggressive self-confidence and, traditionally, open contempt for other people.” As a child, I was more or less, confused.

Teacher Abukar’s hour with us ran out quicker than we wanted. It was a lovely and educational treat. After that fateful day, students used to look for Teacher Abukar every time we had an hour to fill and ask him to tell us more about the history of Prophet Mohamed, Peace be Upon Him.


Teacher Adan Nuux Dhuule
Mr. Dhuule (Issak) was my sixth grade science teacher. He was also tall, slender, and always projected that type of seriousness that makes you respect the person. Mr. Dhuule was not the kind of teacher who joked with students or doled out compliments. He did not have a pretentious bone in his body. He came to the class, taught, and left immediately after the period was up. I had the view that Mr. Dhuule was anti-social and indifferent. Many of my classmates did not like him but I thought that one had to work harder to earn his approval. On rare occasions, Mr. Dhuule would flatter some of the students if they did something extraordinary, and, on some occasions, I was fortunate to be on the receiving end. Mr. Dhuule taught in our school, Moalim Jama, less than a year. After his 9-months’ National Service stint, Mr. Dhuule was randomly selected, among others, to work for the Ministry of Information and Guidance. He was assigned to Radio Mogadishu and worked there as a broadcaster. Few years later, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) hired him as a newscaster. I always admired Mr. Dhuule’s unique way of delivering news because it was a reflection of his personality; serious and not ostentatious.


Iraqi Teacher
This was an Arabic/Religion teacher that I had at Benadir Secondary School. He was an Iraqi Baathist teacher who was tall and boisterous. There were many students who used to skip the Arabic class because it was, to them, boring or badly taught. I remember seeing this burly and hulking Iraqi teacher screaming at students out of frustration. The first day I saw him was my first day at the school and the teacher asked each one of us to read an Arabic passage. As indicated before, Arabic was not a subject many of the students enjoyed because it was alien to them. When my turn came, I read the passage flawlessly. I saw the teacher coming to me impressed. He asked me my name and he wrote it down in a small piece of paper. That was the beginning of a teacher and student relationship that left sentimental memories. This teacher encouraged me to study Arabic and gave me books, magazines, and cassette tapes. He was also crucial in helping me organize an educational symposium, along my schoolmate Abdirizak Jama. I remember the school principal, an Issaak guy nicknamed ‘Jilbaweyne’ being apprehensive because he was afraid that we would politicize the symposium. The Iraqi teacher was instrumental in pacifying the principal and the symposium went well without any incident.


Asha Dheer, the Poetess
My relative Asha Mohamed Abdi ‘Asha Dheer”was tall, strong, and beautiful. She was married to ‘Shurubo’, who used to own a truck. Asha used to stay with my family when she visited Mogadishu from Bossasso. She was never blessed with children, but her husband loved her dearly. Asha was funny, sociable, and talented and had a strong personality. I remember her complaining to me about two Reer Hamar (Shaanshi) women in our street who were bad-mouthing each other. “Hassan, why do Reer Hamar women wait for each other when they are engaged in verbal assault? One speaks and heaps on the other all kinds of insults while the other patiently listens and waits for her turn to insult”, she retorted. One time I was walking with her near El Gab cinema when a man tried to make a pass; “Abaayo, iska warran [Sister, what is going on?] “The man asked. “Waar halkee baad ii dirsatay ee aan kaaga warramaa” (where did you send me so I can bring you some news) she answered with contempt and walked away. She was a famous poetess (Buraanbur) in the Northeast. When Asha, was pleased with me, she would glowingly say:

Xasan Sharaf, Shan-ka-roone, Shiikh Maxammad Abuukar.
(Hassan, the Honorable, the Remarkable, [son of] Sheikh Mohamed Abukar)

But when she was upset with me, she would jokingly say:

Xasan Shuruf, Shiiraaye, Sheeloweyne
(Hassan, the Malodorous, the Smelly, [with] Enlarged Prostate

It was unfortunate that Asha Dheer got killed by masked assasins in her house in Bossasso some years ago.


Abdisalaam, the Journalist
As a teenager, I came to know a young man who was a teacher but later became a journalist. It was convenient that he lived close to our new house in Xamar Jab Jab. His name was Abdisalaam. He was Rahanweyn and lived with his older brother, Colonel Dafeedow; the second highest official in the Department of Corrections. Daafedow was rumored to be an ally of “Mama Khadija” (Siad Barre’s wife). At any rate, Abdisalam and I became friends even though he was at least several years older than me. He was not happy with his teaching profession and he aspired to become a journalist. After numerous attempts, he succeeded in becoming a journalist. He was the one who introduced me to journalism in mid 1970s. I used to go with him to the famous Samatar Bookshop in Mogadishu, which was a block away from the American Embassy. Abdisalam was fluent in Arabic and used to purchase leading Egyptian papers like Al-Ahram, Al-Akhbar, and Akhbar El-Yom. Even though these papers were few days old, if not weeks, Abdisalam would buy them. He would give me the papers after he was through reading them. I could not afford purchasing papers because I had no income. I loved reading these papers and I fell in love with journalism. My sister, meanwhile, used to read Al-Hawwaa, a woman-geared magazine published in Egypt. I did not care but I read every publication that fell in my hands. When I had extra money, I would go and buy these newspapers. At Hamar Weyne market, there was a man who used to sell used publications like Newsweek, Time, and National Geographic. I loved buying used periodicals from this vendor because his prices were three times cheaper than the ones sold at the bookshop. I am grateful to Abdisalam for introducing me to the world of journalism because it was the only reason that made me come to the United States.
***

