Under the circumstances, it was no longer safe for the Adals to use public transport to hasten the delivery of their catch, and so they were forced to negotiate the unforgiving desert on foot. Thus, by the time they returned home, the trophy was in such bad condition that they were required to prove they had not robbed someone’s grave.
Young Adal men do not like the government.
* * *
DURING THE EXODUS it was necessary to travel as part of a group. Survival depended on numbers. Fetching food took more than one person, getting medicine took connections and finding out when the water truck would be coming before it became public knowledge took a reliable information source. Water was rationed and many would spend a full day in line, under the scorching heat, to get their daily supply. With more than twenty thousand refugees leaving Jijiga, the barest necessities of life were purchased by constant struggle.
I had a personal reason for wanting to associate myself with a group of men that I was not related to. I had seen people who stepped on anti-personnel mines lose their limbs, sustain pitiful wounds and still live, becoming a liability to their loved ones. In a journey where the clothes on your back felt like a burden, where food was an expensive rarity and basic medication was nowhere to be found, it would be selfish to expect others to care for you. I had resolved, early on, that if I ever ran into such a predicament, Mam would not be forced to decide what to do with me. I relegated the decision, unknown to her, to a group of young men whose animal instincts I could rely on.
The group that I belonged to consisted of a young officer from the infantry, also a native of Jijiga, and two boys I had known by sight as I was growing up. The four of us roamed together in the morning, giving vent to our boyish imaginations, pretending to be detectives in search of Somali infiltrators. In truth, we were scrounging for anything that could possibly be of use to our dependents. We hunted for flour, cooking oil, dried beef, Aspirin, bandages and anything else of practical value. Most of the time we bought the items, but sometimes we were able to trade them for some service we could deliver. Afternoons were spent in the shade, chewing chat, which besides being a mild stimulant was also a very good appetite suppressant. I would return to Mam and the kids with the morning’s bounty and again before sunset to see if they required anything else.
I usually took my meals with my new friends, but sometimes ate with my family. The food Mam offered us was typical for the refugee camp: stale bread and a soup prepared from dried lentils or beans. There was seldom cooking oil, salt was a luxury, and the word “spice” raised eyebrows. If the soup appeared to be brown, it was because the water itself was that colour.
Meals became sacred to us. They required our complete and undivided attention. One’s mind was occupied only by the sensation of each small bite of stale bread as it broke against the teeth, by the barely discernible taste of the watery soup. Meals became exercises in the subtle detection of small differences, today a tiny pinch of salt in the bean soup, another day the effect of a slightly better grade of water. Mealtime, however, never passed without disruptions from unwelcome visitors. Flies hovered above our plates. Vultures carved circles in the sky.
Flies had always been part of my life. The flies that I knew in Jijiga were shy creatures, timid, never keen on confrontation. They were never known to be upright citizens, exemplary subjects, but were nevertheless accepted as part of the family, every family. They slept on the family bed, used the family washroom and dining room, and partook in funerals. They never said thank you for the free meal they received, but at least they knew when to call it quits. You only needed to wink an eye and they were already gone. During the exodus, however, these winged creatures became so aggressive, so outrageously arrogant, that they had to receive a good spanking before they would so much as stretch a wing, signifying to me the change that everyone had to go through in order to weather the relentless storm.
Beetles and bugs could get into pots hung from the moon. They were a terrible nuisance, scurrying onto your plate, reminding you that even your watery bowl of soup had already been another’s meal. Throwing out anything was unthinkable. Eating it while you knew full well that it had already been tasted was repulsive. But hunger demanded compromises. The beetles received a spoonful of the territory they had claimed and you worked to keep the rest.
However hard we compromised, food ran out barely days after we’d left Jijiga. We were still camped in the valley and hoping to return home, when the last cup of dried lentils was emptied into the cooking pot, the grain bag folded and placed in the storage sack. There was a flourishing black market for foodstuffs, but only the very rich could afford to purchase any of the items.
