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NAIROBI
AHMED LEANED AGAINST THE STEEL door of the
overcrowded bus, locally known as matatu,
and paid off the young taut a ten shilling
note, leaving him a generous tip. The young
taut looked at him, and said "Asante
Sana, Bwana" (Thank you, Sir). The bus
stereo churned out deafening reggae until it
reached Tom Mboya Street, infested with
pickpockets, prostitutes, scam artists and
pimps. So he slid out of the matatu without
speaking to the other passengers and stepped
into the sudden cold morning in front of
Odeon Cinema, putting both hands in his
pockets, just in case. The Odeon Cinema has
been playing James Cameron's Titanic and a
rerun of the Hollywood classic "Gone
with the Wind," alternatively for the
fifth week in a row. He distanced himself
from the pickpockets, pimps, scam artists
and the prostitutes and oriented himself to
the gray column of the sky-scrappers, and
picked out the steel and glass office tower,
which housed the Joint Voluntary Agency
offices and staggered toward it. Shards of
windshield crushed under his new boots as he
crossed the parking lot. He wore blue jeans
and a snow-white parka, a far cry from the
haggard and scrawny militia gunman who was
ready to join street battles in Mogadishu.
Now he had
enough money in his pocket, a month's bed
and breakfast at Imam lodging & Boarding
where the family rented a cockroach infested
room after their long trek from Ifo refugee
camp. In hindsight he felt naked without a
gun!
The feeling of nakedness was all the
stronger since in Somalia you always carried
a gun. And your gun was always loaded, and
your clips full, too. And sometimes you had
hand grenades too and reserves of food in
your pack - so you were always
self-sufficient in that environment. You
felt protected by that heavy weapon. You
slept with it and even gave it a woman's
name. Ahmed called his AK-47 Dayax (The
Moon). It was his Moon until the American
Army Rangers and the UN peacekeepers
confiscated it from him along with several
other lethal weapons.
Now in Nairobi with its sky-scrappers and
Mercedes Benzes' and BMWs, he felt
unprotected without his Dayax. His great
fear was the police and immigration
officials. He decided he had better just
walk faster and try to imitate the office
workers hurrying up for their offices at the
fashionable Harambee Avenue.
He hesitated as he saw a dark green Land
Rover with a GK plate number parked near the
American Embassy, where the JVA offices are
located. The acronym stands for Government
of Kenya. It could be the police, or even
the immigration officials, he thought. He
kept walking faster without looking around.
In that instant an electric current ran
through his body, like a jolt in his stomach
-- he almost bolted. Probably they were
waiting for him at the JVA offices to bounce
on him! And in another instant two
plain-clothes detectives and a uniformed
constable, probably their driver emerged
from the ground floor. None of them looked
at him, instead the two detectives were
yelling at the uniformed constable in
Kiswahili.
Ahmed breathed a sigh of relief.
The girl selling cigarettes at a kiosk in
the lobby of the 15th story building
opposite the JVA offices smiled at him after
he bought a packet of Embassy and a box of
matches. Ironically, NO SMOKING in
conspicuous signs prevailed at the lobby.
Sensing his uneasiness, the girl told him to
light up and ignore the signs, "put up
by frightened English people," she
said.
In the dim light of the lobby he studied the
Embassy staff roster. There's only one
Pamela Dixon. He copied her number in his
dog-eared address book. A khaki clad Kenyan
security guard, wielding a club the size of
a giant sledgehammer handle wanted to know
what was his business copying the names of
the Embassy people. Ahmed, in his perfect
English said he was a delivery boy trying to
get the correct names of his company's
customers.
Then the
security guard rubbed his thumb with his
forefinger, the international symbol of
money. Instead Ahmed gave him the unopened
packet of cigarettes and the matchbox, which
in Kenya is called Tao kitu kidogo,(TKK) or
in English give me little something, bribe,
dash, kickback or Hawl-fududeyn in Somali. A
husky US Marine watched them under his
eyelids, unmoved. Probably he was nursing a
bad hangover. Then Ahmed left the building
by the same way and fled to the relative
safety of Eastleigh, which is rapidly
becoming little Somalia.
