THE FROG & THE RAHANWAYN MAN

When I look back

Back at the year of 1991

It is

Most Anno Mirabilis

Most amazing

Most miraculous

That I am still kicking among the living

Every morning

On a Mennonite Peace Mission

On a Somali Ergo

In 1991

In mad Mogadishu

I Ping-Ponged

Between Hope & Despair

I seesawed

Between Faith & Fear

As I would brave a hail of Hutu Hawiye bullets

With these words of Allah

Burbling

Upon my lips

I will not be afraid of this Hutu Hawiye Horror in the night

Nor the bullets that fly by day

Not the pestilence that walks in darkness

Nor the death and the destruction that waste Somalis by noonday

A thousand Russian bullets shall fall at my side

And ten thousand American bullets at my right hand

But it shall not come nigh me

Because I have made the Lord my refuge

And the most High my habitation

No evil shall befall me

For He has given His angels charge over me

To keep me in all my ways

The angels of heaven shall bear me up in their hands

Lest I dash my foot against a stone

I shall tread upon the lion and the adder

The young lion and the dragon

I shall trample under my feet

Because Allah has set His love upon me

Therefore will He deliver me from the this Hutu Hawiye Hell

With long life will He satisfy me

In Canada

In the land of Milk & Maple Syrup

And show me my salvation

In Montreal. 

I believe now

It is most true now

That I shall only die

When the leave of my tree in Paradise falls down to earth

When it is Maktoob

When it is written down in the book of life

When Allah intended for me to die

And not because the Hutu heartless Hawiye Heathens

Make the Somali skies rain

Russian & American bullets

&

Dirty Darod Marehan Afwayne bullets

As it says

Most succinctly

In one of the Suras of the Holy Koran

There is nothing more punctual than death

When Allah wants me to die

I shall die on time

When it is my time

Not one hour earlier

Nor one hour later

I particularly remember now

That lonesome night of maximum danger

In 1991

In Mogadishu

In the Hotel Towfeeq

Owned & operated by my maternal uncle

Hajji Yusuf Hawiye.

Hotel Towfeeq

Was the only clean cool well lighted place

In terror-ridden clan-crazy Mog

Which was later destroyed

By Aideed’s killing Habar Kintir crazies

From Mugdi Mudug

Who later dubbed the ruins

With Cainish contempt

Hotel Tol-waaye!

The Hotel-With-No-Clan to defend it!

I could not sleep that night

In 1991

The ceaseless barking

The relentless coughing

Of the kalanishkovs

The constant shelling

The artless heartless artillery

The menacing lights of the tracer bullets

The mindless Moriyan

Kept me awake

I was most curious

Since the dreaded Darod devils were driven out of Mog

Donkey years ago

I kept wondering

I kept questioning myself

Why were the Hutu Hawiye Heathen still firing their guns

At what invisible enemy were they shooting at now

At three in the morning

It was most incomprehensible

I just couldn’t help but remember

Joseph Conrad’s HEART OF DARKNESS

For I was in absurd Africa

Where nigger death was as common as niggers

For I was on a continent gone bonkers

For I was in bad mad sad Somalia

For I was truly in one of the darkest corners of the human heart

Conrad wrote in his own heart of darkness:

Once I remember

We came upon a man-of-war

Anchored off the coast. …

She was shelling the bush. …

In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water

There she was

Incomprehensible

Firing into a continent.

Pop, would go one of the six-inch guns

A small flame would dart and vanish

A little white smoke would disappear

A tiny projectile would give a feeble screech—

And nothing happened.

Nothing could happen.

There was a touch of insanity in the proceedings

A sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight …

It was like a weary pilgrimage

Amongst hints for nightmares.

In the morning

The hints were gone

But the real nightmare was on

I asked one

Apparently

One inured to this Hawiye Hell

One quite acclimatized to this Somali noontime nightmare

To explain

This aimless

This ceaseless

This crazy cacophony of the guns

He crushed my cowardly query

With laughter

With a single shot:

You brushed your teeth this morning

Didn’t you?

