Sorry for not posting anything for so long but I have been crazy busy. Insh’Allah I hope to have my new story up by this Friday. It will be posted in parts. Hope you enjoy it!

Happy Independence Day to all my Somaliland readers!!!!

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 ”I tell ya, Hargeisa is the solution to all our problems!” remarks my friend Guled as were standing in the long line at Starbucks. “We’ll become rich millionaires and  be able to retire before we’re thirty!”

Have you ever watched those infomercials on television in which they advertise these amazing new products that will magically solve all your problems and change your life forever? Well, listening to my friend Guled speak about Hargeisa is a similar experience. 

Guled’s family is originally from the Somaliland region of Somalia, although Guled had not become aware of this fact until after our first year of university. Before than he had simply been Somali and like many other people raised in the Diaspora had been indifferent to that fact for much of his life–that is until one summer when his parents insisted he take a trip to Hargeisa. After that summer he had become different from the rest of us—he had become a “Somalilander!”

Somaliland became his obsession and telling the world he was from there. He purchased a “I heart Somaliland” bumper sticker for his car, and hang up a Somaliland flag in his dorm room. He bought all the maps he could find that showed Somaliland borders as being distinctly separate from Somalia’s. He formed a Somaliland student association at our university which was pretty impressive since we did not even have a Somali student association, and he made sure never to miss any Somaliland fundraisers or May 18th party. He even managed to get permission to write his graduating thesis on Somaliland—which was impressive since his major was Molecular Biology.

Since graduation, however, he’s become obsessed with moving to Somaliland permanently and starting a business. He’s got it into his head that by simply going there we’ll somehow become rich.

“I tell ya, it’s the future! But you have to go now—while there are still business opportunities. This is the time when people like the Rockefeller  are made!”

Love it or hate it you have to admit Somaliland does have its charm—the major one being that its the only place in former Somalia that is peaceful.  The idea of living among people who speak the same language, have the same culture— in peaceful!

“What type of business do you have in mind?” I ask him, tempted slightly be the idea.

“Hotel, restaurant, tourism, transportation—-anything!—-Any type of business will turn you rich.”

“But you forget, I’m not from there….” I remind him.

“That does not matter! Everyone lives in Hargeisa nowadays—that is so long as you’re not against the idea of Somaliland as a separate country. Somalilanders have a great deal of respect for Somali people that support Somaliland—-Just look at the welcome we gave Maryam Mursal when she came to Hargeisa! And of course you support Somaliland, don’t you?”  He asks sure of a positive responds.

I don’t know. I really don’t. Sure as a Somali I’m proud to see other fellow Somalis succeed, but the idea of breaking up Somalia—–what happened to the Nationalism of the 50s and 60s? Was it also one of the many causalities of the civil war? On the other hand, as Guled argues, is it fair to force Somaliland to remain attached to nation bent on self destruction? Twenty years of war is a long time, and to make things worse there is no end insight. I want a country to visit, to take  my children to in the future and teach them about their culture and heritage. After all, even the ultra nationalistic K’naan went to Hargeisa. Maybe Guled is right, Hargeisa is the future!

“Count me in!” I say, extend my hand out to him.

Shaking hands with me, he grins widely and says, “You won’t regret it my friend! You’ll see, we’ll become the next Dahabshiil!”

I especially would  like to thank everyone who took the time to join the fan page for this blog on Facebook. You’re all awesome!!! And to the people who subscribed to this blog—You’re all awesome too!!! Continue to help support this blog by telling your friends and family about it.

 I will be posting a new story this week so stay tuned—facebook fans and blog subscribers will be informed as soon as it’s posted.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/edit/?id=119632554719652#!/pages/I-love-reading-the-stories-on-Lost-in-Nostalgia/119632554719652

“There are no Somali guys worth marrying,” the liberal sister stated. “They’re all such losers. No ambition, no drive, no interest. They’re all just wanna be thugs.”  Then a ten minute rant bashing Somali men followed. As the liberal minded sister continued on her rant, I couldn’t help but smirked to myself because I had been expected the conversation to ‘go there’. Never have a group of Somali women gather without complaining about Somali men. However, these days the vitriol seems to have intensified and who could blame them? We as Somali men have given them plenty of reasons to be angry with us. Many of the older Somali men living aboard have abandoned their families to return home in search of political glory and new young wives. Their sons having no father figures to look up to have mostly become “gangstas”  and ended up in jail, if not dead. But though Somali women have always complained about Somali men, they have always stood by us, and support us…that is until this new generation.

