How is everyone doing?
With anecdotes, fadhi ku dirir babble and Internet based crap as luggage; Abdi arrived at Aden Cade airport on a rainy morning in the middle of November. In his mind, the only positive thing that happened to Muqdisho during the last two decades was the name change to the airport. After all, Aden Cadde was viewed by all somalis as an anomaly of high regard. He was ceeb-ka saliin and as such represented anything good that this once revered and feared people turned cannibals have left. The new Somalia and Xamar was the debauched nation of warlords, marauding gangs, warlord parliament, rapists, religious zealots, tribalists etc.
The last time Abdi was in Muqdisho, Somalia was still a nation that existed. There was room for improvement in all aspects but it was better than the current state. He took a somali airlines flight with a somali crew on his way to Europe to study.
On this particular morning just as the flight entered the somali airspace, Abdi recalled the last night he was in Xamar. A few days before he took the flight, he was at the British High commissioner in the centre of Xamar to get a student visa to study medicine at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Keppel St, Bloomsbury .
The British embassy was located in Xamarweyne which together with Shangaani, Abdicasis, Boondheere, Xamarjajab and some parts of Waaberi formed the core of the city. In fact, any if you are driving along Makkatul Mukarama road towards the city from Lambar afar, everything to your right was the centre.
City planning was not perfect but satisfactory. The city had three “ring roads”; not really the North circular raod in London but nonetheless well planned roads; the makatul Mukarama (artery) rd divided the city from the suburbs. Then the government built Wadnaha road all the way from Sanca to Banaadir hospital and to the sprawling suburb of Medin. As Muqdisho sprawled, the government built the Wadada ummada road which took you to warshadda caanaha and a military barracks. There was also a small road that took you from ceel gab to afazione, the military airfield.
The old Xamar i.e to your right when travelling from Lambar afar was the economic, cultural and ilbaxnimo hub of Somalia. Xamarweyne was a vibrant place; from morning to evening merchants from all over the country bargained and finalise deals. It was also the seat of old mosques; Masaajidka Marwaas with its historical architecture was the place to meet, pray and finalise deals.
Xamar weyne was also the west end of Xamar; Cinemas, theatres, libraries and museums not to mention the fish, gold and other markets.
The Xamarweyne, Waaberi, Shingani triangle was also the vice capital. Buur karoole was the place to visit for a quickie if you were new in town or never had enough capital to get a premium lay. If you wanted a more sophisticated nuuris, you could take your car to the shabeelle area where you could pick a more sophisticated lass for the night. If you wanted a sip of somali premium rom, shabeelle was the place to be. Also, it was to these areas that people flocked to dance, wine and have fun. Studio 54 in Abdicasiis, Curuba, Jubba and several other joints was the place to be if you wanted to dance to the top of the pops.
Abdi did not sleep on the long flight from Istanbul. He was overcome with both joy and worries; it would be great to see Xamar after 20+ years. He would visit his hoods, Hawlwadaag, Hodan, Wardhiigley all the way to Yaaqshid and shibis. He was suddenly the teenager that knew every neighbour on the wadada ummadda road. The cafeterias where people played the somali version of poker, the daba-ka-eri, the villas and the goofs. He will probably meet some of his neighbours. Nostalgia. The good days when Somalia was a liberal country; when Marx, Hegel, Lenin and Angels reigned. He would visit Taalada sayidka, Xaawo taako, SYL and also stadio Koonis, Banaadir and the big Chinese built stadium. Have things changed? He kept asking himself.
Will he be murdered by the marauding gangs? Will he be murdered by the al-sheydhaan? Will he be murdered by the pseudo-government troops?
The plane carried 146 passengers according to the beautiful stewardess he met earlier in the night and who gave him a drink on the rocks to silence his anxiety; stealth because he did not want romours to spread in the cabin. That will be his death attest because judging from what he knew about Somalia getting wet was not only a moral crime but also a legal one. “Gosh, this journey is the worst decision he had ever made” he had said to himself as he sipped Johnny (Jaamac talaabo dheeri during the old days in xamar) earlier in the night.
Abdi is perhaps too naïve to think that Xamar has never changed. His few somali friends in the diaspora knew him as the naïve guy who still lived in the past as far as Somalis(a) was concerned. Why was he on this plane when he did not have any close relatives in Xamar. After all, all his siblings, parents and cousins (except Ladan) lived outside Somalia? What was his mission to this hellhole? Perhaps, he should ask the Turkish airline office at Aden Cadde airport for a return ticket the same day.
