Call Me American

by Abdi Nor Iftin

  Dad tells us to go back and stay at Mumin’s and that he will go try to find Siciid, who maybe still has his truck and can take us to Baidoa, 150 miles from Mogadishu. So we go back to Mumin’s house, again dodging bullets. While we were gone, the militias had come after emptying the hospital and looted everything in the house. Even the Somali flag is gone, lying in the dust in the street, torn through with bullet holes.

  Three hours later, Siciid’s black truck, stuffed with belongings, kids, and women, appears at the house—Dad sitting on the back side of the truck, the wind blowing his shirt, and so covered with dust I can hardly recognize his face.

  We squeeze in, Mom crouching, holding Nima and me, Dad holding Hassan. We are off to Baidoa. Dad turns to Siciid and asks, “Do you have a couple leaves?” He’s all out of qat. Siciid draws out a handful of leaves and hands them to Dad. He shovels them all in his mouth and chews like a goat as we drive on.

  In about five hundred yards a group of rebels appears in front of us, ordering the truck to stop. One wavy-haired, thin, and dark man points his gun at Siciid. The gunman can barely talk with his mouth full of qat leaves as well. The cigarette in his hand is burning fast in the wind, the ashes flying into the eyes of Siciid. His accent is from Galgaduud region; he is talking fast and looking sideways with the gun on Siciid’s head. Three others are pulling things out of the back. They take all the mattresses right away. My dad watches them take his basketball medals. My mom’s eyes well with tears when they find her necklace of black wenge beads and other jewelry. The basketballs bounce down the road and end up as target practice for young rebels. Finally one of them picks out the red Somalia national basketball shirt and throws it down with the other possessions. My dad just sits there watching his career destroyed in front of his eyes.

  “Who are you people? What is your clan?” asks a gunman.

  “We are Rahanweyn,” says Mom. Maybe they will let us go.

  “Come out of the truck, all of you!”

  Under her shawl Mom is concealing her bag, which contains money and almost everything else my family has left.

  “What is under your garment?” he demands.

  “Cosmetics,” says Mom.

  “Give it to me!” he yells, holding his gun to my head. Mostly I’m scared by how tight the gunman is holding me and how skinny his legs are. And because I’m just a little boy, what also scares me is seeing my mom cry. Never have I seen her cry so hard. He takes the money from her bag, throws it aside, and with a shake of his gun yells, “Be gone!” As a nomad girl, my mom heard stories of the end of the world. “This is what it looks like,” she is thinking. The day the world ends, the sun rises west and sets east. Chaos starts, people kill each other, children get harassed. A scary creature appears. She is thinking the militia leader Aidid must be that creature. But she wonders why the sun is still headed the right way, toward the west.

  * * *

  —

  With nothing left for anyone to steal, we leave Mogadishu on a thin belt of tarmac cutting through a landscape of red sand dotted with thornbushes. The road is crowded, and all of the traffic is in one direction: out of the city. Parked at the side of the road at intervals are more pickup trucks with teenagers dressed in tattered vests sitting in the beds. Many of them have thin cloth scarves wrapped around their heads. They are smoking cigarettes, some with their guns pointing toward the sky, others with them on their laps pointing at the vehicles passing by. Some are in groups celebrating, clapping, cheering, and singing songs. Some of the pickup trucks are already equipped with mounted machine guns on the beds. They are called “technicals” and would become very familiar to me. I watch one truck. The driver must be new behind the wheel because he pushes the gas too hard and everyone in the bed falls backward. They get up laughing, then shove and taunt each other like schoolboys. Sometimes I see them pointing their guns at each other and yelling in strange accents. It’s like a game to them.

  These are militias of the Hawiye clan loyal to Aidid. His forces are the ones looting the government buildings in the city and killing anyone they can find who is loyal to the government or a member of the Darod clan. They arrived at Mogadishu only a day earlier to participate in the uprising. My dad is famous in Mogadishu, and someone from the city who watched him playing basketball wouldn’t deal with him like that. Siciid says he recognizes many of the rebels from his truck journeys around Somalia. They are the faces of nomads who used to lead camels, as my parents once did, but not from the peaceful Rahanweyn lands. These militias come from central Somalia, a place where nomads carry guns to guard their camels. Now they are driving technicals in Mogadishu.

