The Somali Child

Exodus & Return

This is a story about my first time in Somalia as a child and first meeting my Ayeeyo (Grandma) in Bosaso, Somalia.

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As I walked down the rusty steps of the airplane, I was  hit with an overwhelming feeling that I was finally home. Whilst I had never set foot in Somalia before that day, I experienced a sort of distorted nationalism to be here. To be back. I had only ever heard stories about it from my mother, whose face, as I peered up to look at her,  was both drained and annoyed.

I was primarily overcome by the searing heat, worlds away from the cold and erratic British weather. And we were as far away from Leicester as we could possibly be. As I skipped along the sandy path to arrivals, I created a mini sandstorm with my feet, much to the displeasure of the other passengers who murmured obscenities at me.

The long car drive to my Ayeeyo's house in Southern Bosaso exposed me to the hustle and bustle of the lively markets, where men dressed in the traditional macawis were  negotiating prices for watermelons and mangoes, whilst women in colourful robes were feverishly bargaining in return.

As we drove along the bumpy road I finally saw it. I shrieked in excitement. It was a vast congregation of turquoise blue, reflecting the suns dazzling  rays. It was something out of a film. It was breath-taking! Mothers with their children, dressed is colourful baatis lifted their garments ever so slightly to dip their toes in the refreshing coolness.

This was the Somalia I had yearned for in my youth then, and evermore now, when I find myself in deep and constant thought about its unforgiving beauty. Its splendour that many a soul had given up on was what I was determined to believe in.

As the car approached my Ayeeyo's house I started to imagine how she'd look like. Would she look like my mother, whose caramel tone and big eyes  framed her heart shaped face? As my imagination ran riot, the door to the large house swung open and my grandmother came out.

She had a dark, russet coloured complexion, which years of struggle had worn out, yet still retained a natural glow. As I stared at her face intently it reminded me of an eagle, it was narrow and her nose was thin, whilst her almond shaped eyes had an intensely penetrating gaze, almost haunting. She had a regal aura about her that commanded respect. Wisps of her charcoal black hair, peppered with silver strands escaped her loosely done headscarf, as she reached out to my mother for a hug.

Tears streamed down her wrinkled face, each crevice telling a story of pain and sacrifice in the face of hardship. The hug seemed to last for an eternity, neither one wanting to escape each other's grasp.

Finally Ayeeyo let go and stared at her daughter for a brief moment, a look of undeniable love in her eyes. My mother's eyes  filled with tears. That was the first time I had witnessed my mother cry.

The reason for her heightened emotion my mother later explained to me was because she had not seen her mother since the outbreak of civil war, which the Somali language darkly remembers as ''qaxi'', tore them apart in 1991. She explained to me that when the war broke she had left in a frenzied hurry as the militia neared their city of Merca , or 'Marka Cadeey', as the locals  affectionately call it , an idyllic seaside city, whose beaches my mother assured me was a lot more beautiful than Bosaso's.

Merca, my mother explained to me was the prime holiday city during the heyday of colonial Somalia. Even after independence, thousands of Italian expatriates would flock to the city, taking advantage of its sunny shores.

''We lost everything'', she painfully recalled.  ''Our house, our car, even our cattle. Everything!''

That night I dreamt of my mother in her youth. I imagined her being carefree, playing in the sea and having fun.

 Then came Exodus. Restarting in Denmark. Haggling in England. Home.