Next morning he kissed his stepson and his
wife and dressed quickly, leaving the
cockroach infested boarding house with its
communal showers and pathetic Ethiopian and
Somali refugees.
Araksan never questioned his comings and
goings. She believed he was up to something
for their well-being.
Outside Ahmed headed for the nearest
telephone booth. He found the number in his
dog-eared address book and lifted the
receiver. He hesitated. A bang at the door
made him jump. An elderly Kikuyu woman was
shaking her cane at him.
"Are you telephoning or simply
occupying the booth to keep out of the
rain?" she said angrily. Ahmed dialed
the number and spoke into the mouthpiece,
giving the operator Pamela's extension
number.
At first, there was only a heavy silence. He
thought the line had gone dead, or perhaps
he dialed the wrong number.
"Hi," a voice said. "This is
Pamela Dixon."
"Ahmed Gheddi from Somalia speaking…
I got to talk to you."
"Good God! Where are you? Are you all
right? When did you arrive in Kenya?"
"I'm all right, but I got to see you
tonight at your residence."
"Listen Ahmed. I'm inviting some
friends and I will not be able to see you
tonight."
"Let's forget it. Forgive me for
bothering you."
The elderly women outside banged the door
again with her cane, pointing angrily at her
wristwatch. Ahmed raised his arm
reassuringly, and turned his back. Ms.
Pamela Dixon spoke quickly and urgently.
"Come to my house around midnight. This
is the address." He wrote the address.
"If all the lights are out and cars are
parked in front of the house, it will mean I
can't see you tonight. I'll fix another
date. Be careful. Use your common
sense."
"Thank you." Ahmed was relieved.
After apologizing to the lady with the cane,
he walked toward the bus stop at the corner
of Eastleigh's Seventh Street.
He alighted at the now familiar Corner
House, where Somali refugees meet and trade
gossip. Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper
dubbed the Corner House and its proximity as
Little Mogadishu.
It was close at midnight when he arrived at
Westlands, an exclusive suburb in the
outskirts of Nairobi. He walked up a paved
road, with the full moon showing trees and
flowers on either side of the road. Ahmed
could distinguish more plush cottages and
bungalows with two car garages behind the
land.
At last he found the number at the end of a
long paved road. He could make out an
imposing villa surrounded with high walls,
spiked with razor-sharp barbed wire and
broken bottles, to deter potential wall-scalers.
When he reached close to the steel gate and
seeing no cars parked in front of the house,
and the lights were out, he pressed the
bell, ignoring the Umbwa Kali sign, which
means fierce dogs in Kiswahili.
Almost immediately Pamela opened the gate
herself and flashed her electric light at
him.
"Ahmed Gheddi, I presume," said
Pamela Dixon. "I'm glad you finally
made it," she added in her Boston
voice.
Then it begins.
From the verandah, from dark corners of the
of the lawn and hedges and outhouses came
dogs, lolloping dogs, scampering dogs,,
galloping dogs, intermingled with cacophony
and whish of waging tails, muddy paws and
slobbery jaws.
Pamela chased the dogs away, using a
language Ahmed could not comprehend.
"It is dog trainer's language,"
Pamela said with a Mona Lisa smile.
"Hi," he managed to say, looking
left and right in case some of the dogs
still lurked in the hedge.
She closed the heavy steel gate with the
help of Ahmed and led him into the living
room where several candles flickered in
every available space. The living room
contained modernist furniture and several
oil paintings in gilded frames by Italian
and French masters, including Modigliani and
Renoir hung on the walls of the dinning
room. Ahmed noticed six teakwood chairs and
a large dining table laden with food and
pitchers of cold drinks.
After a lavish dinner Ahmed told her about
his escape from Mogadishu with his wife and
stepson and his numerous close encounters
with the Kenya Police and immigration
officials in Nairobi.