Disclaimer: I mention the names of the people in my memoir and their clans. I do so for historical reasons and for the fact that the clan in itself is not the root cause of Somalia’s problems. I am from the old school that knowing one’s clan is not scandalous but using clan affiliation as a pretext to stereotype, discriminate, and humiliate is unacceptable. As the Quran says; “O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other. Verily the most honored of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things)” (Sura 49:13)

Mogadishu Memoir (Part V): Housemates Unplugged

“Our house it has a crowd
There's always something happening
And it's usually quite loud
Our mum, she's so house-proud
Nothing ever slows her down
And a mess is not allowed

Our house, in the middle of our street
Our house, in the middle of our
Something tells you that you've got to move away from it.”

“Our House” by Madness.

***

In late 1960s and early 1970, my family shared a living space with a collage of characters that would make any psychologist have a field day. We lived in a big brick house that had several large rooms, a large space for cooking and one bathroom which was shared by all the housemates. The area the house was located at El Gab neighborhood was generally inhabited by working class people but our house was big enough to accommodate middle class characters and high school students.

Farah ‘Ileey’ (Farah the one-eyed), a shrewd Marehan elderly businessman, owned the house but he was mostly an absentee landlord. My mother ran the show by collecting rent and maintaining order in the house. After several years of running the affairs of the house, some naysayers started telling the landlord that my mother was acting like the owner of his property. My mother, whose leadership skills enabled the place to function properly, was asked to move out of the house. Being a vigorous fighter, my mother refused to budge. After a few months of tug of war, the landlord talked to some Darod elders in order to intervene, and finally my family moved out. However, two years later, the landlord came to my mother regretting about his decision. Apparently, the property had fallen into disrepute.

Three young Northerners (Isaak clan members), who were civil servants, occupied a room in the big house. As a lad, I loved these young men because they were very generous to me. In fact, they gave me the first job I ever had which was to wake them up early in the morning so they could go to work. I was paid 2 Somali shillings per week! I remember one particular Ramadan when I went with these young men to a restaurant at 4 in the morning and ate spaghetti. Until today, I have such a vivid memory of that meal and the experience of going to a restaurant in the wee hours. My mother was not pleased with the fact that I was being paid for doing a neighborly act. She told the Northerners not to give me money and she demanded that I continue waking them up as usual. Being spoiled by the cash flow that I was getting, I became somewhat disappointed with the new arrangement and I did something out of sorts; I changed the method of payment. I started going outside of the house and collected my payments through the back window. Somehow, my mother found out about my secret scheme and, interestingly, chose not to reprimand me or accuse the Northerners of undermining her authority. She knew when to pick a fight and when to let certain things slide by.

A young Reer Hamar artist occupied one of the rooms and he talked to no one when he was around, but he was gone most of the time. I remember his room not being neat but, on the walls of his room, he had fascinating paintings by different Somali artists. I was more impressed with the paintings by his colleagues than his. Also, he had a habit of drinking and alcohol consumption was something frowned upon by Somali people.

For a while, a couple, for confidentiality reasons, I would call “Salad” and “Anbara” occupied the room adjacent to ours. Salad belonged to ‘Carabta Maxmoud Saalax’ clan and his wife was Harti who originally came from the rural areas of Western Ethiopia. Anbara was also a cousin of a famous Somali singer. Salad had an unerring gift and he used to bring old and run-down refrigerators and fix them like new. This rare talented technician was a man loaded with contradictions because he had a volatile temper and would, at times, beat up his wife. That was the first time that I was exposed to domestic violence. Every time Salad beat his wife- which was the case for the first few years of their nascent marriage- the house would be flooded with educated, attractive, and progressive women who happened to be Anbara’s cousins. These ladies would console Anbara while at the same time giving the silent treatment to the wife-beater. I did not see these women visit our house when things were calmer. Anbara was novice to city life and, understandably, was missing her family back in Ethiopia. It appeared that Salad’s father, a diminutive man, was nonchalant about his son’s violence. The only thing, as a child, I could do for Anbara in 1973 was teaching her literacy and basic arithmetic. Later, she moved to Madina District in Mogadishu and became rich. Many years later, I was told that Anbara sneaked back to Ethiopia and was involved in a bizarre espionage case n behalf of the Somali government. Of course, it is difficult to verify the veracity of the story.

Several young students from the Northeastern part of Somalia occupied one of the rooms. Most were distant relatives of my mother, but one of them was my cousin; Omar Abdullahi Haji Osman (Omar Saddiq). These young students were mostly attending high school in Mogadishu and were all supported by their parents back in Qardho and Bossasso. My mother acted as a surrogate parent for these youngsters and some of these students excelled in school and were given scholarships to study in Western Europe and, later, to the Soviet Union.