The army decided to help. It identified the perpetrators and profiteers responsible for the black-market monopoly on flour, cooking oil and salt. The guilty were brought out with their hands tied behind them so that the public could note that the enemy was also within. Most of them were familiar faces, merchants from the Gurage ethnic group who have earned a reputation as gifted entrepreneurs. It didn’t come as a surprise to me that some unscrupulous merchants considered the present war to be yet another business opportunity, a once-in-a-lifetime chance to make a fast buck. I was even understanding. I asked myself: who would not be tempted to exploit the unprecedented opportunity that the exodus opened up for traders of consumable items?
But since I was one of the exploited victims, and since what I could and could not have determined whether I would or would not live, I was also enraged. I was glad that they were going to be shamed in public. What I bore witness to next was, however, something beyond my comprehension.
It was a beautiful desert morning, the air was still and cool and the sun had just broken over the cliffs. The valley we settled in was peaceful, as the bombers had rained napalm on the enemy holdings the day before. Just after dawn, eleven men were lined up against those mute cliffs and shot dead. They were the unscrupulous merchants.
Some thought that the execution was a noble idea. They believed, mistakenly, that other merchants would learn their lesson from the massacre and put a harness on their eternal greed. As it turned out, the markets dried up altogether. There was no flour to be had by anyone, no cooking oil, no dried beef—nothing. No one would admit to ever having been involved in selling foodstuffs. The ones who benefited from this drastic measure were the soldiers, who divided among themselves the confiscated goods, but after a short while, as the supplies were eaten up, even they became victims of their own poor judgment.
Two days passed and I had not had anything to eat. I chewed chat. The acidic juice of the leafy plant burned holes in my stomach, heart and spirit. I drank water to extinguish the fire building up inside of me, but the warm liquid stirred up something in my stomach and I felt terribly nauseated. I attempted to stand up but my head spun, my vision blurred and I could not find my legs.
I decided to quit chewing chat and guzzling water until I found something to eat. I sipped a bit of water from time to time and lay in the meagre shade of an acacia tree, puzzling out a food source. Hunger was nothing new to me. My guerrilla résumé was punctuated by episodes of hunger, thirst and want. What I could not get used to was the hunger inside of hunger, that brief moment of ravenousness that came after your stomach had falsely promised to go without food.
Looking around, all I could see were vultures and weeds. I wondered where the gazelles had gone, the antelopes and spurfowls. This was not the Ogaden I knew. It was a different realm, a place where humans had squeezed all of the vivacity out of the earth. For once, I wished I was a bird.
Not surprisingly, the hunger was particularly tough on my brother Henok, who at three years of age was the youngest of the seven children in our family. The boy cried himself to sleep, and after the second day of going without food it seemed that he would never wake up again. Mam soaked a piece of rag in water and squeezed it between his chapped lips. She told him stories, and promised him that very soon he would have all the food that he could
eat, but he did not seem to hear.
I knew that I had to get the boy something to eat, and soon, or I would never see him again. Abraha, my officer friend, thought that he could help. He picked up his bag and went limping towards his fellow soldiers. Abraha had been exempted from his front-line duties ever since he had been wounded. He had recovered much of his health while still in Jijiga, but the war had left him with a bad leg and only three fingers on his left hand. He still served in the army, but in a much humbler position. He spent most of his days with us, his civilian buddies. The young officer had come to terms with the fact that life in uniform was no longer for him, and planned to go to college and pursue a civilian career as a teacher as soon as the war ended.
Abraha wasn’t married, but his older sister had been widowed by the war, and she and her three young kids relied on him a great deal. While in Jijiga, he had visited the family quite often, helping control her two young boys with his army-like discipline. Now, he also had to see that they did not starve to death or wander among the minefields.
* * *
ABRAHA HAD BEEN gone a long time, because when I opened my eyes the sun was staring me in the face. The shadow of the tree had shifted. I decided to get up and stretch my legs, but I was so weak that I staggered and fell.