"You saved my life and that of another
American diplomat, putting your life in the
line of fire. Certainly you deserve every
assistance," she said as she dubbed her
eyes with Kleenex.
His USIS teacher in Mogadishu used to talk
about Teleprompters in which artists and
speakers could read their lines and say
whatever they were supposed to say without
much effort. Now Ahmed wished he had a
Teleprompter. The need for English words, no
matter how simple, was suddenly there.
"In all honest, it was spur of the
moment and I did what every person with
human feeling would have done in an
emergency situation." Ahmed said
modestly.
The episode took place when Pamela Dixon,
newly assigned to the American Embassy in
Mogadishu as Cultural Attaché, and her male
companion, were stranded behind USC
guerrilla-controlled section of the
smoldering city during the uprising against
the former military despot. Ahmed who was
leading a group of young trigger-happy
militia gunmen broke into their residence
with the intention of killing the occupants
with looting spree in the minds. But he
restrained the boys and told the couple to
dress quickly and pack up for the dangerous
ride to the American Embassy Compound
southwest of the burning city.
He drove the couple in their armor-plated
Pontiac through hellish fire between
government forces, rebels and common
criminals. Fighting continued throughout the
city at all hours of the day. After
negotiating with every trigger-happy gunman
on the way, Ahmed eventually drove into the
Embassy Compound with several bullet holes.
One machinegun bullet had found a gap in the
vehicle's armor plate and cut across Ahmed's
seat, an inch from his backbone. To Pamela
such man deserves all the help in the world.
She recalled how he refused to accept the
money she offered him, saying that she would
need it for the long voyage home. Then Ahmed
melted among the huge crowd outside waiting
to assault the luxury US Embassy compound,
in order to put their hands on the shiny
limousines left behind by the American
Foreign Service personnel.
Ahmed watched as several helicopters flying
at treetop levels in a bid to lift Americans
to a helicopter carrier anchored off the
Somali coast, with hundreds of Marines
aboard ready to storm the Somali capital, if
the need arises. The American Ambassador,
James Bishop, who is no stranger to anarchy,
African civil wars and military coups, was
the last to be evacuated when cutthroat
insurgents, let by warlord Charles Taylor
were reported to have over-run the city. As
in Mogadishu he was the last to be evacuated
when the Liberian insurgents targeted the
American Embassy in Monrovia with mortars
and heavy weapons. To Ambassador Bishop it
was simply a repeat performance.
Now in her posh villa in Nairobi Pamela
promised to do everything in her power to
help the family settle in the United States.
"What happens to you if higher
authorities find out you helped a Somali
clan gunman emigrate to the United
States?"
Pamela shrugged. "I'll get a slap on
the wrist, I suppose. After all, you saved
American lives, putting your own life at
risk."
"I don't want you getting into trouble
on my account."
"Don't torture yourself, Ahmed. Any
person who saves American lives deserves
Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest in
the United States."
"But not to a former Somali militia
gunman, especially to a man suspected of
ambushing UN and US soldiers in south
Mogadishu during former president George
Bush's Operation Restore Hope."
"Innocent until proven guilty."
Pamela said, mimicking Al Capone's defense
lawyer during the 1920s prohibition in a
Chicago courtroom when the Mafia don was
accused of committing every crime in the
book.
After some pondering Pamela said: "Tell
me, Ahmed, don't you miss Somalia at
all?"
"Is there something I should
miss?"
He told her about leaving Somalia at the
height of the clan warfare soon after the UN
peacekeepers pulled out because he couldn't
understand why his country seemed to be
self-destructing and he wanted to distance
himself in the hope that he could see it
better one day, and without guns and
mistrust.
"I could see Somalia moving very
rapidly toward something I didn't like at
all, and I didn't know how to deal with it.
Not because I left when the heat was on in
the battlefield, but because the killing of
innocent people and the destruction of
properties in the name of the clan broke my
heart. So I voted with my own feet,"
Ahmed concluded his little speech.