A young handsome army officer named Tahlil (Hawadle), his mother, and his sister occupied two of the rooms. At the time, army officers and doctors were the two highest respected professionals in Somalia. This army officer was charismatic and a sociable person. His mother was the old school and was protective of him, especially against Darod girls.

Abbas and his roommate occupied one of the rooms. Abbas and my mother, though not related, belonged to the same sub-clan. He was single for a long time but he had a steady girl friend that cared a great deal about him. The young woman gave Abbas ample opportunity to marry her but, unfortunately, he was not the marrying kind and eventually she left him. Abbas’ roommate was an intriguing character. This tall man was a heavy smoker, and he had a peculiar habit of waking up early in the morning, breaking up several eggshells, and gulping the yolks of the eggs. Someone told this poor chap that the egg yolks were good in preventing lung cancer.

There was also the room of a bachelor teacher in his forties who rarely socialized with other housemates. One day, this teacher tried to rape a young and beautiful Habar Gidir woman who worked for the Northeasterners as a cook, but she screamed and he let her go. Afterwards, there was a hush-hush talk about the incident that a young boy like me was not privy to its unsavory details. With the pure curiosity of a child, I started digging for information until I find about the attempted rape. Apparently, the maid did not want to press charges against the teacher, and the whole matter regretfully was swept under the rug.

There were two young Darod men and their younger sister attending high school and occupying one of the rooms. The girl was an average-looking and had the social skills of a cougar. But she became the center of attention in the house and, for me, a source of problem. The girl was mostly interested in the army officer and would try to flirt with him. The young people in the house were not happy with the fact that the army officer was overshadowing them. The girl did whatever she could to get the officer’s attention but the romance was one-way because the officer did not reciprocate the feeling, not to mention his family was displeased with the girl’s bold overtures. But, interestingly, I became infatuated with this girl. I was only eight or nine years old at the time and she was at least seventeen. I started daydreaming about this girl and was consumed by her thoughts. One day, I went to a classmate of mine named Isgow Abdullahi (Shiikhaal Jazira)) who was good in Arabic and I asked him to draft a love letter for me so I could give it to the girl. He dutifully agreed and gave me a short letter saying, in essence, that I loved the girl. I wrapped the note and gave it to the older brother of the girl who in turn gave it to his sister without looking the note. Immediately, I disappeared because I was too embarrassed to stick around and face the music. I started avoiding the girl for at least two days. On the other hand, the girl was appalled and she squarely put the blame on the Northeastern housemates. She accused them of orchestrating the whole matter because they were presumably jealous of her flirtation with the army officer. The Northeastern youngsters vehemently denied that they had anything to do with the love letter. The girl’s older brother singled out my cousin, Omar Saddiq, for allegedly writing the letter. Oddly, Omar was a studious student and was not interested in girls. Curiously, I was never asked what my role was in the whole affair. Why bother! I was only an innocent child! The clamor and the hubbub about the letter put an end to my brief and infantile infatuation. It was only many years later did I confess to my cousin that I was the perpetrator of that nefarious deed.

For a while, one basketball referee lived in one of the rooms. This housemate had interesting collection of books about the history of Somalia and especially that of the Somali Youth League. Apparently, he did something illegal and ended up getting arrested. Two secret service agents came to the house and started searching his room, and among some of the items they discovered were porn magazines. I saw one of the agents flipping through the magazines and then slapping the housemate in the face. The housemate, a tall corpulent fellow, was meek and he gave no response as his eyes welled with tears. He was taken away and was sentenced to prison for several months. For a short period, Khalif Issa Mudane (a young Norteastern) lived in the house until he won a scholarship to the Soviet Union and eventually became an air force pilot. In the 1990s, Khalif became a co-owner of now defunct Damal Airlines. Another young man, Mohamed Rashid (Shiikhaal) also lived in the house and became an air force pilot. Sadly, Mohamed Rashid perished in 1975 when his MIG plane crashed in the outskirts of Mogadishu few days after Siad Barre sent 10 Ulema (scholars) to the gallows.

Uncle ‘Abdi Gurey’

Though not a resident of our house, my beloved uncle Abdirahman Yusuf Musse ‘Abdi Gurey’ was a regular visitor, and there were times that he came for lunch every day. He was handsome and soft-spoken man with Indian features. When my uncle went to Saudi Arabia in mid 1970s for work, he told me that he was always mistaken as an Indian.

My uncle was a civil servant in early and mid 1960s until Prime Minister Abdirizak Haji Hussein laid off many government employees for either efficiency reasons or for political expediency. The layoff was a blessing for my uncle because he opened his own company and named it “Auto Noleggio Wajer” (Wajer Car Rental). He became semi-rich and led an upper-middle class life style. In 1969, he even ran for an office and came close to being elected to the country’s parliament.