The conversation between the two Somali sister from there then turned to marrying outside the Somali community. The liberal minded sister said she would consider marrying a non-Somali, and the other sister asked her if the stigmatism attached to that would not bother her. “Who are they to judge me?” she replied.  In fact, more and more brighter sisters have chosen to look elsewhere for husbands feeling our community has nothing to offer them. 

What’s significant about the new generation of young Somali adults is that because of the civil war many of us were either born or raised aboard. We’ve had to learn quickly how to blend our parents’ traditions, expectations, and culture with that of the new country in which we were raised. This is a delicate balancing act and there are few people who have managed to successfully balance both. Many have been lost through large gaps that exist between the two cultures, others have succeed and still other believed they have succeed but are truly lost.  The guys in jail and who think they’re thugs are the most obvious example of failure but the not so obvious example is the liberal minded sister in the story. She personifies perfectly the Somali who thinks that they are so high above their own race that they can bash them in public. She may have been successful at school but she still lacked a great deal of decorum and culture.

As I got up from my table to head to class I passed by the table the Somali sisters were sitting at and placed a card on it. “There’s still some successful Somali guys around. We’re not all extinct yet.” I said giving them a cocky smile, before walking off. The liberal sister picked up the card and read my name, “Mahad Omar, Ph.D candidate Political Science”.  She starred after me too surprised to speak.

It was the weekend, and like every weekend I had headed home back to my small town to visit my family.

“Awoowo, it’s only 5C degrees out–we’re having lovely weather for this time of year!” I exclaim. He looks at the thin sweater I have on.

“You’ll catch pneumonia wearing that!” he remarks. ” And why are all the windows rolled down! Why are you letting in that fridge winter air? Do you want us to freeze to death!”

I quickly roll up the windows instantly, preventing any more of the lovely spring breeze from entering the car.

“Turn on the heat! It’s freezing in here!” my grandfather commands. That’s just his way, everything he said was an order to be followed immediately. 

My grandfather is a relict from another time. No one knew how old he is for certain, although my siblings and I estimate that he must be well over a hundred years old, based on his claims that he lived through the Mad Mullah war and even fought in it. He had been the son of a nomadic camel herder. He acquired all of his initial education on the open landscapes of Somalia. When he was about 10, he was sent to the city to live with wealthy relatives so that he could acquire a formal education.  He, however, dropped out by the age of 14 and began working. 

He was my link to my homeland. It was his stories of Somalia in its glory days that had taught me to be proud of who I was and where I was from. It was his insistence that I only speak Somali to him that forced me to learn my native tongue. In short, it was he who had kept Somalia alive in our household when it could have been easily forgotten.

 ”How was the coffee shop tonight Awoowo?” I ask him cheerfully. Ever since I can remember my grandfather has been going to the coffee shop near our home, to meet other Somali men and discuss the current politic situation in Somalia.

“Horrible! They’ll never stop fighting!” he says angrily. “Take me home quick! I don’t want to miss the BBC.”

BBC news service was a staple in every Somali household in the world. At first people listened in hopes of hearing an end to the war, but now  like an old habit whose origins where long forgotten and long ago been deemed dispensable, they continued to listen simply for the sake of listening.

My grandfather’s life centered around Somalia: from his breakfast conversation with my father, about what some politician had said or another did, to his daily discuss at the coffee shop and finally the Somali BBC service in the evening which would supply him with fresh news to discuss the next day, and thereby completing the cycle.

“I don’t know why you listen to it anyway–the news is always the same— more fighting and more deaths. All it does is raise your blood pressure. They won’t stop fighting! Not until every single person is dead,” I remark as I stop at a red light. “We have a new life here now, awoowo, you should start listening to the news from here. This is now our home.”

“A young man like yourself, my boy, who was raised here and educated here and understands these people’s way of life,  may make this place truly their home but an old man like me can not. I am too old, my boy–far to old to have to endure this change,” the expression on his face changing to more  melancholy expression, his eyes become fixed on some far off object in the distance.

