Keeping Hope Alive

by Hawa Abdi

  “Stand! Don’t give up!” said Amina, her voice strong and bright. “You’re telling the truth.”

  When I called Deqo, she cried, “Mama, what can we do?” She had e-mailed Eliza Griswold, asking her to alert the international community. “We have to speak out,” said Deqo. “It’s the only power we have.”

  I continued to make phone calls as the guards stood outside. I asked the hospital’s staff about Macalin Hussein’s condition and then called as many supporters as I could, assuring them that I was unharmed and urging them to condemn the attack. Hizbul Islam, I said, didn’t have an ounce of humanity. They’d done things far worse to others than what they’d done to me.

  We’d been at the compound for ten hours when we heard, “Let’s go.” As we stood up, we were silent, fearing that they would take us farther away or even kill us. When I got on the minibus, the driver gave me his mobile phone. “Take this—your son-in-law has called me a hundred times.”

  “How are you, Mama?” asked Faysal.

  “I am okay,” I said, “but I don’t know where they’ll bring me.”

  “Do you want us to bring you home?” asked the driver. I hung up the phone. “We can also bring you to a hotel or the home of one of our bosses,” he said.

  I couldn’t understand this kindness, after so much brutality. “Bring me to my place,” I said.

  “To sleep in your room today will be very difficult,” he said. “All our soldiers are there.”

  “It’s no problem,” I said. “They’re my people. I will be with them.”

  The camp was dark and quiet when we returned. I was told that when our staff took out the fuel to start the engines for power and water, they were beaten. The men in the camp had taunted the residents by shouting, “No Hawa, no water.”

  When the light and water came back on, people immediately knew that I had returned. As the word spread, they began to leave their homes and come to me, but the men now stationed outside immediately sent them away.

  Inside, I walked from room to room, my eyes moving across my bookshelves, my desk, the walls: They’d destroyed every one of my family pictures, shredded my documents, shattered our CDs. My mattress was ripped open, my furniture slashed; though they went after my safe with a sledgehammer, they’d failed to open it. They’d even stomped on my daughters’ framed college photos, which showed their friends from Moscow, boys and girls. “This family is gallo,” they’d said.

  Since my own room was destroyed, I walked into Amina’s room trailed by forty people, who covered every inch of the floor to protect me. One of the guards sat and told me what had happened to Macalin Hussein. These evil men had taken him to another small city on the way to Mogadishu, where they said they would treat his condition. His sister, brother, and uncle ran after him and finally found him lying there with no nurse. So much blood had drained from his body that he was very weak. When the doctor came in to see him, the family went out, as is customary. When they came back inside, he was crying, clutching his neck. “They injected him with something, Mama Hawa,” said the guard. “He took his neck, saying, ‘They didn’t treat me, they killed me!’ He fell into a coma, and at one o’clock, he died.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Instead I lay on the bed, listening to the shooting into the sky, pah-pah-pah-pah, terrifying people in the camp all night. Without our guards, we didn’t even have protection from a regular thief.

  When dawn finally came, it revealed a huge crowd gathered around the house. When I walked out onto the veranda, they began shouting, “We want to see Dr. Hawa!” It was like a protest, a rally with hundreds of people, maybe thousands. Since Hizbul Islam’s guards could not overtake a group of that size, they had no choice but to ask me for advice. “If you want them to be orderly, you have to let them in,” I said. I suggested they start with four hundred people at a time.

  So although I was under house arrest, I was able to welcome visitors between the hours of 6 a.m. and 1 p.m. Eliza called me at night, to ask about the situation. I told her what was happening and what we needed in order to reopen the hospital; I trusted that she would bring the story to the outside world. I also gave a local reporter a short interview, reiterating that Hizbul Islam had entered my private property, and that the needy women and children they’d attacked were my guests. The area’s safety, I said, depended on the intruders’ removing their black flag and leaving. Since I didn’t have a force to fight, I could only raise my voice. It was as Ayeyo had said—although my physical body was weak, my mouth could defend against a thousand.

  Most of the Hizbul Islam men left immediately after the attack; just five soldiers remained in my house. “Dr. Hawa, you are stubborn,” said one. “You’re not listening to what we’re telling you. Do not give any interview to any person outside.”

  “I’m not going to stop,” I said.

  “You are an old woman—you need to sit,” he said. “We are men. We are in control.”

  “You are a man—you have two testes,” I said. “A goat also has two testes. What have you done for your society?” They looked at me, shocked, and though I could see fear registering in the faces of the nurses, I continued. “I do something for my people and my country. You need to give something to these people in need.”

  They were angry, using harsh words, calling me an old woman and a murderer, responsible for the death of their Sharab. But they couldn’t do anything about all the people who were still lining up to see me and share their concern. Although those people could only say, “We are with you. We support you. God is with you,” their visits gave me strength. The hospital and the school remained closed, and the committee did not meet. We remained at a standstill, the camp’s wreckage a reminder of unimaginable cruelty.

  “What are you doing today?” a local journalist asked a group of students. “Why aren’t you going to school?”

  “We had a free school,” they said, “but it’s been closed since these people attacked.”