It is too late! He shouted after sipping his Jaamac talaabo dheeri. He started narrating the faataxo, and all the other surahs of the quran. He started praying ; Ilaahow nabad I wafaaji; ilaahoow I badbaadi. He regretted being liberal. He found himself saying “Allah if you protect me from the marauding gangs, alsheydhaans and everyone, I promise to repent and never ever to be wet”.
The majority of the passengers were somalis; you could spot the xusul baruur nimcatul fashuuq, the suuro, the faan, dahab, cilaan, some dhaqan celis kids and everything else that is associated with the people from the beloved country of Somalia. You could see the hadda kooyne crowd of men who wore expensive suits and matching ties. They were probably travelling to Xamar to impress and mock the poor. They will claim that they were well-educated, sophisticated, lived in expensive homes and have moved along the ladder of civilisation although all these were far from the truth.
The atmosphere was good but tense. There was no much of fadhi-ku-dirir talk although one or two of the passengers were discussing the political turmoil in the country of their destination. The focus of the discussions were gaalo this and gaalo that not to mention the discourse on Somalia being rich. The usual gobbledygook from the realms of faan and af waa kow may liki aame nation.
Abdi did not fit into the crowd. He wore a pair of cheap jeans, a pair of cheap snickers and a T-shirt that was not tucked in. He spotted an afro which made him look like a member of the soul train crew of the 1980s.
Abdi loved Xamar. It was always in his heart. He also loved the people of Xamar because of their hospitality and neighbourliness. His narrative of Xamar was almost as old as that of the fossils of dinosaurs. Every time, he mentioned Xamar it was the Xamar that ceased to exist in 1990s.
His cousin Ladan who was married to a businessman in Xamar had always asked him two questions; 1) when are you marrying? And 2) when are you coming to visit us? He always gave her standard answers; I will come to xamar when things improved and 2) When Allah says. She had always insisted that she would find him wives in Xamar. He could marry them right and left. She knew many good wifey material. “Adigoo walaalkeey oo wax soo bartay oo haddana Takhtar ah miyaa naag laguu waaynaa “ was her answer. To the standard answer of When Allah wills, there was nothing to say except were runtaa.
The trip to Xamar started as a joke. Abdi had sent her some money and asked her whether the security situation had improved. Yes, she replied; Muqdisho was not this peaceful since the collapse of communism. Tribalism is dead, people have started investing in Xamar, the goofs go for hundreds of thousands of dollars and there was a property boom. Al-sheydhaan are on the run. The people who are killed in Xamar are either assassinated for political reasons or because of other individual motives. No one will hunt you because you have done nothing. So, come and visit us she had said. In addition, as a doctor, you could help people …
Ok. I am coming he promised and everything else is history.
As the plane started its descent around Beledweyne, Beerlula, allahayoow ka dhig beer barwaaqo ah, you could hear a few cries of joy. Finally, many of the passengers will land in Xamar. Most of the passengers had perhaps many years earlier left Xamar under different circumstances; some of them embarked on Tahrib, others went to Ethiopia to seek family reunion visas.
The approach was wonderful. As if to please Abdi, the pilot took the plane to the waters of the Indian Ocean before making a turn for Jaziira, the quarries and national service training headquarters.
At touchdown, the passengers clapped their hands. Abdi had not witnessed this gesture of thanks before today although he is a voyager. Muqdisho is back, Xamar is back, he shouted intuitively. Clapping hands when the plane touched the ground was what people did back then.
He looked around and saw several women crying with joy.
Developing country airports have long abandoned the staircase boarding and disembarking. The plane is led into the gate. Xamar is different. Although everything else might have changed, it is the same old story. An army of people is mobilised and one by one, the passengers disembark. On this particular flight, it took a while for all the passengers to disembark because a) every somali appeared to be kissing the tarmac and b) there was some kind of delegation to be taken to the VIP lounge. You could also see a few landcruisers on the tarmac to ferry some passengers with connections.
As Abdi stood on the stairways, he could hear “Abdi, Abdi” from a passenger in the front seat of a landcruiser. He looked but did not notice anyone he knew. Then, as he approached the final stairs, hell broke out. Out from the landcruiser comes a middle-aged woman who was really dressed, a number of kids and a middle aged man. Abdi will soon learn that it was Ladan, her kids and husband.
In an unsynchronised voices, the Land cruiser passenger shouted “Aboowe, aboowe, abti, abti,walaal” followed by wailing. Ladan, in particular was crying so loud that she would have mistaken for being an abandoned woman. But, she was crying with joy.
If you did not know that it was a welcoming party for Abdi, you would have sworn that these people have been paid to cry. According to racial anecdotes, the banaadiris paid people to cry at funerals. But, this was sincere case of joy…
To be continued..
