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Much of East Africa falls into these two categories. In fact, although I've only been with the firm for six months after graduating from university, I have already been on several of these international assignments. But this is my first visit to Somalia. The year is 1988.
This time I am with Ivan, the manager. Like most of the other senior staff at my firm, he's English. He's a young guy, yet he's already a manager. If you're white, coming to Africa does wonders for your career. Some of the Kenyan guys who are more experienced are still only supervisors! I can't help wondering how I'll turn out.
We got here last night at 8 and were met at the airport by Dennis's driver, a charming fellow called Hassan. Dennis runs the client business. He sounds British, but he looks southern European. Could be Italian. Hassan was a godsend. We would never have managed to negotiate the chaos and bureaucracy at the airport. There were hundreds of people milling around and scores of militiamen wanting to inspect your passport. Hassan seemed to know everyone. He shook hands, smiled, talked hurriedly and we were waved on, time and again, all the way out into the hot and humid exterior.
After working all day, I decide to familiarize myself with the city. It is a bustling city, with a buzz that takes me completely by surprise. I had expected to find a laid back people in this coastal city which I had assumed might be like Mombasa. It is anything but.
There's a buzz here that makes you feel as though the city was made for commerce. I should have known. The Somalis I see in the sprawling Eastleigh district of Nairobi are a pretty enterprising lot. The famous Arab traveler Ibn Batuta dropped by here over six hundred years ago and found the city to be a thriving metropolis, with traders exporting their wares all the way up to Egypt. They have lost none of their business acumen.
I am walking along one of the busiest markets I have ever seen. Traders are calling out to me in a language I don't understand. The Somali language sounds hurried and somewhat gusty, like wind blowing through a pipe. They talk loudly, using a lot of hand gestures. But they are very friendly. I stop at a music store and buy some cassettes. In Kenya they cost a fortune. The man begs me to buy a hi-fi too.
'You need it to play the cassette, brother,' he informs me, in halting English. He's right. I don't yet possess a proper hi-fi. The cassette-player will have to do.
The mosques are calling the faithful to evening prayer. I venture out into what looks like a residential area. All the buildings are surrounded by white walls. There isn't a tall building in sight. They have no need for skyscrapers. There's plenty of space on the ground. I stop at the top of a low hill and look behind me. The city spreads out behind me, and behind it, the azure Indian Ocean. It is incredibly peaceful. All the talk I've heard about the threat of war and the rebels approaching the city from the north now seems unreal, even vulgar. This city dozing by the ocean does not need a war.
In the distance I see some imposing buildings and militiamen. I approach with tentative steps and encounter more soldiers. They don't even take notice of me. I can feel my heart beating faster. I come across a road-block. I really should turn back. Suddenly, I hear a soldier bark at me. He starts to walk towards me, his rifle trained on me. He's now only a few feet away. His mates watch disinterestedly, smoking cigarettes and leaning against a military vehicle.
The soldier continues barking in harsh tones. I indicate that I don't understand.
'Passport!'
After studying it carefully, he hands it back and says: 'No come here. No tourist here, ok?' His tone has softened. I smile and nod, then turn back, thinking President Siad Barre probably lives in this neighborhood. Barre has been waging a campaign of terror against his own people. We're in the late 1980s, for God's sake. The brutality of his regime is ten years out of date, a throwback to the Bokassas, Nguemas and Amins of the seventies.
Back at my hotel room I have a beer and then call on Ivan. I find him poring over files and drinking a soda. He's shocked to find out I have a fridge and cold beers in my room. He was under the impression all the rooms were like his, fridge-less. It is time for dinner.
As we head out into the street, a bunch of s treet children are chanting: 'Taxi! Taxi!' We give them some coins and get into the cab. Dennis had recommended a place called Blue Marlin.
The dinner is great. It is mostly seafood, something I'm unfamiliar with, coming as I do from the Kenyan highlands. But I recognize king prawns, lobster and scallop. From pictures. We wash it down with Chianti. A lot of things here are Italian. It's the colonial influence. Afterwards, we stay for the disco in another section of the building. The music is excellent, the latest on the charts. The club is teeming with young, middle class Somalis, drinking, smoking, dancing and thoroughly enjoying themselves. The women are beautiful, tall and slim. No one here is troubled about political repression right now. If they are, it's not showing. It's fun-time.
Wanting a change of scene we decide to try somewhere else.
The taxi driver recommends Club 54. It turns out to be another fantastic club. But the music at Blue Marlin was better. So an hour later, we head back there. I could come here every night! I'm hoping for some Somali beer but you can only get European beers: Becks, Heineken and Toburg, all in cans, which for me is unusual. In Kenya beer comes in bottles. I had trouble cracking a can last night and Ivan was very amused. The trouble is that all the beer is long past its sell-by date, which is mostly 1986, exactly two years ago. I was a little worried at first. If it comes by ship, it must be enduring a very long voyage down the Suez and the Red Sea.