“I want to go home” he says sounding exhausted and sad.

“We’re almost home awoowo,’ I reply, worried at his sudden change.

“No boy! I want to go to my real home! I don’t understand this country, these people—I want to see my real home—the village I was born in—one last time before I die!” He says emphatically. “Promise me this one thing?”

“Anything,” I reply becoming increasingly concerned.

“Promise you’ll make sure that when I die I will be buried alongside my father and grandfather in our village. That I wouldn’t be buried in this frozen ground, but in the warm rich soil of my homeland. Promise me this!”

I give him the desired promise, unsure how I would ever be able to fulfill it.

“You’re a good boy!” He says.

The rest of the drive is silent.

“Thesaurus,” answers Amina, my cubicle neighbour, as she types away on her computer.

“Thesaurus?” I replied confused.

“As in use a Thesaurus.”

“I’ve already googled the word, and I don’t like any of the terms I got back,” I explain, scrolling down my computer screen.

She stands up and places a small thesaurus on my desk. “At the risk of sounding old fashioned I suggest looking through that. It might prove to be more useful…but you’ll never know unless you try.”

The patronizing tone of her voice irritates me, and I gave her a look that conveys this. Indifferently, she takes her seat and begins to type again. God, I hate you, I think to myself. From my first day of work, a little over six months, when I was assigned my cubicle, I’ve tried to be friendly to Amina, not only because she was my cubicle neighbour but because she was the only other Somali working at the company, and all I received in return was a patronizing, sarcastic, attitude, which was delivered in a lethargic manner.

Coming from a small town, with very few Somalis, I feel an instant sense of kinship whenever I see a Somali person. Unfortunately, the Somalis in the big city I’m currently living in are nothing like the ones from my small town. I remember one day standing in the line at Starbucks, when I noticed the girl taking the orders at the front. Immediately my Somali radar went off!

When I finally reached the front of the line, the girl indifferently asks to take my order. I give her a big smile before telling her what I wanted. As I pay for my order, I causally ask her if she’s Somali.

She fixes her eyes on me for the first time, “Why do you want to know?” she asked suspiciously.

“Oh…uhmm…well…you see… because I’m Somali and I thought you looked Somali, that’s why,” I explain in a friendly tone of voice.

She looked me up and down, before replying, “You don’t look Somali.”

“Oh… I…don’t…” but I never get to finish what I was saying because she cut me off by calling, “NEXT!”

That’s basically how all the Somalis I’ve met so far are. When I had initially moved to the big city I had such hopes of being able to connect to my community, and within the first month of my arrival all those hopes were dashed.

One day though I was finally enlightened to the reason. I had been working late at the office and running late for dinner with my friends I decided to call for a cab. The cab driver turned out to be a friendly middle aged Somali man…in fact the first friendly Somali I had met since arriving in town.

“I could tell you are Somali!” he said grinning at me through the rare view mirror. “That long pointy nose,” he touches the tip of his nose, “That is a Somali nose!”

He begins asking me about what I do and I reply that I’m a Junior Executive of Managerial accounting. I like to throw that title around whenever I want to impress people. Technically, it means I sit in a small box all day crunching numbers and get paid poorly for it, but to the average Somali when I tell them my title they think I’m the CEO of the company! My mother also throws this title around whenever she meets the mother of a girl she thinks I should marry. Like all Somali mothers, my mother has been planning my wedding since I was born and having all the details worked out all she needs now is to find the girl that would make her the perfect daughter in law.

The taxi driver seems impressed by the title too and tells me how we need more Somali young men like myself in the community. He asks me then if I know any Somalis in town and I tell him I don’t.

“Good! Good!” he replies. “You know these Somali people. They are no good. They just get you in trouble or they want something from you. It is better to stay away. I tell my children when you see Somalis don’t talk to them…they are just trouble!”

I simply nod along as listen to him speak. “A good boy like you should stay away from Somalis. Far away!”

He drops me off at the restaurant and as a pay him he gives me his card and tells me to call his cell number whenever I need a cab.

As I take his card I wonder if when he said ‘stay away from Somalis,’ that included him too. I don’t have much time to ponder this though as I’m already late for dinner with my friends.