My uncle led a bachelor life but in 1969 he married a tall half-Arab and half Harti beauty named Layla Yaslam. I still remember the wedding night and seeing my uncle and Layla coming to the house holding hands. I was very close to my uncle and he used to call me “Hassan Sharaf” because he said that I was always a clean child. The next day after the wedding, I went to my uncle’s house in Hodan (Dabka) District while he was still in honeymoon. We played Somali chess or ‘dubnad’, ate pastries, and listened Sudanese music. Layla bore him a son, Yusuf, but he died in infancy. It was very unfortunate that my uncle’s marriage to Layla abruptly came to an end. My uncle, within a year, married a Majertein woman from Garowe (Issa Mahamoud) who bore him several children. He died in 1990 after several years of illness, not broke but naturally without the wealth that he had amassed in 1960s and early 1970s. Before his death, he became embroiled with Somali politics and got arrested numerous times for suspicion of backing the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF), an opposition group based in Ethiopia.

My uncle was the most generous person that I have ever met. As a child, he was always there for me when I needed him. Many Northeasterners in Mogadishu used his postal box, 702, for getting their mail and he was well liked by his people. We used to go to places, on some Fridays, like Jowhar, Bal’ad, and Afgoi for day trips filled with fun and food. I remember sitting in the shaded acacia trees and eating exquisite meals like rice and lamb meat. Somehow, those sumptuous meals were always well cooked and tasted deliciously.

From time to time, I used to help my uncle in running his car rental business. Mostly, I did the paperwork. I remember one time when my uncle treated poorly two Hawiye bankers who wanted to rent a car. I did not know if the customers had prior dealings with my uncle but nevertheless I was embarrassed by his ornery and cantankerous behavior. Although my uncle owned a good business, he enjoyed hanging with his friends and was not fond of doing the day-to-day grunt work. He was different than my other uncle (and his cousin) Abdullahi Omar Ismail ‘Casaro’ who, though a self-made wealthy man, worked harder and shunned social gatherings. At any rate, one day I rented a car to a customer and my uncle came later that evening to check the sales and receipts. He calculated the numbers and saw what seemed to be an error. My uncle, being a man of sanguine tempers, became agitated and verbally abusive. I remained resolutely silent wondering what I had missed but, after a while, my uncle re-checked the numbers and realized that he was wrong. He immediately apologized to me and gave me 40 Somali Shillings. He was a knightly man.

Mogadishu Memoir (Part IV): A Neighborhood In Transition

In 1970s, there was a popular Omar Shooli song –lyrics by Abdalla Nuriddin- called ‘Abyan’ which talked about my childhood neighborhood and it went like this;

“Abyan waxay ku nooshahay
Aqalkeda uu yahay
Isku-Raran Agteediyoo
Agagaarka Ceel Gaab


“Abyan lives
[In] a house located
Near Isku-Raran
[And] around El- Gab”

My old neighborhood, El Gab or Isku-Raran, was the hub of Mogadishu, and in its vicinity there were many shops, restaurants, and eager vendors selling their products. Also, the city’s bus depot was located there, and it was the first place where people that came from different cities in Somalia landed when they entered the city. El Gab was a busy place that bustled with people, replete with the sounds of braying donkeys, and symphony of car horns. In essence, it was a lively place. As a child, I used to go to the El Gab Square late in the afternoons when the hot sun cooled down, and I would listen to the story tellers or, as some referred them, charlatans. There were throngs of people surrounding various storytellers and the latter would entertain the audience with the stories they weaved. Most of the stories these men told were laden with superstitious tales but had underlying moral underpinnings. The storytellers always managed to stop when the story got interesting in order to cajole money from the listeners. The audience, who seemed to hate the cliff hangers, wanted to know the end of the story and would willingly donate money. I heard all kinds of outrageous stories, however, the most outlandish was the one about a man whose penis was cut off by his wife but the man finally managed to get his severed manhood back in tact after going through a soul-wrenching process of repentance. Beside listening to the tall tales, I also enjoyed going to El Gab Cinema which was my favorite place to hang out. The neighborhood had two vestiges of Italian colonialism; the ‘Ambulatorio El Gab”, an out-patient medical center, and a big burial site exclusively for Italians that was, in later years, incrementally desecrated and finally removed.

Homes near our house were populated by families, but few blocks away from my residence was a cluster of dwellings rumored to be a hot bed for prostitution? Behind our home, there was a big house and the owner had exotic wild animals such as monkeys, baboons, tortoise, wild cats, and gazelles which he kept them in cages and sold them to the Europeans. I was always scared of getting close to that monstrous house for fear of encountering wayward monkeys or baboons. There were times that some of the male baboons got loose in the neighborhood and caused havoc. Next to the house with the wild animals was where my friend Abdulqadir Mohamed Mohamud Yusuf- nicknamed Cabdulqaadir Cadde- lived. Abdulqadir (Majertein-Issa Mohamoud) and I were best friends in the 1960s and he was a brilliant student who excelled in school. He lived with his single father- a male nurse nicknamed ‘Qoor Dooro’- his younger brother- Abdirizak- his aunt Mulki, and his Ogaden grandmother, Murayo, may God bless her soul. Abdulqadir’s father was semi-educated but he was a committed parent who oversaw his children’s education. Abdulqadir’s mother lived in Garowe and had her own family. Murayo, the grandmother, showed me a great of love and care because she believed that I was a well-mannered boy. As children, Abdulqadir, his bother Abdirizak, and I played together and sometimes we used to pretend to be cowboys. I used to make toy pistols out of thick paper and gun belts from ropes. Abdulqadir used to go beyond the role-playing and would tell his brother and I fabricated stories about cowboys. Abdirizak and I enjoyed listening to these wild stories but, on Abdulqadir’s back, we would grumble about being subjected to a contexture of lies.

