by Hawa Abdi
I tried to remember what Ayeyo had told me in the first awful days after my mother’s death. “Even though you are upset, life is continuing,” she’d said. “You have to care for me, to care for your father and your sisters.”
I had been just thirteen years old then, a skinny child, helpless to comfort Ayeyo as she cried. I had tried my best, pounding the sorghum with a mortar and pestle and shaking the milk until it became butter. I dug the farm myself, and I planted the seeds for more sorghum, maize, beans, and watermelon. While we were still in Lafole, I rose at four; when we returned to Mogadishu, I rose at three. It was the only way I could study before I had to prepare breakfast, wake my father, and then feed and bathe my sisters. I had tried to do everything, but in the end, I could not protect them.
I was in our sitting room just a few weeks after Amina died when I heard a series of explosions. I was confused at first, but as I continued to listen, I began to understand: It was gunfire, but also something louder—explosions from mortar shells, maybe, something I’d heard before on the radio. Terrified, I kept quiet. How do you explain this to your small children? We sat together in one of the bedrooms and sang songs. I would start, and Amina’s two oldest would take over.
The explosions could come and take us, I imagined, but my feeling of grief was so strong that I didn’t feel any fear. When the city finally fell silent, I checked that the door was locked, and then I went to sleep with all the children. When we awoke, I learned that a group of antigovernment militants had attacked one of Siad Barre’s houses, but it was not a well-organized coup. The fire had been returned by the government troops, who later arrested eleven men, sentencing them to death.
A few days later, I gave birth to another baby girl, and I called her Amina, so I could remember my sister all the days of my life. “You will cover the hole in my heart,” I told her when she was just seven days old. “You will care for me as Amina cared for me.”
An old tradition says that if a woman dies and she has an unmarried sister, her family may give the sister’s hand to the woman’s husband. I refused to listen when people began to talk about our family, thinking of my younger sisters, Asha and Khadija. I knew that Sharif was mad with grief, but his love for Amina had been true. The fact was, though, that without her, our family was ripping apart.
Asha came home very late one night, while I was sleeping outside, where it was cooler than inside the house. “I was in Lafole,” she said before going into her room. “I had to take some papers to the university there.” A few days later, a family we knew came to me to apologize. “We are sorry that things did not happen in a traditional Somali way,” they said. Asha, suspicious that she would be forced to marry Sharif, had married another instead.
Not long after that, Sharif’s cousin came to me. “We want that you will give us Khadija,” he said.
“Khadija is just seventeen years old,” I told him. We made small talk for a little while, and then he wished me well and left.
I didn’t see Khadija that night or the next day. When I returned from the market the following afternoon, one of my relatives came through my door. “You have refused,” he said, “but Sharif has won.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“He took his wife, and now they are together.” While Sharif had been away, grieving, he was preparing another apartment, far from his house. That afternoon, he had married Khadija, without our blessing or our presence.
Since Asha was already gone, I told Aden the news. I didn’t tell the children, who had been staying with us, without their father, for weeks. We simply tried to continue on as we had, until one evening Sharif returned to our house to take his children back.
“Why?” I cried. “They are happy here. How will you raise them?”
“These are my children,” he told me firmly. “I’ll do what I want.”
No matter how I protested, I knew that it was true. I walked into the bedroom. “Your father has come,” I told Amina’s children, and they all ran out to him, jumping and hugging him. “He will give you everything you need,” I tried to tell them, though they were too excited to listen to me.
Sharif came back again, a few months later, this time with Khadija. They both said hello to me, but after that, Khadija kept quiet. “Excuse me, sister, what has happened has happened,” said Sharif. “We want now that you will forgive us.”
To hear this request, so direct, so unashamed, was shocking to me, and when I saw them there together, all of the sadness I’d felt turned to hot, white anger. “I don’t want to see your face,” I told him. “Go away.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Filling the Hole in My Heart
When I returned to work after Amina’s birth, I transferred from the Ministry of Health to the Ministry of Higher Education, where I would work as an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Somali National University. I had grown tired of the complicated internal politics of the Ministry of Health; I wanted a change and an opportunity to teach. Now, a few mornings a week, I gave two hour and forty-five minute lectures; when I did my hospital rounds in the early afternoons, I was often trailed by a group of fourth-and fifth-year students.
I loved giving these students the hands-on experience, for I knew from my own education that a thousand books could not equal a few hours of observation. I gained a reputation as a harsh teacher, however. “If you don’t know this subject, I will not give you a grade,” I told my students, echoing my own professors in Ukraine. “I don’t want to cheat my people, to say that you are a doctor when you don’t know anything.” While they feared me, I also think they respected me. I enjoyed walking the hospital halls with the young, eager students, remembering my school days.
I finally finished my law degree the next year, but still, my days were just as busy. Many nights Aden was out with his friends, drinking tea, chewing qat—a popular stimulant made out of leaves from a native shrub—and discussing politics and business late into the evenings. Without my sisters to talk with, I moved from the breakfast table to the hospital to the classroom to the dinner table, or sometimes, when I was late, right into the girls’ beds, to hug them and bless them. Sometimes I would sleep there until the morning, when it was time to return to work.