  “How did they get these trucks?” Mom whispers. “By selling milk from their goats?” I don’t think she is being serious. As we continue, I see more vehicles being stopped by the militias. I see someone on the ground being kicked in the head; then I see a corpse. I start to see piles of corpses. One youth is showing another how to shoot a gun. The novice then turns to face a hostage and casually sprays him with bullets as if he were a signpost. Nearby I see a line of about twenty people standing, awaiting execution. I peep my head out of the truck to watch militiamen pushing more people to the line; then two skinny men shoot them all. Their terrible fate is our good luck: the rebels are too busy shooting the people they have pulled out of other cars to stop my family, and we move on. My mom is murmuring passages from the Koran.

  Eventually, we are stopped at another checkpoint manned by about a hundred militiamen, where the air is thick with smoke from tires they are burning at the roadside. A gunman in the road fires across the truck; as Siciid lurches to a stop, they come from all directions, running toward us and climbing onto the back. Nima is crying, Hassan tries to hide behind the jerry can of water, I duck my head, avoiding the guns of rebels jumping into the back of the truck. They drag Dad and Siciid out of the truck and push them facedown in the sand. My dad’s dark sunglasses are beside him; a rebel stoops and picks them up, blows the dust off the lenses, and puts them on his thin face. He shows his militia friends and smiles.

  Dad looks toward us, widening his eyes and giving a small nod of his head to tell us to stay calm. The guy who took the sunglasses now sees my dad’s watch and jerks it from his wrist. He runs toward another group of rebels, proudly holding up the glasses as they watch in boastful celebration. A woman who is not armed jumps into the driver’s seat, where another lady and her kids are hiding. “You left a lady and kids here!” she shouts to the thugs; then she searches under the driver’s seat of Siciid’s truck but finds only a flashlight and a flare. Not satisfied, she turns to the mom of the kids and searches her roughly. She removes her scarf and puts her hand under her guntiino, but she can’t find anything. “You just poor people,” she says with a sour face and slips away from the truck, nothing to steal. She is a middle-aged lady, wearing a long, formal dirac dress with a military cap on her head—an odd combination, I am thinking. She disappears into the crowd of militiamen.

  One of the younger fighters, who looks about sixteen, holds his gun to Siciid’s head. “Let’s kill them.”

  “No,” says an older man. “Our fight is with the Darod clan.”

  The fighters turn their backs on us to argue our fate. Then they pull us up from the back of the truck and tell us to sit by the road. They grab Dad and Siciid and start to drag them away. Dad whispers, “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” After twenty minutes under the hot sun, the militiamen tell us to go, but first they empty the truck of the rest of our few possessions.

  Dad and Siciid appear from an alley and are kicked roughly toward the truck by rebels. They must have been beaten in the alley. Blood is trickling down Siciid’s face, and Dad is also battered, but they manage to climb back into the truck, Siciid in the driver’s seat, Dad in the back. “Are you aboard?” asks Siciid without looking behind.

  “Yes, move on,” says Dad.

  Mom is sobb
ing. “Next time we won’t make it! We will all die! I’m scared for the children, if we don’t make it and they are still alive—they don’t know anything. Where will they go? They’ll die in the desert. Better to die in the city than on this road. Turn around!”

  Siciid is unmoved. “The city is burning and there are more guns there than where we are going.”

  “We’ll make it to Baidoa if Allah wills,” says Dad, “so stay calm.” Mom keeps reciting the Koran with a loud voice and keeps telling us that with her reciting we will be fine. She is wishing she had never lived in Mogadishu. We should have stayed in the bush. Better to contend with the drought and the wild animals than this. It is torture for her to watch my strong dad begging for his life in front of a guy half his size.

  My dad is expecting death anytime. “I’m not afraid of dying,” he tells himself, but he is worried for us and our mom. He too thinks this is the apocalypse.