There was a Hawadle family across our house; Khalif, his wife Amina, and their children. Khalif was tall, lanky, and hot-tempered man, but his wife was gentle and reserved. Their son, Bashir, and I were in the same age but he attended a school where Italian was the medium language. There were also two families from Eritrean descent that lived three houses away; “Baal Dooro” and Hashim. ‘Baal Dooro’ was a short, stocky man who worked, as a technician, for Radio Mogadishu. I used to see him leave his house early in the morning as he headed to Radio Mogadishu where he was responsible for broadcast equipments running smoothly. I sadly remember times when Siad Barre’s soldiers barged into his house and he was dragged to the radio station so that the government could broadcast urgent news such as aborted coup. Hashim was in his late 40s at the time, always drove fancy cars, and appeared to be well off compared to other families in my neighborhood. One day, Hashim vanished. It was later discovered that Hashim worked for the Ethiopian government and was in Mogadishu as a deep cover spy. My brother-in-law told me many years later that, while in an official visit to Addis Ababa, Hashim came to the hotel where the Somali delegation was staying.

Next to Hashim’s house was where the Baynax Barre family (Ogaden) lived and I was friendly with their two boys, Abdilatiif and Liban. There was also the house of “Jamal Jabiye” (Jamal the Breaker/Demolisher); a Reer Hamar man, that worked for the Municipal Authority and whose job was to demolish homes that were on the way of new streets to be paved in the city. It was ironic that Jamal Jabiye’s own home was later destroyed by a government decree to make way for a major street in our neighborhood.

A Dhulbahante man (Du’ale) lived two houses away from our house with his wife, Caanood, a fierce Marehan woman, and their children. Their daughter, Duniyo Dualle, was my sister’s age and quite popular. This family used to rent out one of their rooms. I remember one particular Hawadle family that rented out a room from the Du’ale family which consisted of an army soldier, his wife Habibo, who had arrived from Hiiraan region, and their young children. This soldier was called Guurgarato and he would become, at the height of Siad Barre’s rule, a tycoon. Sometime in May 1991, and at the peak of the Somali civil war, my mother told me that she was boarding a plane at Mogadishu Airport on her way out of the country when she saw Guurgarato flanked by bodyguards. Guurgarato was surprised to see her and exclaimed, “Oh! Dahabo! Were you still in Mogadishu?” My mother, who always had high regards for Guurgarato, was miffed that the tycoon did not even show common courtesy of greeting her or inquiring about her welfare. Not known for nourishing a grudge, that was a peculiar encounter that my mother never forgot.

A block away from my home was the house of Abukar Kassim (Geledi), his Ogaden wife, and their children. The Kassim daughters were one of the prettiest in the neighborhood; one became an air hostess with the Somali Airlines and another became the wife of General Adan Gabyow, Somalia’s Defense Minister in mid 1980s. Few houses from the Kassim family was the house/store of Hajiyo Bullo (Majertein-Nuuh Jabraa’iil); the mother of Abdalla Mohamed Fadil, who later became a member of the Supreme Revolutionary Council and a Cabinet Minister under Siad Barre regime.

The family that had some indirect influence on our neighborhood, perhaps, was the one next door to us. The patriarch of this family was an elderly man named Garweyne (Majertein-Omar Mohamoud) who lived in Mogadishu all his life. I found Garweyne’s household to be fascinating and, in retrospect, different than other homes in my neighborhood because it had an astounding array of characters. The Garweyne family consisted of the family patriarch, his wife Axado (Habar Gidir-Saleebaan), aunts, children, grandchildren, and other relatives; the house was always full of people. Ali Garweyne, the son, was in his twenties at the time, and worked for the American Embassy. He was an archtype soccer fan; garrulous and loyal. From time to time, he would come out of his house, sit on the front stairs, watch the children play in the street, and he would prod, tweak, and challenge them. Salado Garweyne was several years older than me, and she moved to Italy in early 70s. Lul Garweyne, a divorced woman with a son, was in her twenties and was tall and beautiful. Zeinab Garweyne was my sister’s best friend in the 60s and 70s and she was always polite to others. She and my sister shared a lot. It is, as the French say, “Tous les beaux esprits se recontrent” (All beautiful spirits find themselves). Zeinab ended up marrying a Majertein guy (Mohamed Ali Maad) who worked for the Somali Airlines and later defected after joining the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF). Maryan Garweyne was in her thirties at the time and was married to a Reer Hamar artist, Mohamed Osman Ibtilo. Ibtilo used to appear in Reer Hamar plays. Zahra Garweyne was the oldest of Garweyne children and was married to Mohamed Geedi, an Habar-Gidir businessman, and had several children. Two of her children, Sa’eed and Su’di were close to my age. Zahra worked at a hospital and was often away from home but, when she was home, her presence was widely felt. She was tall and endowed with remarkable physical strength. Zahra was my favorite Garweyne children because she was, by all measures, a portrait of kindness and generosity. If her children went to the movies, and she saw me playing outside, she would call me and would give me money to go to the movies. She wanted me to have good time, and her generosity toward me was something I will never forget. Zahra was assertive and witty. In fact, the Garweyne progeny brought a great deal of humor to our community and elements of Westernization. But then, phases of modernization were already creeping in Somalia in 1960s.