From the crowded distance, I noticed my officer friend emerge with the life-saving goods in hand. He brought along a large loaf of bread, three cans of corned beef and four bags of intravenous fluids, which, he explained, were saline water and glucose. He poured a portion of both fluids into a tin can, mixed this with a bit of water and gave it to me to drink. He then opened one of the cans, and handed me the odd-tasting meat. It didn’t take long before my energy was restored and I was able to walk. The two of us took the remaining foodstuffs to Mam and the kids.
The loaf of bread attracted many eyes. I was stopped on the way by desperate mothers, some begging a piece of bread for their withering children, others offering me a sizeable sum of money. But I did not have much to spare. Mam shot out of her seat when she saw the staff of life and hugged me, her fragile body unsteady and trembling. While holding Henok’s sleeping body close to her chest, she bowed and thanked the officer with an awkwardness I have seldom seen in her. I noticed that she had already lit a fire, and that a pot was hanging over it. I opened the pot. Mam snatched the lid from my hand and replaced it. But not before I saw what was simmering. The children were sitting around the fire, their eyes glazed with anticipation.
“It is weed that you are boiling,” I whispered to Mam. “How do you know that it is not poisonous?”
“If animals could eat it and live, who says that we can’t?” Mam argued, radiating the wit and confidence that I had always admired in her, undefeated even in these tumultuous times, when death was staring her and her family in the face. Mam reminded me of the story of “Resourceful Kebede” and repeated the fable to the kids once more.
* * *
ONCE UPON A time there was a young man named Kebede. He was a student who lived in Gonder. He travelled from village to village learning kinae. After ten years, he had learned all the kinae in the land and decided to go back to his home village to teach poetry.
A goat who had heard him read his kinae out loud every morning thought that Kebede still had a lot to learn. “Your kinae are good, but not as good as those of the blind monk who passed by here two days ago,” the goat remarked.
Kebede thought that the angels had spoken to him. He got down on his knees and started praying.
“Praying won’t help your kinae. Go and catch up with the blind monk before he falls off the edge of the world. You might learn something from him,” the goat advised. Kebede realized that it was the goat talking.
“You can talk!” he said, surprised.
“Of course I can talk. What do you think I am, dumb?” the goat replied, clearly irritated.
“Why haven’t you talked all these years?” Kebede wondered.
“Because I had never before heard such terrible kinae as yours. Everybody knows that goats love poems, and that they love kinae above all. Don’t waste any more of my time, or yours. Go and catch up with that blind monk,” the goat urged.
“Which way did he go?” Kebede asked.
The goat stood on a high boulder, raised his head high and indicated with his chin the direction in which the monk had gone. “That way, and hurry. He must be at the edge of the Earth by now,” the goat advised.
Kebede quickly packed a small bag of clothes. He threw a sheepskin over his shoulders for the cold nights, and found a good sharp stick for a weapon. He then locked the door of his hut and began walking after the blind monk. He walked for two days and two nights without rest, searching for the learned man. On his way he met many merchants, and each told him that the monk was still far ahead. Because the monk was blind, they offered, he could walk much faster.
On the third day, Kebede was too overcome with hunger to walk. He was also very tired, as he had not slept in two days. He stopped at a nearby hut, and knocked on the door for help. A young maid opened the door.
“Yes, can I help you?” she asked. Her eyes brimmed with pity as she looked at the stranger.
“May God be with you, ma’am, I am a student on a long journey. I need a place to stay for the night.” Kebede bowed, pleading.
“A home is to be shared with God’s children. Do come in, don’t stand in the rain,” the young lady offered. She gave Kebede a dry netela to wrap himself in and a dappled cow’s hide to rest on. She then took his wet clothes and hung them by the fireside to dry.