'Not to worry,' Ivan says. He had seen this in other countries and it had never done him any harm, he assures me. But the next day I have a terrible hangover which stays with me until the middle of the afternoon. Somehow, I still manage to get a whole day's work done. The day here starts early, about seven, and people knock off at 1 or 2. I love it. You can get so much else done in the day. It's like having two days for the price of one.
After an uninspiring lunch of spaghetti bolognaise at the hotel and a two-hour nap, we head off to the Anglo-American Beach Club. This city is crawling with white people working for NGOs and embassies, and other foreigners like Ivan and I who come here on short-term assignments. They congregate around these colonial clubs, drinking Pimms, gin and tonic and expired European beers and moan about the evil dictatorship of President Barre. We meet some Kenyans from a rival audit firm. They are all British and are waxing lyrical about how they love it here. 'Brilliant!' they gush.
The next two weeks are an exciting routine. Work all day, normally under the cloud of an oppressive hangover that refuses to go away until lunch time, if you're lucky. Spend the afternoon at some colonial club or other, drinking and playing darts, and then invariably end up at the Blue Marlin. Sometimes I explore the city by myself in the middle of the afternoon. It is peaceful, and not much happens in the hot afternoon. I walk by serene mosques and quiet residential estates. The architecture is a blend of Somali, Arab and Italian. Everyone is indoors having siesta.
Somehow, the boys outside the hotel have discovered we are rather partial towards the Blue Marlin. I have no idea how they found out. But every time they see us venturing out of the hotel, they start their chant: 'Taxi! Taxi! Blue Marlin! Blue Marlin!'
Some of the people we meet at the clubs introduce us to new restaurants. The Hong Kong restaurant was good, but the Thai one was even better. I had never had Thai food before. At the Somali Beach Restaurant I settle for a delicious lamb stew and couscous. God, I'm hoping I can find this stuff back in Nairobi!
In the second week we are getting a little anxious about the impending war. According to some pundits, rebels are coming from Hargeisa in the north, and are expected to take Mogadishu at any time now. Rumors have become a staple diet.
Apparently Somalia Airlines has only two functional planes. There's the one that brought us here, which is now grounded. No one has any idea when they can get spare parts. We have more or less written it off. The other plane is in Addis Ababa, where Barre is attending a meeting of African leaders. The OAU, Organization of African Union is nothing more than an annual gathering of demagogues and dictators who meet to congratulate themselves on having survived another year after oppressing their subjects and scheme new ways to keep the people subjugated. At least that's how it seems to an idealistic recent graduate. The meeting doesn't end until next week, and there's little indication that Siad Barre will release the plane. It looks like we're stuck here.
On the way to verify assets at a warehouse five miles from the office, I ask Hassan what is really going on. He laughs. But there is no mirth in the laughter. Only pain. He explains that the Somalis are so angry with the government that the country is literally sitting on a bomb waiting to explode. Barre belongs to the Mareehaan clan. He has been persecuting the three other main clans, the Isaaq, the Majeerteen and the Hawiye. The old tactic of divide and rule is no longer serving him well, because the repression that feeds it has become unbearable. The ageing Barre was badly injured in an accident some time ago and his weakness has begun to show. His own clan is now in the grip of an internecine power struggle. And rebels are advancing on Mogadishu. It looks bad. Very bad.
'What do you think will happen?'
'If it come to fight, we fight!' declares Hassan as he speeds down the deserted highway in Dennis's sleek Alfa Romeo. I want to ask him whether he gets to pull birds with the fine wheels but he seems uncharacteristically serious. 'We Somalis fear nothing!' I can't quite picture Hassan fighting. He is such a nice guy. If the imminent war find us here, I honestly think he can get us out.
'And if the rebels come to town?'
'We are tired of this government, my brother. Anything is better.'
I say a silent prayer.
Hassan has been driving to the airport every day to look for news. We feel like hostages living on borrowed time. No one wants to get caught in a war that has nothing to do with them. Back at the genteel colonial clubs and the swanky nightclubs, amongst the foreigners, all the talk is about leaving. But there is no plane. Jokingly, they explore other options, like traveling on land or getting a boat to Mombasa. I ask Ivan what our firm can do to help.
He shrugs his shoulders and laughs, before taking a large swig of his expired Danish Toburg.
'The boat is an option,' suggests Dennis, 'but you must be careful. The waters outside Mogadishu are shark-infested.' That's a shame. I had planned on going swimming sometime before leaving these shores. Now I fear we're literally caught between battle-hardened soldiers and slippery sharks.