In late 1960s, Zahra’s husband decided to run for a seat in the Somali parliament and the Garweyne family rallied behind their son-in-law by soliciting the support of the people in the neighborhood. As a child, I remember seeing a lot of people coming to a weekly party which was held at the Garweyne house where food and soft drinks were served while the pulsating music blared in the background. Zahra’s children, Sa’eed and Su’di (under ten years old at the time) opened the party with beautiful dancing that used to captivate the attendees. Then, two lines of dancing were formed, one for the men and the other for the women. As I recall, I was always a spectator because dancing was not my bailiwick. Besides, I was shy in public places. But story had that one night I joined the crowd of dancers and did a bit of dancing. My sister and Zeynab Garweyne conveyed this story to me many years later, but I have no recollection of this incident. I have doubts that I was brave enough to dance in front of tens of people. I can only think of one occasion in which I danced so enthusiastically and wildly, but then I was an adult. It happened in 1983 or 1984 while in college in Ohio and during Eid celebration. I was hanging with some Arab men from the Gulf who were singing folk songs in a tiny apartment. It was an unremarkable experience except for its dullness. I wanted to rejuvenate the men in that joyous occasion so I started dancing wildly. I thought this peculiar incident was in the dustbin of history until my then wife informed me that the Arab women in our married-student complex were impressed with my dance moves. I was unaware that the event was even videotaped. That was a scene I would have paid real money to see it in tape!

The Garweyne family probably introduced some Western music to our neighborhood. For the first time, I saw teenage boys and girls in the Garweyne compound and listening to the Beatles, Elvis, Ray Charles, etc. The youngsters would sometimes hang in the alley between our house and the Garweyne compound and engage in amorous flirtations. But in all fairness, the Garweyne children were not involved in those illicit acts, and they made a show of rising above the fray. Paradoxically, Garweyne children were a bit conservative even though the family was indirectly facilitating the introduction of some elements of Westernization in the neighborhood. For instance, most of the Garweyne girls ended up marrying men arranged for them by relatives. Members of the Garweyne household used to call me, “Hassanow” and would ask me to entertain them. They listened, with rapt attention, to my impetuous and idle talk. Oddly, they thought I was very funny, but as a child I loved the attention I was getting.

One incident had a searing effect on me because it involved the brutal murder of one the members of the Garweyne family. I think I was either nine or ten years old when an aunt of Garweyne children, who used to take care of them, became the victim of homicide. Our neighborhood, at the time, noticed a sharp spike in criminal activities such as burglaries. Criminals became so bold that they used to break in homes and take portable items. Some of these criminals would dig holes under the front doors to seep inside the houses. The Garweyne aunt, apparently, foiled numerous attempts to rob that big and tempting house because she was vigilant and tough. However, the criminals became frustrated with her and one of the hoodlums managed one night to lure her out of the compound, and struck her head with a metal object. The blow to her head was followed by a primal scream that pierced the still night which woke up many people. Sadly, the criminals managed to vanish in the darkness of the night. The aunt was taken to Digfer Hospital, and I remember neighbors pouring into the Garweyne house anxiously waiting to hear news about the aunt’s condition, but she died several hours after the incident. For the Garweyne family, and all of us who knew the aunt, it was a sad moment and we all felt the loss. Personally, I felt like a member of my own family was brutally murdered. The family was buoyed by a wave of sympathy and support and the ordeal clearly taxed and tested the neighborhood. Few years later, the perpetrator of this heinous crime was arrested for committing another brutal murder in Baidoa, 200 Kilometers away from Mogadishu, and was sentenced to death. During the court proceedings, he dropped a bombshell when he confessed to a long list of criminal activities including the killing of the Garweyne family aunt.