Here in mad Mog

We also brush the teeth of the guns

Clean

By firing them every which way

The better to bite

The better to pierce

Deep into the Somali Flesh

Killing the Somali Spirit!

At the market

Where I used to hang out

After playing hooky from the Koran School

In Wardheeglay

In the pool of Clannish Blood

I paused at the stand of an elderly woman

Minding two huge piles

A pile of ripe rich red inviting tomatoes

Crying cherry-ripe themselves

&

A pile of bullets

I wondered which one was cheaper

She replied:

To grow these now red rich ripe inviting tomatoes

That are crying now cherry-ripe themselves

I labored

Inspired

Perspiring

With the sweet sweat of life

With the love of life

The tomatoes are Somali life

The bullets are baksheesh

From Russia with hate!

From America with malice aforethought!

They are foreign Aids from no good foreign devils

They are the death of all of us slow-witted Somalis

Nothing in the world

Is cheaper than the senseless death of niggers

Niggers like us Somalis

That night in 1991

When I could not sleep

In Hotel Towfeeq

To beguile the time

I opened

With weariness of the Spirit

With little faith

The book I had brought with me

From North America

The autobiography of Arthur Miller

TIMEBENDS

What relevance

What anodyne

What relief

What release

What balm

What manna

What succor could Miller offer

To my suffering Somali Soul

No sooner had these dispiriting sighs assailed my soul

Than Miller rose to the occasion

&

Delivered

Big time

Than Miller spoke out

Loud & Bold

Than these very words seized me

Burning into my memory

What is still ailing us Somalis:

The ultimate human mystery

May not be anything

More than the claims on us

Of clan & race

Which may yet turn out

To have the power

Because they defy the rational mind

To kill the world.

There it was

In black & white

Staring me in the face

At three o’clock in the morning

In the dark night of the Somali Soul

The reason why we Somalis are still killing each other

The reason why we Somalis

As a nation

Are committing right now collective suicide:

Because of the crazy clannish claims of

Darod

Dir

Dayoos

In the morning

I happily ran into a familiar face from my happy childhood

Avocatto Abdirahman Hajji Ga’al

When I was Sheikh of the Somali Indian Ocean Shore

Before Somalia became the Sharmooto of Shaytaan

The Sharmooto of Yankee Doodle

The Sharmooto of Ivan Sovietski

When I did not know the pain

Of the woes

Of the blows

Of the NOs

Of this sad bitter exile

Of this wandering on a forlorn foreign strand

With a sad heart

Sick for home like Ruth

Standing in tears

Deep

Amid this alien Canadian cold snow

I told my friend

Avocatto Abdirahman Hajji Ga’al

What had lured me back to murderous Mog

I told him

That I was on a Mennonite Peace Mission

That I had brought a message from the Mennonites in North America

A message for the Hawiye

That I had brought a Message of Hope to Somalia from the Mennonite Church

That the Mennonites were willing to come back again to Somalia 

To reopen the hospitals they once ran

To reopen the schools they once ran

To revive our hope

To minister again to the dire sore needs of the Somali people

Once the guns fall silent

Provided

The Hawiye ceased their senseless shooting

Since the Hawiye have freed themselves now

From the yoke of the detested Darod MOD Dictatorship

Since Mogadishu is now

Darodfrei

Free of Darod

As Darodfrei

As Hitler’s Berlin was once

Judenfrei

Why can’t the hapless Hawiye stop shooting

&

Live together now in peace

Now that the dreaded Darod Dictator was driven into exile?

Ga’al answered:

Once upon a time

A starving frog

As starving as we Somalis are now

Went to a Rahanwayn man in Baidabo

The Switzerland of Somalia

The frog sang the blues

Like Brother Ray Charles

Like we are singing the blues now

The frog sang

The bills are all due

&

The baby needs shoes

And I am busted

I got a Somali hen that won’t lay

And I am busted

The county is going to haul my belongings away

Because I am busted

The food we canned last Summer is gone

And I am busted

I am broke

No bread

I mean

Like nothing

Forget it!