Kebede was very hungry and hoped that the lady would offer him something to eat. But she did not. The night deepened. Hyenas howled outside and dogs barked. Kebede was going to spend another night without food, unless he was very clever.
“Ma’am, have you ever heard of stew made of pebbles? It’s a new dish. Even the King has a taste for it,” he said.
“Did you say a stew of pebbles?” the lady asked, unsure of what she had heard.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“My, my, my. Living long is good. There is something new to be learned every day. Do you happen to know how it is made?” the lady asked, quite interested.
“Yes, ma’am. It happens to be my specialty,” Kebede replied, smiling. As the lady nodded her encouragement, he walked outside, returning with five black pebbles, which he washed and dried.
“What I need now are two heads of onion,” Kebede requested. And when the young lady brought the onions, he asked for a bit of cooking oil. Kebede peeled the onions, diced them and browned them in the cooking pot. He added some water to the pot and carefully placed the five pebbles in it.
“Pebble stew tastes better when it is spicy. Would you happen to have a dash of hot pepper and a pinch of salt?” he asked.
The lady fetched the spices from the back of the room, and sat down beside Kebede once more, watching the pot with great interest. Kebede added the spices to the pot. The aroma of the pebble stew was pleasing to the young lady, and she smiled.
“The King would never touch pebble stew without lentils or beans. It takes only half a cup,” Kebede suggested. The young lady dashed behind the curtain once more and brought the lentils. She wanted to eat precisely as the King did, and her appetite was primed by visions of the King’s guarded kitchen. She wouldn’t have the pebble stew any other way.
Kebede washed the grains, before mixing them with the pebbles. He then lowered the heat and waited while the pebble stew simmered. Before long it was ready.
“All we need now is a loaf of bread or some injera,” Kebede said.
The young lady was very eager to taste the stew of pebbles and she dashed behind the curtain once more, coming back with four large loaves of bread. Kebede emptied the stew onto a large plate and the two of them shared the meal.
The dish was unlike anything the lady had ever tasted before. She liked it exceedingly, and thanked the gods for sending her such a bright and resourceful young man, one
who could teach her a skill that none of her neighbours had. The two ate their fill, leaving nothing behind. Except the five black pebbles.
The next day the young lady asked Kebede to marry her. She did not wish to lose this resourceful man to any other woman. The couple were married a week later in the church of Medhane Alem. One of the dishes served at the banquet was five-pebble stew.
And so, the resourceful Kebede had provided himself not only with dinner, but with a good wife as well.
* * *
THE EXODUS CLAIMED more civilian lives than military. A good number of people were killed or maimed when they stepped on anti-personnel mines that were buried under the roads and hidden on trails in the jungle. Many more were killed by the persistent cannon fire.
The cannons were predictable. They began slowly in the morning, ceasing altogether at lunch, while somewhere far away distant Somalis chewed on chat. The stimulant sharpened their senses; eyes were glazed and alertness heightened by midafternoon, bringing on a predictable fit of frenzied cannon fire around 3 P.M. The targets were initially military supplies and personnel, but eventually the cannon fire became random, landing anywhere inside the settlement. But people no longer tried to dodge the bombs; they merely continued with their daily chores.
About a week after we left Jijiga, as I lay in the afternoon shade, I was reminded by my friends that it was my turn to fetch water. No one likes to fetch water, as it often means standing in line for hours, waiting for a truck that may or may not arrive that day, and may or may not run out of water before your turn, making it necessary to return to the same line the very next day and go through the waiting process again.
When I arrived, the line extended for half a kilometre before me. I hoped that this would be one of those days when the army would arrive with a few trucks of water, making it possible to have a shower as well. The dark dust had formed a thin caked layer over my skin, and the colour of my shirt had long ago been rendered completely unrecognizable. As I ran over my petty calculations, gazing at the bright blue sky, I heard distant explosions. Looking at my watch I saw that it was 4:15. The cannons were right on schedule.
Notes from the Hyena's Belly Page 19