The neighborhood that I grew up was diverse when it came to its ethnicity and clan make-up. As mentioned above, there were families from Eritrean descent. There was one family from Arab descent and also a group of Oromo (Aruso) migrant labor. In mid sixties, Mogadishu experienced a torrential rain that devastated some houses and especially the shoddy-built house which was rented by the hard-working Oromo men. The entire neighborhood came to their assistance by giving them money and food. For weeks, the women in the neighborhood took turns cooking food for the Oromo men. One of the memorable moments for me was when one of the Madhiban girls, and a close friend of Zeinab Garweyne, got married, and many people in the neighborhood took part of the celebration. I remember luminary singers like Hassan Diriye, Omar Dhuule, and Mohamed Saleebaan coming to the neighborhood and singing at the wedding. Our neighborhood was also home to the poet and entertainer Hirsi Siiqe (Majertein) and his Marehan wife who hailed from Cawuduwaaq in Central Somalia. The couple’s daughter, Hodan, and another girl in the neighborhood, Asho Liin, were one of the vanguard children who became part of the group “Ubaxa Kacaanka” (The Flowers of the Revolution) under Barre regime.

The old Somali Youth League (SYL) headquarter was located three blocks away from my house and I recall two young men from Mozambique living in one of the back rooms of the center. Some of the neighborhood children used to taunt and harass one of the young men by making ‘ugly’ faces just because he looked, to their eyes, different. The young man, in turn, used to go berserk and would chase the children.

Mogadishu Memoir Part III: Defying the Odds

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust.

***

It was challenging for me as a young boy, while growing up in Mogadishu in the 1960s, to be surrounded by two strong-willed women. If my mother was a symbol of doggedness in the face of adversity, my sister was the paragon of discipline, competitiveness, and self-confidence. If my mother had a way of giving her views without appearing to do so, my sister enunciated her thoughts clearly and carefully.

My sister, Lul Mohamed Nur, is five years older than me, but I would not dare say so in front of people who have seen both of us lest I be accused of wishful thinking. Simply put, she appears much younger than me. She is tall, sociable, and smart. As a child, I was always conscious of giving her that power of being my ‘protector’ and she, in turn, always saw me as her little brother who needed her guidance. I do not know if my sister knows this; she did have some influence on me, especially in my formative years.

I remember my sister being a well-behaved and well-liked child in our neighborhood. When most young women her age stayed home and did domestic chores, my sister was an assiduous student who attended, in the 60s and early 70s, an all-Arabic Egyptian-run school (Jamal Abdinassir) from kindergarten to the 12th grade. If my sister liked something, she was not bashful of letting people know. I remember an incident in which my sister and some of her girl friends went to the house of a lady that baked Somali bread ‘muufo’. The baker lady at the time was churning milk into yogurt and my sister commented how the yogurt looked good. “Do you want some?” the lady asked my sister and her friends. The other girls sheepishly said “no” except my sister who said, “I would love to have some”. Then, the lady offered the yogurt only to my sister and when Lul tried to eat, the girls asked her if she could share it with them. “No way,” my sister protested, “you were offered but refused to accept the offer”.

I was probably 4 or five years old when I started going to the Quran School, or Dugsi as it is called, with my sister. We had to walk to the school, which was at least 15 minutes away. While attending the Dugsi, I got involved in a Quran contest with a beautiful, bright, and competitive Abgaal girl named Rahma. Rahma was new to our school but felt at ease with the new environment. She and I were in the same age group but the age or gender was not important factors. What was important was to see which student had memorized the Quran the best and the most. In our Dugsi, there were always contests and Rahma and I became finalists for one of those contests. Initially, I was able to beat her in one of these contests because of my sister’s assistance. But Rahma was a fierce competitor and she kept coming back more determined than before. I held my ground and managed to get ahead of her. After a while, I did not care much about competing with Rahma, but my sister did. Lul used to spend more time with me in order to get ahead of Rahma but that girl proved to be a formidable contender and my victory was short lived. After my sister graduated from the Dugsi, Rahma caught up with me and got ahead. When some of the children in my neighborhood told my sister about my embarrassing defeat in the hands of Rahma, Lul was very disappointed. Somehow, she felt that I had let her down.

I was fascinated by my sister’s creativity when it came to cooking; she always experimented with different things which at times seemed odd to me. My sister would buy vegetables and make delicious meals out of it and she seemed averse to traditional food of rice and spaghetti. Even today, as an adult, she enjoys cooking and I consider her a great chef.

My sister Lul was a voracious reader. She was the one who introduced me to Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. I always admired the good education my sister was getting from her school. I do not recall ever studying Shakespeare or Charles Dickens in my own prestigious Russian-built Benadir Secondary School. I still remember Lul reading to me Shakespeare’s famous play, The Merchant of Venice, and becoming enamored with this captivating tale of a Jewish merchant, Shylock, bent on getting a ‘pound of flesh’ from poor Antonio. I was fascinated with Portia defending her husband and his friend by disguising as a male attorney. As a child, I could not help but admire this type of storytelling. She also read to me Charles Dickens’ famous novel, A Tale of Two Cities. As a child, I had hard time understanding the killings and the carnage engulfing France during the revolution, but I was fascinated with the love story between Lucy and her noble husband Charles Darnay. Later, as a teenager, I started reading my sister’s Arabic books and became more entranced with them.