I became friendly with a clever, confident doctor named Fido, who worked in Mogadishu but lived on a big farm in Lafole, near where I grew up. Sometimes, in the break room, we discussed the beauty of that area, with the big trees and the clean, sweet air. Fido told me what it was like, being both a doctor and a farmer. He would wake up early every morning to make sure that the crops had water and that his workers were doing their jobs. He would be at the hospital by seven o’clock for the morning meeting, but instead of returning home to eat his lunch and relax, he’d change back into his work clothes and walk back to the fields.
Through Fido’s stories, I began to remember what life had been like in the rural area, when I was a child. We were healthier than the city children were, since we were raised on fresh, nutritious food. The families there were also more unified: The parents and children brought their animals back home around six in the evening, and while the mother prepared food by the fire, the family sat together, each person talking about what he or she had seen that day. I began to see a new future for my family in the shape of our own farm, where my daughters could have the childhood that my sisters and I had, before everything changed.
On my next day off I returned to Lafole, to visit my half sister, Faduma Ali. As the driver sped along the Afgoye Road, I closed my eyes, felt the warm wind on my face, and remembered the last time my sisters and I had left Ayeyo’s home, which for so long had been our home as well. By then we had lost our mother and our grandmother, our cows and our goats; we could only bring what we could carry. I’d taken Ayeyo’s teakettle, which I’d put in a basket on my back, and we’d walked together toward Mogadishu. I’d turned to look back only once, when we reached the top of the first big hill, thinking that I would never return.
> Now fifteen years had passed, and from that one goat my father had saved, Faduma Ali had raised many more on a small portion of our family’s land. She was living alone in those days—her daughter had gone to live with her ex-husband’s mother—and so was grateful for my company. She led me along the paths, to see the bush and the open fields that were once our playground; over lunch, we laughed about how life had changed since we were children. The drive was short, I told her, remembering our two-hour-long camel caravans and the donkeys loaded up with goods. Now people had pickup trucks, eager to offer their neighbors a quick lift back to the city.
When we had finished our food, I took a sip of my tea and told my sister that I wanted to come back. “Mogadishu is different now,” I said. “I’m fed up already.”
“I would be happy to have you,” she said, “but your job is in the city.”
“The road is nice; by car, only about fifteen minutes,” I said, thinking of Fido. “I would much prefer that drive to having my children playing only in a small, dark bedroom.” The girls would get to know our relatives, many of whom still lived deep in the bush, far from the main road. They would grow strong in the fresh air, with fresh milk and meat; when they were old enough, they would also have the benefit of going to Mogadishu for school, and someday, maybe, for work, like their mother.
Mine was a dream unlike most Somalis’ at the time. Much of the land around us lay fallow, while people flocked to Mogadishu in search of work and an urban life. The property in and around Mogadishu was in demand, especially by the seaside. That included a small piece of land I’d bought years earlier, before Deqo was born. One of my father’s relatives had been living there when, in the early 1970s, the Somali government bought up 2,000 square meters of property near the American Embassy in Mogadishu. Although the government had offered to sell him 100 square meters to stay on, he did not have the money to buy it. “Sister,” he’d told me, “you should take this land.” I’d gone to the Banco di Napoli for a small loan, and I’d bought the land for about $425 U.S., using the rest of the money to make a border of stones around the property.
Aden and I had begun to save, and even to buy gold. In the meantime, we’d understood that real estate had been the best investment. Just after Amina’s birth, a man had come to me, wishing to buy my 100 meters by the sea. “How much?” he’d asked me.
“Four hundred fifty thousand Somali shillings,” I told him—about $75,000 U.S. He agreed immediately.
As I sat with Faduma Ali, I told her this story, and I asked her to tell her neighbors of my intentions to buy land in Lafole. Since so many people had abandoned the area for the city, the price was cheap—just a little more than $200 for one hectare, or about two and a half acres.
“We’ll have the best of everything,” I told Aden, but he wasn’t sure about my plan. For him, life in the rural area meant not only a distance between his home and his job but a separation from his friends.
“The lady has run mad!” one had told him. “Why doesn’t she put her money in the bank?”
One day, as I was walking into the hospital, I saw one of my mother’s cousins, who had also heard the news. “You—your bank refused you?” he joked. “Why are you buying this empty land far from the city?”
“I like that place,” I said. For me, it was that simple.
Aden slowly accepted the idea, and we began to dream together. We sat up at night, discussing the animals that we’d rear and the trees that we’d plant—mango, papaya, lemon, and grapefruit. I came back to Lafole one day to meet with three brothers who owned the land nearest to my family’s area, serving the men bun, green coffee beans cooked in oil, as we talked about my family, and my interest in the land. Since they knew my father, they were gracious; as they’d accepted my food, they accepted my offer to buy: First one hectare, then another two, then six.