  Miles out of Mogadishu, there are no more roadblocks, just blowing sand, thornbushes, and lines of stones by the roadside. Later we turn off onto a dirt track and reach a bank of greenery—mango trees, banana palms, watermelon, and long grass—as the road reaches a river. A troop of blue monkeys descends from the trees onto the truck, looking for food; they are always stealing food from people. Their silver faces and blank orange eyes terrify me. Of course we have no food, and no one is interested in the monkeys except me. I look at their swollen cheeks and long fangs and realize I am more afraid of monkeys than guns. Every time the monkeys open their jaws wide, I picture myself getting swallowed. I clutch my mom’s clothes tight, but my parents act like the monkeys are not even there.

  We catch up with a family from our old neighborhood, a short lady with a round face and her three kids, all of them in tears. Dad peeps his head out of the truck; Siciid slows down and asks what happened. The lady says her husband has been taken at the checkpoint. He was a government soldier, and he was recognized by one of the militiamen. Dad and Siciid try to console her, but it only makes her cry more. She is sitting under a thick, tall acacia tree with storks on their nests on top, brushing her tears with her shawl. I am just watching the monkeys run around.

  We reach the edge of the town of Afgooye, its small houses of whitewashed mud bricks with corrugated-iron roofs appearing from beyond the muddy Afgooye River. When my dad played basketball, he traveled this same road at least once every week. He and his teammates would stop by Afgooye to grab some fresh sweet papayas and mangoes. Crowds would build around my dad, curious about his basketball uniform, and he would wave. Today he is struggling to stand on his feet.

  Siciid stops the truck along the roadside for us to relieve ourselves. My mom accompanies Hassan and me down near the river. As I pee, I keep looking around for monkeys that might snatch me from the ground and eat me. There is a woman celebrating the fall of the government, dressed in black and with her head covered; she chatters as we pee. The land all around is a farm. The trees are full of ripe mangoes and bananas. On the ground, fat round watermelons shine beneath a tangle of vines and leaves. The war has not yet engulfed Afgooye, but soon these abundant crops will be destroyed. The lady who is celebrating claims this is her land and says we may not eat her crops. I grab Mom, and as she looks down with her worn face, I touch my belly to show her I am hungry. She says she cannot do anything, but she fetches some water from the muddy river. It seems dirty to me, but I am thirsty, so I drink until my belly fills up.

  The lady in black says government troops have regrouped in a town fifty miles away and are rumored to be heading toward Afgooye. She is anxiously awaiting USC militias before the government soldiers come. The atmosphere is tense.

  The road continues along the side of the river. “Look at the crocodiles! Look, look!” Mom cries. Hassan and I have never seen crocs before.

  One of them crawls back into the water, and to my surprise there is a man standing in the water close to it, his macawis tucked into his belt to keep it above the water. “What is he doing there?” I cry. “He’ll be eaten!”

  “They won’t eat him. He is a bahaar,” says Mom, “someone who has a special friendship with them. He can ride on their backs if he wants, and they will visit his house by the river; sometimes they will stay at his house all night. But other people are not welcomed by the crocodiles; if anyone else comes close to them, they will be killed and eaten. If he stays among the crocodiles now, he’ll be safe from the rebels.” I wish we could stay with the crocodiles, but it is time to move on.

  The dirt track joins the tarmac road again. The scorching sun cools slowly as it slips beneath the dusty horizon. It’s not long before our truck reaches another checkpoint. Burning tires and boulders are in the road to stop the traffic. One of a group of soldiers wearing government military uniforms holds up his hand to stop the car. They still wear the badge of the government’s Supreme Revolutionary Council, with President Siad Barre’s image. They are not rebels! Dad jumps down confidently to meet them. War songs blast out of their cars, with lyrics encouraging the soldiers not to give up but to fight and recapture Mogadishu.

  “We are displaced to Baidoa by the rebels,” Dad says. The soldiers wave him back into the truck to continue the journey. On the way we see another truck carrying displaced people, stalled by the side of the road. The passengers wave and beg to board our truck, but Siciid moves on. He can’t take the risk of bringing people who might be from rival tribes and cause trouble at roadblocks.