While growing up, my mother always treated Lul like a grown up. I was the impetuous child who required close supervision, and that used to irritate me. At age eleven or twelve, my sister lost her expensive watch that my mother had bought her while in school. Petrified to face our mother’s wrath, my sister, after school, went straight to my Uncle Abdi Gurey’s house in Hodan District. My uncle had to bring her to our house and plead to my mother to forget about the watch and forgive my sister, who was afraid and remorseful. My uncle gave my mother some money to cover the cost of the watch. All this was unfolding without my mother ever uttering a word or even showing how she might have been upset about the lost watch. My mother, a known martinet, kept smiling and seemed to be amused with the comic potential of the whole incident.

In the 1960s, I first heard about the Beatles, Ray Charles, the Temptations, and Elvis, through my sister. The information that I was imbibing from Lul about Western Music at the time was, at best, mediocre. I still remember my sister telling me the story behind Ray Charles’ hit “Hit Road Jack”. She made it more like a racial matter in which a black American man was trying to pass some Whites in a street and was being harassed. Of course, the movie RAY told a different story.

In mid 1970s, I decided to join the Somali officer-training program so I could go to the Soviet Union. I was interested in studying abroad and coming back to Somalia as an army officer. Naively, I contacted ordinary people who happened to be Marehan so they could intercede on my behalf. I remember going and seeking the help of a young man in our Isku-Raran neighborhood, Omar Yusuf Marehan, at a café close to El Gab Cinema and meeting him to help me. Omar, though Marehan, was in no position to help me achieve my career goal. Perplexed by my request, he looked at me and politely promised to look into the matter. In the midst of my obsession to join the army, my sister intervened and said that I would not leave school and join the army. At the time, she was the breadwinner in our household, and I chose not to disagree with her request but I was disappointed and felt that I had missed an opportunity. This was in 1976, and a year later, Somalia was involved in a bloody war with Ethiopia. I always wondered how my future would have turned if I joined the army.

In 1978, my sister married her boss: a family man 20 years her senior and with wife and eight children. We, family members, became our own befuddlement. Abdirahman Jama Barre was the Foreign Minister of Somalia and my sister’s immediate supervisor. Although Abdirahman and I come from two diametrically-opposed political spectrums, there were many times-in a span of 32 years- he had shared with me some intriguing stories, but that is a discussion for another day.

My brother-in-law Abdirahman was, in all fairness, always kind to my mother but his marriage to my sister drew the ire of one strong man; President Siad Barre, his brother. The president was concerned that Abdirahman was wrecking his first marriage in favor of a young and upcoming woman. After three years of marriage and the birth of two children abroad, my sister, posted in Europe at the time, went back to Somalia. One day, Siad` Barre summoned her to the presidential palace, Villa Somalia. Lul must have felt a morbid fear in facing the president. My sister found the president in his office incandescent with rage like a snake coiled to strike. Siad Barre asked Lul to leave Abdirahman Jama alone because he was already married and was the father of eight children. Barre was under pressure from Abdirahman’s first wife (Shiikhaal) to intervene and do something about the couple’s faltering marriage. Siad Barre offered my sister a plumb job-away from the Foreign Ministry- if she left Abdirahman and saved his first marriage. My sister, a quiet and a courteous person by nature, politely declined. The president flew off the handle, asked my sister her full name, as though he did not know the person he had summoned, scribbled something in his desk calendar book, and abruptly dismissed her from his office. My sister thought that she would be facing an uncertain and possibly treacherous future. It was widely rumored that whoever made the listing in that notorious book was doomed. But she was vastly relieved when nothing ominous happened. Several years later, Siad Barre became cordial and left the couple alone after they started having a total of seven children.

My sister and I used to get into heated political debate in Egypt in front of friends. I was the critic of the very government she was working for and she was the defender. It was only natural, that while in a visit to Mogadishu in 1985, that my brother-in-law rendered a characteristic verdict against me in my mother’s house. “Your son,” my brother-in-law told her, “is a good student and a fine young man, but he is ‘kacaan-diid’ (anti-revolutionary)”. I thought that Abdirahman had gotten a waft of my discussions with my sister in Cairo, but I was wrong. Oddly, he had something else in mind. In 1982, while visiting some friends in Washington, D.C, I was invited to a wedding. Someone, whom I guess must have been suffering from Kat hangover, came up with harebrained idea of asking me, a 22-year old man from Ohio majoring political science, to give an impromptu speech. That was a colossal mistake. It was a social and joyous gathering attended by many people, including Somali diplomats. After congratulating the young couple, I took few jabs at the policies of the Somali government. The speech lasted ten minutes, and I honestly thought it was all forgotten until someone told my brother-in-law about it. He was, to put it mildly, incensed but he never confronted me.

While growing up, my sister loved learning and always wanted to seek higher education. However, she got married at age 23 and, after a year, became a mother. Nevertheless, she started attending the Somali National University and because of family responsibilities and the gestation of the political turmoil in Somalia in late 1980s, Lul was unable to finish her college education. The words ‘discipline’ and ‘determination’ often come to my mind when I talk about my sister. Ten years ago, my sister, over forty, went back to school and took university courses with American youngsters that were young enough to be her children. She had an adamantine will to get her college degree and, indeed, she succeeded in obtaining her B.A in Business Administration.