In those days, in Somalia, labor was cheap, but the building materials were very expensive. Since the local city council dictated that construction had to begin on land within two months of purchase, I began buying and storing stone, concrete, and iron sheets in a shed we built on the property. One of Aden’s colleagues, an American-educated Somali engineer, agreed to help us realize our plan: First, there would be a new house for Faduma Ali, closer to the main road, so she could set up some kind of shop to earn an income. Next to her new home would be a small shack for chickens; we brought two hundred for her, from a local poultry farm, and a small white cow, which gave us 4 liters of milk each day.
In 1981, construction began on our family compound: two apartments, each with two bedrooms, two toilets, a kitchen, and a small veranda where people could sit. As I was inspecting the progress one day, a representative of the Afgoye mayor came to me.
“You cannot build here,” he said.
“Why?” I asked, waving my deed at him. “It says here that I’m required to do so.”
“You have to pay an additional fee,” he said. “You need a building permit.”
“I heard there were bandits in the region, but I didn’t think they would come from the mayor’s office,” I said.
The man left without a problem, but while I acted innocent, I knew that corruption had infected every level of government. Our family was more concerned about Siad Barre’s special militia, the Red Berets, who had begun targeting people from the north—including Aden’s clan, the Issaq—under suspicion that they were plotting to overthrow the government. I decided that we’d build more slowly, and only at night, when no one could see. I hired a guard to keep watch over our project and over Faduma Ali’s house, and I told the contractor that our concrete floors would have to wait, as the process demanded too many people, too much equipment.
The short rainy season arrived, and one Thursday evening, when the moon was full and white as a big light, we drove to Lafole with the children, to sleep on the dirt floor of our new home. My sister Amina’s eldest son, Kahiye, was with us, and he begged us to let him sleep in Aden’s car, which was parked near where three workmen were assembling Faduma Ali’s chicken coop. Aden wished him good night and then went to walk the grounds and enjoy the cool mist; I fell asleep on a pile of blankets inside, next to Amina and Deqo.
I felt a hand grip my shoulder and awoke trembling. When I sat up, Aden stepped back and turned off his flashlight. “I just saw a military car,” he whispered. “You say that we will live here? They’ll throw us in jail first!” We sat for several minutes, holding our breath and thinking of our nephew in the car. “You are putting us in a terrible situation,” Aden said. “You are responsible if something happens today. You brought us here.”
He decided to go out to get Kahiye, and I prayed and listened. After a few minutes, I came outside as well. “What happened?” I asked Aden. He stood alone next to the car, where Kahiye slept as though nothing had happened. There were no workers, no guard. He threw up his hands.
“I haven’t heard anything,” said Faduma Ali as we carried the sleepy children inside her place. It was three o’clock in the morning, but Aden and I drove into the center of Afgoye, to report the incident to the police.
“You are from the Hawa Abdi place?” asked the policeman. “We had some disobedient people there.”
“What do you mean?” asked Aden.
“It’s illegal to build on that property,” he said. They had arrested the workers and were holding them in their jail. When Aden and I were finally able to see our men, and we learned that twelve armed soldiers had forced them into their cars, we apologized. As relieved as we were to know that they were safe, we did not give the money for their bail. These police tactics were Mafia tactics, Aden and I explained; we wouldn’t fall for them and beg for forgiveness. Instead we stayed at our place in Lafole for seven days, bringing breakfast, lunch, and dinner to the men. After a week, my friend brought me to the mayor of Afgoye.
“If there is something you need, I am ready,” I told the mayor. All that they wanted, he said, was the fee for the building permit. We talked for a while
, until I felt that he understood me. Finally I gave them the money to release the men, and I knew our family would be safe. We could pour the concrete floors, finally, and in the earliest days of 1983, my family moved to the rural area to begin our new life.
The first residents on our farm were ten cows and another five hundred chickens, which we kept in a large coop that looked like the one we built for Faduma Ali. At the time, Aden’s father owned a place in Mogadishu called the Sarar Hotel; he bought the milk from our farm, 60 liters at a time, and another friend who worked for the American Embassy bought two hundred eggs each week. We hired a few men to work with us and began living as Fido had, going to Mogadishu each morning by about seven o’clock—I by bus and Aden by company car—and returning around 2 p.m., to spend the rest of the day in our place.
Farming is the same all over the world: You have short-term yields and long-term yields, and each step forward gives you more confidence to try something new. The animals thrived, and we turned our attention toward the crops we’d discussed. One of our neighbors made a very good living irrigating farms; I invited him to lunch one day to ask him how my cows could graze during the dry season. “Do you know a place where I can irrigate?” I asked.
“Yes, I know,” he said. The land was owned by one of his uncles. He told me that he would try to impress his uncle with the fact that one of Aden’s relatives belonged to Siad Barre’s clan, which had big money in those days.
Before our meeting, I lay down our finest carpets under the trees and prepared a big container of water, so the man could wash before we sat down to talk. When he finally came, escorted by my neighbor, I saw that he was an older man. “What is your name, my daughter?” he asked as he settled down for the food that we’d offered.
“My name is Hawa Abdi Diblawe,” I said.
“Abdi Diblawe is your father?” He took his cane and hit my neighbor, who jumped. “Then why did you say she belongs to Siad Barre?” His wrinkled face cracked as he smiled. “I know Abdi Diblawe—he helped me in his time. He is my brother. Let’s go.”