  One of the elders who had come back to the camp said, “You know, Hawa, this kind of demonstration is very powerful. They will be sorry about what they did to you.” The interview with the students was published, along with many others, including one that Eliza wrote for an American website called The Daily Beast.

  After that, the five soldiers returned to my room with a different demand: “We told the media that the place is open,” they said. “You need to open it.”

  But nothing in this life is simple. I knew that if I accepted their request to open my facilities today, they’d have the power to return tomorrow, to tell me to close them. “I’m not going to open it until you write a letter of apology to me and to this international organization that is treating and helping our people,” I said. “You have to say that you recognize your mistake.”

  “We are not writing any apology letter for gallo,” one man said.

  “This is private property—not the government’s, not yours,” I said. “Until you write it, the place will be closed.”

  My colleagues at MSF agreed with my decision, although it caused all of us great pain. I remained in my room, greeting my supporters and giving orders to staff in the ways that I could. The summons to Hizbul Islam’s court arrived, saying that as a result of my disobedience, one of their men had died. The punishment was 100 camels.

  The leader of the whole group, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, came to me to discuss the matter. “I’m your Somali brother,” he said.

  “What is this?” I said, showing him the paper. “That I will go to your court? Please cancel.”

  “If they call us to go to the court,” he said, “we have to go.”

  By law, if two people are fighting, one of them can’t go and charge the other of whatever crime he wants. A third, neutral party must decide. I would certainly be condemned if I went before Hizbul Islam’s court. “I’m not leaving anywhere; this is my private property,” I said. “People come to me, not to you. Go and form another place like this, and call me—I’ll go work with you.
”

  Hassan Dahir Aweys wrote something on a small piece of paper and stood up. “If you ever want to talk with me, this is my personal number,” he said.

  The standoff continued for days, with no hospital, no school. I barely slept, thinking only about the suffering people, the destruction of all my work. “My son,” I asked their guard. “When will you stop killing the people? Will you tell me the time?”

  “When our leader goes to New York or Washington, and Paris. He will capture the people who are living there and say, ‘You have to be Muslim, the way I want.’ When they accept, we will stop fighting. Before? No.”

  After a week, their second in command came to me. He was the head of relations between Hizbul Islam and the international community—a tall man in his early fifties, eloquent and articulate. I knew from the beginning, when we were sitting at the negotiating table, that he was more intelligent than the others. He’d urged them to speak reasonably, to show respect.

  He handed me a signed letter of apology, written in Somali. He stood by me as I read it, and then he gave me another paper, with the letter written in English. It apologized first to me, Dr. Hawa, and then to the nongovernmental organizations helping in the camp, the camp’s staff, and the Somali people around the area who had lost loved ones. When I looked up, our eyes met. “Thank you,” I said. He offered me his own heartfelt apology, saying that nothing like this would ever happen again.

  I shook my head, telling him he’d made a mistake. “I am Somali,” I said. “I am a mother, I am a doctor, and I deserve to be respected. I care for so many people around you—this was a tragedy you could have prevented. Never do this again,” I continued, but my voice caught on the words. With his recognition, I felt pity—how I’d worked, how I’d sacrificed, only to be attacked. But if this man could understand me? I began to cry for the first time. Tears streamed down my face as he left the letter with me, closing the door behind him.

  It was my time to die that day, but my people saved me. I’d told them from the beginning that fighting was not a way to lead our society, our nation. “If you want to go with me,” I’d said, “change your way.” When all we’d built was under attack, they understood that they could speak out and stand up against evil. They could come into my house, and they could tell the world what had happened.

  Hizbul Islam understood that they could not kill thousands of people coming to me, and I understand that I am alive because of my people. When I think of it now, it still gives me life.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Women of the Year

  While the hospital and the school reopened, we no longer had our guards to protect us—just those five men who were sent from Hizbul Islam. After they worked with us for a while, they came over to our side, believing in our mission and becoming a part of our community. Nevertheless, they were few, and the only other weapons we had were four small pistols—a small fraction of the arsenal we’d had since 1992.

  We began to focus our efforts on reconstruction, to talk with the people about the problems facing our work, and about why we needed their help. I was depressed and fearful, convinced that anyone could turn on me. While I was still closed up in the camp, my daughters convinced me to accept an invitation to Kampala, to attend an African Union summit on the invitation of an organization called Solidarity for African Women’s Rights. When I landed at the Kampala airport, I was surprised by Amina and Ahmed, who’d come from Nairobi to see me!

  We spent thirty-five beautiful days there; I slept and ate well and regained my strength. Still, Amina insisted that I follow them to Nairobi, rather than returning to the camp. She needed help with Ahmed, she said, for she was running her own clinic, which she’d named the Dr. Hawa Abdi Clinic, and she was earning a good salary. She’d rented a beautiful apartment in the Westlands section of Nairobi, and had a very good woman working with her, Felicta, who cooked nutritious meals for me. Amina wanted so much to care for me. “You are depressed,” she said. “You have to relax.”