"News agencies in Mogadishu report that
warlords dupe young people to do their dirty
work. What is your own appraisal?"
"Many of our youth have been used as
cannon fodder by the warlords and lost their
lives in vain."
She congratulated him for his flawless
English, which would help his family settle
in the United States without drawback.
"Did you pass your TOEFL at the USIS
School in Mogadishu?"
"Yes," said. He also described how
the American school was teeming with NSS
undercover agents and Hangash (the military
intelligence) who routinely shadowed
students who were friendly with the teacher
whom they suspected working for the CIA,
trying to recruit potential informers among
his students.
"Why the military intelligence?"
she asked.
"Because some of the students were from
the army, navy and air force. Of course with
the approval of their commanding officers.
Most of these students spoke fluent Russian
because they trained at Moscow's Frunze
Military Academy before the military
dictator tore up a 20-year treaty of
friendship and cooperation with the Soviet
Union after the Kremlin sided with Ethiopia,
Somalia's archenemy, during the Ogaden war
of 1977."
"I know that piece of interesting
history. What I didn't know, however, was
that Bob was undercover CIA agent. What a
surprise!" She smiled, showing her
bridges.
In less than two weeks of agonizing wait the
family received from the Joint Voluntary
Agency a folder containing their travel
documents and air tickets to New York City,
via Rome. A check for five hundred dollars
was also attached to a letter giving them
Convention Refugee Status eligible to work
or study in the United States.
He trudged three miles, with the folder
under his white parka, through the heaviest
rain of the year to the boarding house in
Eastleigh.
The date on the calendar was the first of
the month. April Fool's Day, but Ahmed's
culture does not believe such thing as April
Fool's Day.
At JFK Airport in New York City, an
immigration official, who looked like Robert
Redford welcomed the family with the words:
"Welcome to the United States of
America!" without looking up.
It was an emotional moment!
Ahmed and his family are living in an
apartment in a small town in New Jersey
where Ahmed works as gas station attendant
after defeating the culture shock, language
(American English) barrier and the sub-zero
winter months. Araksan and her son Darman
attend ESL (English as Second Language)
school in a leafy neighbourhood with the
prospect of obtaining a permanent resident
status document known as Green Card.
Just like every newcomer from war-torn
Somalia compounded with famine and drought,
their genuine surprise was to hear, for the
first time in their lives, words like child
obesity, potato coaches, carb-free diets,
veggies, same sex marriage, gays and
lesbians, men wearing ear rings, euthanasia
(assisted suicide), plastic surgery,
liposuction, panhandlers (street beggars),
winos (alcoholics), Skid Row (drunks and
homeless section of New York City and Los
Angeles), World Series (a game played only
by American teams, yet it is called world
series), collateral damage, commies
(communists) etc.
But to the family home is where the heart
is. At Immigration hearing Ahmed told the
judge that with secure environment and a job
that pays well, Somalia is the last place he
would think of going for the foreseeable
future. His wife, Araksan nods in agreement.
He was beginning to understand the meaning
of claustrophobia and looked with pleasure
upon whatever awaited them in the United
States. Araksan, on the other hand, seemed
comfortable anywhere. The strange American
way of life didn't seem to bother her at
all; even when she saw men wearing ear rings
and was told about same sex marriage. And as
the name Araksan defy conversion; she had
settled for the occasional Arak from
Americans with little time, or even
Arkansan.
END.
This short story
was M. M. Afrah's contribution to a BBC's
World Service International Radio
Playwriting Competition. It was later
serialized in the Life Section of Kenya's
Daily Nation.
The Webmaster.
A SHORT STORY IN
SIMPLIFIED ENGLISH FOR OUR YOUNGER VISITORS
NOTE:
PRINTABLE VERSION - PLEASE CLICK
HERE FOR ALL FIVE PARTS OF THE
STORY.
By
M.M. Afrah©2005
Afrah95@hotmail.com
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TAKING
POINT BY M.M. AFRAH