  Another half an hour and we see a military vehicle blocking the road ahead—another checkpoint by soldiers loyal to President Siad Barre, with their flag still flying. They have tanks and heavy trucks with machine guns, also bazookas and ground-to-air missiles. Some shots ring out and we turn to see a group of half a dozen people fall to the ground, their bodies trembling as blood pours onto the sand. “These soldiers are the Marehan,” Siciid murmurs to Mom. She knows what that means: The Marehan are the same tribe of the Darod clan as the president, but they are not regular army like the last soldiers we saw. They are the diehards loyal to their tribe, unlike many soldiers who burned their uniforms and disappeared into the bush when the rebels came. They don’t care about the government, they are just seeking revenge against the tribes who kicked them out of the city. There are so many sides in this war, and I am too young to understand it.

  Siciid turns the truck suddenly, but guns are now aimed at us from all directions. A bullet shatters the wing mirror close to me, almost deafening my left ear. Siciid stops the truck. Three soldiers run up; one strikes Siciid’s head with the butt of his gun and drags him onto the ground. All three are hitting Siciid with their rifle butts. Mom pushes us down to keep us safe from the bullets. One man in a military shirt and hat but civilian trousers comes to the window where I am hiding. He looks down and with his dirty hands pulls my head to see me, but I hold hard. “Stupid child!” he says, then walks away.

  Dad remains motionless, hidden behind the jerry can. A soldier looks at us. “Who are you?”

  “We are a poor family,” Mom pleads. “We are displaced to Baidoa by the fighting.”

  “Where is your husband?”

  “I have no husband. He disappeared. They have killed many people, and the bodies of the innocents are all along the road.” I look at the soldier’s eyes and wonder why he wants to kill us. What did I do?

  “Come down from the truck, woman, and bring your children down as well!”

  “We will not! We have done nothing, we are just a woman and her children; why do you want to kill us?”

  “Asalaamu aleikum!”—Peace be upon you!

  It is my dad’s voice. Dad decides to show himself, brave as always. “These are my kids and wife, I am taking them to the safety of the bush.” But before he finishes what he wants to say, the butt of a gun smashes into his head. I watch in despair as the blood of my tall, strong, proud dad soaks into his shirt. Now he is on his knees in front of a tiny,
dark militiaman.

  Then a voice calls out from the group of fighters. “Nur Dhere!”—Tall Nur! A man runs over to Dad. In joy they shake hands and hug each other. My mom cannot hold back her tears.

  “Ahmed, Ahmed!” Dad says. Ahmed is a traffic officer from Mogadishu and a friend of my dad’s. He is as tall as Dad, with thick glasses and a large mustache. They start talking about their time during the peace together and remembering the games Ahmed attended, games that Dad won for the national team. Ahmed thanks Dad for a time when my dad gave him money. The soldiers, noticing this exchange, turn to the truck behind us. Siciid, still crumpled on the ground, utters prayers of thanks. The soldiers storm the next truck, and another one behind it. Ahmed and Dad are still talking. Ahmed asks Dad what he saw on the road and if the Hawiye militias are advancing south to Afgooye. For a moment we feel safe and unharmed, but we can hear the cries of the women being beaten in the next truck and imagine it happening to us.

  Siciid joins Dad and Ahmed, who reaches into his pocket for a cigarette to share. They talk a few more minutes while Dad and Siciid take turns puffing on the smoke. Mom sits on the ground helping Nima pee. Behind us, soldiers are dragging people from the trucks and shooting them. Whenever the soldiers fire, I flinch and duck behind my mom. Ahmed keeps talking to my dad and Siciid while his fellow soldiers shoot and beat families in the trucks behind us. My poor mom watches with her hand on her head.

  After a few minutes the cigarette is finished and we leave. Mom’s face is shining wet with tears of joy. “We’ve survived again!” she cries to Siciid when we speed off. “We have another day to live!” The road ahead is safer, and we are close to Baidoa. Ahmed had promised his soldiers would not attack Baidoa; he said they were going back to recapture Mogadishu and that the war would never reach Baidoa. My parents have smiles on their faces for the first time in days, but they should not have trusted Ahmed. Troops from his tribe would soon attack Baidoa and kill Rahanweyn people indiscriminately. Ahmed would carry a gun for another four years until being killed by Aidid’s militias in a shoot-out in Mogadishu.