  I couldn’t stop thinking, questioning a lifetime of actions. If you tell me something, I will trust 100 percent. I don’t doubt that something you say will happen will actually happen; I don’t question your character. If you tell me something is black, I will tell you it’s black, for a thousand years. If you tell me it’s white, it’s white. I expect that people will do what they say, and for too long I even had an expectation that people could act a certain way in return for what I gave. There is a Somali saying that each human being is like the bush. If you go inside, you can meet snakes, lizards, and other harmful things—things you would never expect. My rational side could not live with the truth of such evil, such deceit.

  Most nights, after dinner, I watched some television with Amina and then went into her spare bedroom to sleep. This routine made me feel useless—I didn’t want to sit in a house, eat, and in the evening or afternoon just walk, then come back to bed, as old people do during their retirement. I wanted to be a little bit more active than that. I tried to conduct as much business as I could by telephone, but Amina said, “Relax. Don’t talk with the camp—they may tell you something that will make you nervous.”

  I obeyed her at first, but I could not help myself, and Amina had no choice but to let me talk. We learned that MSF was leaving us, as they cannot work in a place that has been attacked, especially if their people were involved. I was devastated by the loss, heartbroken. Amina tried to do everything she could, calling a young doctor who had gone to medical school with Ahmed and a qualified nurse who’d been working before. They began to address the huge need left by MSF, doing what we could with the little money we had.

  When people found out I had returned to Nairobi, they came to the apartment, welcoming me, telling me that they were shocked and sorry about what had happened in May. Some of them were so upset that they cried, but most days, I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to go to my farm, to see how the farmers were digging, planting the seeds, harvesting.

  “No! No more!” said Amina. She refused to give me the telephone. “You’ve worked enough. Now you have to rest.”

  A few days later, though, she came into my room and sat down hard on my bed. One of the elders called her to tell her that twenty Hizbul Islam soldiers had entered our place, capturing the five guards who had stayed with me and who had come over to our side. I was shocked, breathless even, to think that these evil men who had attacked me were back in my clinic. They remained in our place about ten days, with their heavy guns, and then, just as suddenly as they came, they left.

  Those were the first days of Ramadan, a time when we waited until sunset to begin eating, and when the days seemed to stretch out forever. One night, after dinner, I called to Felicta so I could ask her for a glass of water. “Yes, Mama Hawa? Which water do you want? Hot water for the bathroom, or for drinking?” She asked me three times, but I couldn’t get the words out. “Principessa!” Felicta called to Amina. They rushed into their clothes and carried me down the stairs to Amina’s car.

  I was dizzy and confused, trying to walk but letting Felicta carry me through the doors of the hospital, past the waiting area and into the emergency room. The doctors gave me oxygen immediately and rushed me to the intensive care unit; they tested my blood and ordered a CT scan. We waited together, Amina, Felicta, and I, until the doctor came in and told me that I’d had a minor stroke somehow. While he said he hoped for the best, he wanted to keep me there, in intensive care, for two days, telling me that my situation was critical. Amina refused to leave my side, even after visiting hours had passed.

  “If you want your work to be easy, leave this lady to sleep with her mother,” said Felicta. “If you want everything to be difficult, go ahead and kick her out.”

  “You have to be calm,” said Amina when she brought me back to the apartment a week later. But how could I be calm as our people slept unprotected, without as much as a guard? How could we continue in a place that everyone, even our dearest MSF, had left behind? Still, when Deqo and I
saw only little money and few supplies, Amina believed that we could run the camp ourselves. She insisted that if we continued asking for help, something would come through, and she proved to the people that we would not abandon them by hiring fifteen new employees—staff cleaners, administrators, secretaries—giving them a small salary, and saying, “Go to work.”

  Slowly by slowly, more help came in: The African Union Mission in Somalia contacted us about a donation from the Danish government, and Amina requested that all of the money go toward medicine. While I remained in Nairobi, resting, she traveled back and forth to the camp to survey the situation, to see how the new staff was working, and to give from her own pocket to buy the supplies we needed.

  After a few months, I recovered, and I was able to travel back to Geneva to be checked by my doctor there. This time Amina accompanied me, and Deqo met us there. One afternoon, I met with the head of MSF in our hotel. “Did we work well together?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “We worked well—we did an excellent job for the community.”

  He apologized that we were no longer working together, and I told him that I was also feeling sorry, and that I’d had a minor stroke. “You were very dear to me—I loved you,” I said. “It hurt me to disconnect our relations.” The problem, I knew, was that we were women with many enemies. Though we wanted to live peacefully, our enemies had made the decision for MSF.

  While we were in Geneva, we received an invitation to come to the United States. Glamour magazine wanted to honor Deqo, Amina, and me as 2010 Women of the Year. Eliza would write an article in the magazine, and there would be a ceremony at a famous New York City concert hall called Carnegie Hall. We received the news while we were visiting the farm of Claire-Lise and Jean-Jacques, seeing how their tomatoes and grapes were growing. We were surprised and happy to be recognized, although we didn’t know what to expect. We knew we were happy to see Deqo’s life in America and her friends, whom she said were just like the Somali people we knew—shouting, greeting one another, and laughing.