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A Woman of Firsts. Edna Adan Ismail
Читать онлайн.Название A Woman of Firsts
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780008305369
Автор произведения Edna Adan Ismail
Жанр Биографии и Мемуары
Издательство HarperCollins
My paternal grandmother Baada was kindness itself and I learned so much from her. She was an eloquent woman who taught me my first words and the names of plants, as well as songs, rhymes and stories. She lived close by all her life and would come to our house every morning, bringing me treats she hid from my mother. One look at her face and I’d know she was carrying something – most likely sweets made out of caramel with lumps of sugar and nuts. She also taught me how to be curious, offering me a choice between something I knew or something I didn’t. I’d almost always opt for the thing I didn’t know. I still do.
My disapproving mother frequently guessed that she had given me something and would protest, but I didn’t care. I loved my grandmother. We had a conspiracy together behind my mother’s back. It was our little secret. What I didn’t yet know was how many other secrets there were in female Somali society, the darkest of which was being kept from me.
Borama, British Somaliland, 1945
Some of my happiest childhood memories are of drinking fresh cow’s milk during our long summer holidays in Borama, near the border with Ethiopia, where my grandmother Clara and grandfather Yusuf lived. I remember going with the maid to collect the frothy warm nectar from Granddad’s cows and helping myself to as much as I liked. I’m sure my father would have disapproved. He always insisted – as I do now – that any milk intended for his children had to be boiled first to avoid contamination. To this day, though, and even after all my years of training as a nurse and public health practitioner, I occasionally sneak a drink of fresh, unboiled camel milk.
The reason we spent so much time in Borama in the northwestern Awdal province was because the British had posted my grandfather there after the Italians left Somaliland. Having trained as a signalman and radio operator Yusuf had served the British in both wars and was awarded a military medal for ‘meritorious service to the Crown’. Then he became Somaliland’s Postmaster-General. Although our country was liberated, the war was still raging elsewhere and his expertise in logistics was needed to facilitate the East Africa Campaign. He soon fell in love with the lush green meadows of Borama fringed by purple mountains and decided to buy a farm and some milking cows, summoning Clara to join him.
My mother would leave us with our grandparents for two months each summer so that she could visit friends in Aden, or her sister Cecilia in Djibouti City in French Somaliland. She may have become a good Muslim and embraced all the traditions and rituals, but she sorely missed the country and lifestyle of her childhood in Aden. Sending us away each year must have been a welcome respite from the nuisance I’d become. Not that I was any less of a problem for my grandparents. Borama was a holiday town and kids from all over Somaliland and from Djibouti City descended for the summer months. I sometimes hung out with girls, but it was still the company of boys that I liked the best. When one time the local gang wouldn’t let me play football with them I retaliated by snatching their ball made of bound rags and ran home with it. I locked myself in the toilet and threatened to throw their ball into the pit unless they agreed to let me join in. My mother was still there then and she had to intervene. After much pleading, she got me to open the door and give back the ball. From then on, one of the boys would grab it whenever I approached their game, afraid that I’d snatch it once more.
One day these boys came to me with an unusual gesture of friendship and asked if I wanted to join them. This was too good to be true and I jumped at the chance. A few minutes after our game of football started on a patch of waste ground, they told me they were going to pick some watermelons from a nearby field and that if I helped carry some home, we’d return to our game sooner. Naturally I agreed, hoping that I’d finally been accepted. I innocently followed them through a gap in a fence and offered to carry the largest of the watermelons in my upturned skirt, as it was too heavy to carry in my arms. As I was tottering back with a fruit that weighed almost as much as I did, the farmer suddenly grabbed me by the scruff of my dress.
The boys melted away, leaving me to face the irate landowner who marched me back to my grandparents’ house carrying the melon as proof of my guilt. I tried to explain and swore that I’d never stolen anything, but my grandparents almost died of shame. When he complained that kids trespassed almost daily to help themselves to his crop, they had no option but to compensate him for the loss of God knows how many melons he claimed I’d taken. The disappointment on my grandparents’ faces was worse than any punishment they could have meted out. I had to listen to them telling me over and over that they couldn’t understand why I’d steal when everything I could want to eat was available on our own table.
In spite of this salutary lesson, as the oldest in our group of neighbourhood friends and the big sister to Farah, I was the Pied Piper for all our adventures. These included the time a group of us unknowingly picked poisonous berries and all returned home with swollen lips. I took the blame for not supervising the others carefully enough, and from then on we weren’t allowed to eat anything we picked until we’d brought it home for adults to inspect and either confirm or confiscate.
Then there was the day that nine of us wandered into the bush and completely lost our way. Boy, I never lived that one down. Even though we’d eaten a full breakfast, we always had room for delicious wild berries. As we picked more and more, we wandered near the path of the donkey caravans on their way to collect water at the wells on the outskirts of town. The herders instantly identified us as town kids because of the way we dressed, and were surprised to find us still in the forest several hours later when they returned.
Seeing that some of the younger ones were crying, and others had slumped down through exhaustion and thirst, they stopped to ask what we were doing there so late in the afternoon. ‘Who brought you here? Why aren’t you at home?’ they asked, clearly concerned. I told them that although I knew where the sun rose and set, I couldn’t tell in the woods and none of us had a clue how to get back to town. With night falling and knowing that hyenas or lions could start to pick us off, the donkey herders scooped up the youngest children and sat them on their beasts while telling we older ones to walk fast, stick together, and follow their caravan. We trudged along the dusty track used by generations of nomads, past colonies of noisy baboons, and finally reached town just before sunset. We found the whole district in a state of panic, and distressed parents who’d been searching everywhere for us berated me. ‘How could you be so stupid to stray so far?’ As the eldest child, I was given the harshest scolding but the worst punishment was that our neighbours warned their kids never to follow ‘crazy Edna’ again if I ever tried to lead them beyond the trees they then set as landmarks at the edge of the forest.
Despite these occasional mishaps, Farah and I loved it in Borama far from the heat of a city, especially when we were able to have as much fresh milk as we liked. My grandmother made the most delicious butter, boiling the milk then skimming off the cream and churning it just like Mohammed the Indian had done with ice cream. When she wasn’t cooking or caring for us, Clara worked in the local hospital, interpreting for the English-speaking medical staff, so I would happily tag along with her in her long Somali dress, eager to hear their cries when we approached of ‘Ayeeyo timid!’ (Grandma is here!). I watched as she’d sit with the patients before translating for the staff. It was painstaking work but she was caring, kind and gentle. How could I not go into medicine with such remarkable role models?
Her only sadness, I think, was the way my grandfather treated her. She was unusually meek in his presence and still he picked on her. He’d complain, ‘Why is lunch cold?’ or ‘Where’s my coat, woman?’ My mother took after him far more than she did Clara. If ever I had a problem, I’d go to my grandmother, who was my ally and my friend.
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Coming from a household of two different religions was an interesting experience for a child. My father was very religious and at every call to prayer he would stop what he was doing to kneel on his mat. He also attended the mosque every Friday and, as a family, we marked Ramadan and Eid.
My