Guban, Abdi Latif Ega [essential reading TXT] 📗

1

The Water Bearer

the journey to the well was long and scary when Twosmo was younger. She would start before the shadows cast, and would usually reach the well when there was a significant shadow in the day. It was scary because the land was an endless darkness. Her camel, a ten foot beast, would not avail her any form of protection from the many dangers lurking out there – the wild animals in search of a succulent morsel before they returned to their dens.
Twosmo, at this tender age, felt she was being thrown to the hye- nas in the darkness, shrouded ominously before the break of dawn. Whenever she felt she could not possibly go through with it, the voice of her mother in her head would sternly urge her on, resound- ingly stating how it was her duty to the clan, family, and a further duty to her own homestead of the future.
In the light of the day, brought on by an unrelenting sun, the land assumed an indistinguishable form. Every thorn looked like the oth- ers, every ant hill looked identical, there were thousands of well- trodden foot paths all around.The small foot paths in the sandy earth, marked by spaces of grass in the ground resembled a translucent head of thinning hair. The trees were mainly thorn trees – all emaciated and small in stature from a sparse diet of nothing but very little rain- fall. The trees had this in common with every living thing in this desolate abode of collective harshness.
It was a most barren part of the world. Everything that grew here had to put up a great fight to merely exist. Plants were as fierce as the rest of the environment; they abounded with thorns to ensure life. The lay of the land was unforgiving, cruel as if still despondent


2 GUBAN
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from its volcanic eruptions of long ago. Sand lodged in places where seasonal rivers once flowed. Barren volcanic mountain ranges in the background presided over everything, stoically, aloof to the daily proceedings, as they unfolded. A flat enormity of semi-arid land was dashed here and there by thorn trees too short to hide or give shade to anything. Mingled with thorny shrubbery, that translucent head of hair grass resembled hay growing out from the earth, what perhaps used to be long luscious grass when this was a savanna.
The ten foot camel followed obediently through a nose lead.This animal with all its clumsy glory reigned supreme to the fierce pas- toralist. This animal was the end and beginning of all things. There was conflict as to which was more important: water or the camel. Disputes were always over water rights for the camels, goats, sheep – in that order - which invariably involved bloodshed. Only the camel sufficed as payment for the disputes, often heralding the end to hos- tilities, although there were those rare individuals who chose a life for a life instead.
The currency of the camel was used in all manner of occasions. It was used for bride price. Since marriage was one of the most impor- tant events in a Somal’s life and procreation, the object of the nomad’s very existence, the fierceness of life without the camel demanded large congeries of sons to protect the wealth and general well-being of the family from other such families and from treacherous often barren lone operators, barren precisely as a result of the lack of this clumsy currency in abundance.
Wealth in this part of the world is truly in the eyes of the beholder. The camel is the most rugged and austere of the domesticated ani- mals, reflexively so are the wealthy in these parts. If you see a rather gaunt, lanky red and dusty man, he could be rich in camels and sons, or he could just as well be impoverished.
Twosmo would often hear her Awowo describe many such men of many sons and camels. She cut a picture of one in the throws of death induced by sustained hunger brought on by his own miserliness.
After a long solo journey,Twosmo would arrive at the well, as did many of the girls, having walked a quite lengthy distance, exhausted. They would then wait for the men, usually their kin, to draw the

THE WATER BEARER 3


water for them. The wells were very deep in the earth and, as the men worked, there was a chance for a slight reprieve for the girls before the arduous journey back home, leading a camel now laden with fifty liters of water on each side. The water was rusty in color approximating apple juice, a color which permeated everything. It seeped into the clothes, fingernails, and was red, being the color of the loose sand of this region.
After the journey, there were other chores awaiting her return. She would tend to the needs of Awowo, filling his abolition water con­ tainer full before the night prayer, bringing him milk- and most of all- the tea before he would retire for the night.
By this time, Twosmo had kraaled the livestock for the night, sur­ rounding the encampment with thorn tree branches as an impen­ etrable defense against would be wildlife intruders.

2


TheArrest

YUSUF WAS ASTOUNDED BY THE CITY ITSELF. HE WAS EXAS­ perated with the desire to break the monotony of the perpetual moving, grazing and general animal husbandry of it all. It was here in these desolate places of nature's barren garden that he would first hear of the larger world outside.This eventually kindled his desire to see beyond the confines of the limited world of the harsh plains, a world of constant movement in search of pasture and water.A world existed beyond this utter desolation, he had heard, and it had cities that abounded with people who never moved. Incredibly, they stayed
put for years.
Yusuf was determined to become part of the city and identified as such, but he had to shed his much ingrained camel ways. For this, he looked to Commander Ali for questions. In Ali Deray, his com­ mander, he saw one who wielded the respect and fear of his fel­ low city dwellers.Yusuf sought to understand the intricate ways of what made him, at barely a few years his senior, so prominent.Yusuf had met many officers outside and inside the military whose rank equaled that of Ali Deray, but who, despite their rank and file, were just plainly ignored.
Yusuf rationalized that whatever he knew in his previous life did
not apply to the ways of the city, and by extension, the ways of gov­ ernment. So, when he was ordered to complete the arrest of a man named Hoagsaday, there were many layers of adherence in his under­ taking of the orders.
On the morning he was ordered to do so, he summoned the other soldiers and commenced toward Hoagsaday's house. He knew of the


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man. He was one of many who had left the country in search of better economical prospects and had returned after a long sojourn with much more. The soldiers arrived at Hoagsaday’s in early after- noon and knocked with the usual arrogance most coercive forces are known for. Everyone was indoors, refugees from the midday’s naked sun. Such was the custom of Mogadishu that from around one o’clock to at least five – longer for others – those who could ate a hearty lunch - quite excessive, particularly if guests were being entertained – and, afterwards, an afternoon siesta was agreed upon by all who lived in this city.
This time proved quite opportune for Yusuf to present the full regalia of coercive bravado and intimidation. It was an added effect of humiliation for a prominent member of the community, as Hoag- saday was, to be rounded up at their home by the government and in such a manner and at such a ubiquitous time and place of privacy. The intended audience was the public, who would know of the inci- dent before long. It was a nation populated by news chronicles and worthy disseminators, the news would spread like a tsunami, instill- ing fear in the almost fearless nomads turned citizens of a modern city state.
Hoagsaday heard the knock which at first drove him quickly into a fit of anger, commonly induced by afternoon sleep – it was probably a mannerless person, particularly rude, probably an impatient person having some business with him who thought nothing of invading his privacy, rather than wait for him at the store during the normal hours.
He called to the servant to answer with a firm admonition to the