on why Somalis feel the need to argue/debate every single moment they get the tiniest chance? From politics and how to govern Somalia to getting into a car when there is several of them, they will spend ridiculous amount of time arguing who will sit where and who should go in first or sit at the front. In politics they will argue about silly things like should president Sharif shake Hillary Clinton's hand! Meanwhile children are starving of malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea and all sorts of preventable deseases. The women are struggling to make ends meet to feed their families because their men are either too busy debating on pointless issues or fighting pointless wars.
Fast forward to the Daispora and similar issues are taking place; they will spend however long to argue outside of Starbucks and point the finger at xildhibaan (MP) so and so. A few days ago I went to get some food at this restaurant in Virginia and stumbled upon two Somalis debating whether this Somali guy who was apparently interviewed on the BBC's speech would've been better if he didn't 'uhm' so much!!! One was passionately arguing this guy sounded unprofessional and lacked knowledge because of his 'uhms'! I pray for these people. Why should this matter? Isn't the content of his peech more important to pay attention to?
The world wonders why Somalia is in such turmoil when her people are too blind to acknowledge what they are doing to themselves but yet pay particular attention to the style of one's conversation.
Anyway now that my rant is out of the way, my past two weeks have been productive, particularly my weekends. I spent the weekend before last at the library and at Dupont Circle reading and buying books. The library has become my little sanctuary ever since I moved here but unfortunately I haven't had much time to spend there lately due to crazy work commitments so I was happy to have that weekend to spend there. I fell in love with one particular book; notes from the hyena's belly written by an Ethiopian author called Nega Mezlekia. The book is so vividly written, I feel like I know the streets of Jigjiga though I've never been there. Admirable piece of work.
Whilst in Dupont I went to a gathering organised by the Young African Professionals with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, one of my favourite authors. The woman breathes life into African literature with her work and is even more captivating in real life. The gathering was so huge, people were standing and seated on the floor! There were so many different people there representing the whole continent from Ethiopia and Zambia to South Africa, Namibia, Nigeria and Senegal (I think I was the only one that repped for Somalia though). I had a great time.
During the working week my rested body was put to good use; I was working back to back covering the Africom event at the State Department and the Africare memorial dinner (which was a blast by the way as we had the pleasure of being entertained by John Legend who received the humanitarian award and Angelique Kidjo) on top of the usual running around in the office chasing news. Finally my body gave in yesterday after I came from work and I slept from 4pm to 3am! Woke up this morning totally rejuvenated though lol.
What saddened me at work last week though was this young Somali lady who was impregnated by one of the AMISOM peacekeeping forces from Uganda and then had to put up with the curse that is sometimes Somali culture. The lady never intended to marry this man but he made this an ultimatum to cure her sick father as he was in an AMISOM hospital where this soldier worked as one of the doctors. As she complied, she was shunned and harrassed by her own family when they found out. She was moved to Uganda by the Ugandan officials and the soldier was sentenced to 18months in prison as he broke international peacekeeping laws. However the lady was left with a baby to take care of, no regular income and no support from her community. Furthermore she found out he wasn't a Muslim and the marriage ceremony was done the Islamic way. We interviewed her and as she shared with us her story, she couldn't help but weep every so often. I couldn't help being moved.
I'm wondering if it is just me or is time really going faster than ever. I can't believe we're in November already. I was made to realise this point as I was doing my grocery shopping earlier on and Christmas stuff was already out. I'm trying to stay with the times though having done all my interviews and recorded audio material for my Horn series, which is in the editing stage right now so look out for it in your google alerts sometime in the near future!
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