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"The writer thanked the producers for the lovely paycheck. Then he shot them." writelikegod.com |
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The day before our scheduled departure, we are having lunch at Dennis's house when a call comes through. Dennis's wife has prepared an excellent roast and mouth-watering gravy. Hassan is calling to report that Barre has released the plane. But Barre himself is staying behind. The OAU meeting is not yet over. We attack the duty free French wine with renewed gusto before the miracle vanishes.
Later that afternoon Hassan takes our tickets and passports to the airport to fix our seats. He needs to be there physically and do the 'fixing'. There will be many other people with confirmed seats who have missed their flights in the last week or so. Not wanting to celebrate too soon, our last visit to the Blue Marlin is a somber affair. In fact the very thought of celebrating sounds vulgar, with the threat of war permeating the very air we're breathing. But this does not stop anyone having fun. The Blue Marlin is as vibrant as ever. You dance with abandon to the sound of American hip-hop, the tapes probably smuggled from somewhere in the Middle East like many other foreign goods around here.
The following morning, as we pack our suitcases in the tiny boot of Dennis's sports Alfa Romeo, I get the feeling that if I ever get to see this city again, it will be a very different place. I feel as though I'm fleeing from a crime scene. Hassan pulls out, as the little street boys begin their chatter 'Blue Marlin! Blue Marlin!' I give them what's left of my Somali shillings.
Come on lads, we can't be going to the nightclub at 9am! Ivan and I are so hung over from last night's expired beers that even laughing requires an effort.
'Yo! Anythin's possible, ma man!' He says, exploding into laughter.
He asks me where I'm from.
'Kenya. Heard of it?'
He is quiet for a while. I see he's nodding his head. Then he replies in a low voice: 'Kenya, mh. I'm your neighbor, my brother.'
'Really! How is that?' Now that I listen to him carefully, I detect the suggestion of an accent.
He informs me that he is originally from Somalia. He left during the war. My jaw drops. I want to tell him about my experiences in Mogadishu but I don't know where to start. I don't believe I have met anyone from Somali since 1988. The memories come flashing back. I remember how the country disintegrated into civil war shortly after we left. The world watched by from the sidelines for a while, then US president Bill Clinton tried to sort it out in the early 1990s. But the Americans left shortly afterwards, badly bruised. Peace has remained elusive ever since.
I manage to mention that I spent a few weeks in Mogadishu just before the war. I don't know what else to say. My mind is a blur of confused memories.
'It was terrible, my brother,' I hear the taxi-driver say. He is shaking his head. I can feel the pain in his voice. 'I lost ... we all lost so much, so many people. Families slaughtered. Everything was destroyed. Everything!'
I'm filled with terror as the memories flash through my mind. I see the kanzu-clad old man who used to serve me breakfast at the hotel. The shy and retreating girls at the office, handing me neat files with vouchers and sales receipts, for my sharp auditing eyes. The street boys who hailed the cabs for us. I see the soldier warning me at gun-point to get out of the posh residence. The mad rush at the airport. The locals and foreigners crying and begging to be allowed to board while Hassan guided us through, waving and shaking hands with officials and militiamen.
We were just a couple of auditors serving a multinational firm, in a masquerade that saw us treated like royalty, while fear and a siege mentality gripped a country that could smell war the way you smell imminent rain on seeing the clouds gather and darken. I glance at the darkness outside and feel like I'm going crazy.
'You managed to get out?' I finally find my voice.
'Yeah, spent some years in a refugee camp in Kenya. Terrible experience. Then headed to the States. Spent years there. And now I'm here.'
I feel my mouth go very dry. We get to the hotel. The driver asks if we need a receipt. I don't, but I say yes, ok. I don't have an employer who picks up my holiday travel expenses. The fare on the meter is only about A$6. I give him a ten dollar note, and we say goodbye. My wife looks puzzled.
'Why did you pay so much?'
I can barely hear her. My ears are full of the sound of ten-year olds chanting 'Blue Marlin! Blue Marlin!' My God! Whatever happened to those kids? But they won't be kids anymore. If they survived the war, they would be in their early twenties now. Questions that have lain dormant for fifteen years come rushing back at me: what is true and fair anyway? Where is the fairness in a war that only leaves death and destruction in its wake, all because of someone's craving for power?
We verified the accounts alright. We got the job done, like professionals, in spite of the debilitating hangovers. The audit went well, and Ivan picked up the audit fee. The firm grew and prospered, going on to merge with a former rival. Yes, we verified the accounts as representing a true and fair view of the client's financial position. But who verified the poor 'Blue Marlin!' boys' lives? Who was looking out for them when the rebels and government soldiers clashed and the country descended into lawlessness?
As we get into the lift I glance at the receipt. The driver has scribbled $20. I take a look at the signature. It looks suspiciously like 'Hassan'.
My heart feels like lead, as we walk down the quiet corridor.
© 2004, GENERATOR 21.
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