You know

Well I am no thief

But a frog can go wrong

When he is busted!

Man

I hate to beg like a dingbat fool

But I am busted

I ain’t asking for a handout

All I am asking is a hand-up

All I am asking for is a loan

Can’t you see

How skinny I am

Skinnier than a Somali

Can’t you see

How starving I am

How busted I am

I am in need

Man

I am gonna be your friend indeed.

—Ok frog

I hear you

You sure is busted

Here is your loan

So stop your croaking

Which you call singing

Now

When you gonna pay me back?

—I swear upon all that is wet & wild

I swear upon bashbash & barwaqo

I shall pay you back when it rains again

When the rainy season rolls around

Shortly after that

Allah remembered His creatures

For His gentle rain began to fall from the heavens

Upon the Just & the Unjust Somalis

The earth & the heaven merged into each other

Hugging & melting into each other

Seamless as one

The Rahanwayn man remembered the frog

Who never bothered to answer his dunning letters

As Somali frogs say

As Af-kombo taught me in Montreal

Your wealth begs you

Don’t give me away

And if you are foolish enough to give me away

Especially

To Somalis

&

To other forgetful frogs

Please

Don’t get yourself killed trying to get me back!

When it really began to rain

Frogs & toads

Rats & reptiles

Cats & dogs

The Rahanwayn man started looking for the frog

He came to a pond

That had swollen with the rains

That had busted all her banks

That had grown

As big as the Juba River

With frogs of every tribe

With frogs of every stripe

With frogs of every size

With frogs of every kind

With frogs of every clan

With frogs of every color

With frogs of every creed

I am telling you

The joint was jumping with frigging frogs

All croaking

All making whoopee

All high on being wet & wild

All bonkers on bashbash & barwaqo

All fat now & forgetful

All loud & proud like Somalis

After a long exhausting soaking search

The Rahanwayn man identified the right frigging frog

And demanded to be paid back

Pronto

On the spot

Right this minute

But the frigging frog remonstrated with the Rahanwayn man

Saying

Rahanwayn man

You gotta be kidding

You just can't be serious

This here is the wrong season

This here is the wrong reason

This is not the season to reason

This is not the season to talk

Neither sense

Nor nonsense

Nor incense

Nor business

All the banks are covered with water

All our green backs

Have gone swimming

Have gone AWOL

Have taken French leave

Can’t you see

What is happening

I am crazy now

My clan is crazy now

My whole race of frogs done gone crazy

As crazy as Somali Habar Kintir coons with kalashnikovs

Please

Rahanwayn man

Go away

Come back

Some other time

Come back

When Sense & Sanity & Sobriety return

To me

&

To my race!

Togane

Go away

Go back to Canada

Where it is safe

Go back to your Mennonite friends

Come back

When Sense & Sanity & Sobriety return

To our Somali race

When that will be is anybody’s guess

Now it is some 12 years later

Yesterday

I called my friend

Avocatto Abdirahman Hajji Ga’al

Who is in exile now

In the Netherlands

And when I asked him

That inevitable Somali question

Have Sense & Sanity & Sobriety returned

To our Somali race yet?

He laughed to keep from weeping

No

Not yet

Still

Believer it or not

The best of us Somalis still lack all

Faith in Allah

Faith in each other

While the worst of us Somalis

Are still full of passionate

Clannish intensity

Clannish Hatred

Holding the whole Somali race

Hostages

To their Greed

To their lust for power

To their blind will to power

Glorifying their god Greed

Glorifying

Their Self-interest

The Meme of

Me

I

Myself

&

Solo Mio

More murderous

Than Monsieur Daniel Arap Moi

Than Danyer Arab Is Moathay

Than the Kenyan monkey who thought hisself an Arab.