Homes
ORIT MOHAMED
“I escaped by foot! All the way to Somalia!” My father used to exclaim as he held me in his lap when I was a little girl, “Aba you walked all the way to Somalia?” I would question in amazement. “Well, actually I got tired, then rented a camel” my Father would say, laughing at what was once a life or death situation. “HA!” my Mother would reply "your Father didn’t go through nearly as much as I did. I was only able to survive thanks to the will of Allah!”
I was able to step foot on to the sandy grounds of my ancestors. Harar, Ethiopia, Africa. The one place that could be both far away yet, so close at the same time. Finally being able to fill the void of yearning for a land of my own.
The poetic sounds of the Adhan coming out of the minarets of the mosques bring me back to my mythical surroundings. Watching my mother embrace her sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews, all the family she has felt lost and empty without, I begin to remember the lessons my mother taught me about the importance of family. After we all embrace, my sisters and I chew and swallow our English as we struggle to exhale our native tongue, attempting to bridge gaps separated by years and oceans. Everyone rushes outside to perform wudu and Kaka. Mohamed leads us all in the second of our daily prayers. Once we say our salaams, all the ikhistas hurry to prepare our lunch, forcing us to eat injera and doe basar until we can barely breathe...
"Dont just stand there! Get something to eat for your Umas they are your guests you know," my Mother yelled shaking her head at her how her children have become westernized. "We raise them here so they can have a better life" my Mother says to her guests, "but what is a better life if they never know their culture?” The women surrounding our living room nod their heads in agreement as my sisters and I quickly and shamefully served them shahi and sweets.
***
This is my chance, I thought to myself, to finally soak in all that comes with being from Harar, to gain a sense of belonging through custom, ownership and understanding, through lineage. Excited and ready to learn, I begin my month long journey in the elusive place my parents call home.
"This right here is where I was kept, for eight months in a jail cell with my all my classmates," my Mother points out an old abandoned building near her home town, "But don't worry it wasn't scary or anything. We used to have fun, all together, until they would come... and take some of us, one by one..." Passing the haunting place, where my Mother was a political prisoner sent chills of terror and anger down my spine, and left me questioning my tendency to romanticize African resistance.
***
Running out of my room, down the stairs, smelling the burning incense and sweet smell of freshly ground coffee beans, I used to shout "MOM! Tell me the story of how you came to America, I need to know for my school project!" She would then sit me down and retell the story of how she was captured from her home, interrogated, beaten, and kept in a cell. "They told me they wanted me to go all the way, far into the countryside" she would say snapping her fingers to illustrate the great distance. "They told me I had to go, and lie to the people, convince them that Mengistu was a good ruler... So I had no choice but to escape to Djibouti..."
Sitting in the nadaba gar with my baby cousins I can hear my Mother and Ikhista discussing the hardships they commonly endure. Though living in opposite ends of the world, they both deal with the daily struggle of juggling work and kids. "Allah hal" my Mother would tell my Ikhista. "When you focus too much on this dunya it will make life more difficult —nothing matters besides akhira."
The prevalence of the divine, is all that kept both my Mother and Father going when optimism was nothing but a mirage. I head outside to perform wudu, and pray the last of our daily prayers. "How are you doing" my Mom whispers and she enters the room “great" I say "I love it here Mama, I don't know how you stayed away so long." "Neither do I... But I am just grateful that I'm able to come back" she said, "I thought I was never going to see their faces ever again."
***
"You have no one but each other!" my Father would shout at us, as my sisters and I sat with our gazes lowered. The same speech, every time we got in a fight over a doll, shirt, comb etc. "I don't want to hear it! 'This is mine,' 'That is mine' this is not the way you treat each other. Do you not understand that when I die, when your Mom dies, you are only left with each other? This is not back home, all of your Unas, and Ikhistas are not here. You have to learn to respect each other, care for each other, I don't ever want to see you fighting like this! Ever." At the time the speech went through one ear and out the other, yet when I sat there seeing how deeply affected my Mom was by the absence of her sisters and brothers, traveling to a foreign country all alone. Aba was right. I thought to myself, family is all I've got.
"Kuday" my Mom said, stirring me out of my thoughts "Im going to bed now, get some sleep."
May 2020. Vol nº1