He had the air of a contented man, even when he opened his eyes and didn’t meet her in his house, in any of the rooms he entered. He gave a start when he heard a high-pitched whistle and then saw a half-collared kingfisher in the kitchen, settled in the very chair where Duniya might have been.
The kingfisher, exempt from giving explanations, flew out.
Smile-shy, Bosaaso moved quietly about his kitchen, as if not wishing to disturb a guest still asleep somewhere in the building. He waited for the water in the kettle to boil. He caressed the teapot’s spout, as if fondling a cow’s teats to make it yield more milk, the to-and-fro movements of his hand gentle and elegant. Gradually he indulged the memory of a scene from the past, remembering the world he had shared with his late wife. Current obsessions intruded into his mind only when he noticed he had set the breakfast table for two, placing plates, mats and cutlery in front of the chair where the kingfisher had sat.
Bosaaso had bought the china set from a Danish woman returning to Copenhagen after a three-year stint with a Scandinavian voluntary aid organization. The woman insisted she was selling the set “dirt cheap,” more or less “giving it away.” He paid a token sum, ten US dollars, since Ingrid demanded that he pay something, anything. Being African, he felt uneasy offering a meagre five dollars for a set of china that had survived nine years in Mogadiscio (the woman had herself bought it from an Englishwoman who worked with another voluntary aid outfit, War on Want, and had paid in sterling).
In his memory, as he sat down to breakfast facing “Duniya’s” chair, Ingrid the Danish woman was pale, with lipstick so bright red he couldn’t look at it without squinting. She had a heavy accent and spoke fast, spraying forth missiles of saliva that darted from her mouth with worrying speed. Her front teeth were artificial, the top halves white, the bottom very dark.
Bosaaso and Yussur, his late wife, had gone to Ingrid’s to see what second-hand items they could buy at a discount. The idea of calling on her was Yussur’s and the two women turned the session into a discussion about the philosophical and cultural aspects of giving and receiving gifts. Bosaaso listened, fascinated. They addressed the winning points of the debate to him. Ingrid generalized about the exchange of gifts in Europe, saying among other things, that in her continent one might offer a hand-me-down to a friend or a poor relation who was hard up; but the notion of giving for its own sake was alien, and not as habit-forming as in Somalia. Occasions were important, not the gifts, she said. Christmas was a season in which everyone participated in an orgy of giving and receiving.
Yussur listened, shaking her head, hackles rising, whenever Ingrid made a condescending remark about Africans. Bosaaso found it rewarding to analyse the crop of the Danish woman’s generalizations; it was when she came to specifics that her logic began to crumble.
At one point Ingrid said, “This china, for instance, has survived for almost ten years in the caring hands of Europeans who knew how to appreciate such a treasure.” Then, injecting disappointment into her voice Ingrid added, “It makes me sad to think that you, Yussur, may behave like these Apfricans all over the place who have no idea how to take care of sensitive gadgets with souls, like a car, a computer with software sensibilities or a set of china with as fragile an anima as a bird’s. To my mind Apfricans haven’t got what it takes to appreciate the cultural and technological gifts that are given to them.” And she smiled at Bosaaso, whose left cheek had been the target of a flying ball of saliva.
Yussur’s hand had given a caressing touch to her own pregnancy as if offering an encouraging pat. Turning to Ingrid, apparently not angered by these derisory remarks about Africans, but taking them in her stride, Yussur had asked, “Now is this china that you’ve sold to me and my husband dirt cheap almost a gift?”
“More or less a gift, yes.”
“Tell me, Ingrid,” Yussur went on, “if you sell your gifts for ten US dollars, equivalent in local currency to more than a senior civil servant’s salary, what on earth do you call the donations your government or charitable organizations give to my government and famine-stricken, alms-receiving people?”
“We call it ‘aid.’ It may be in the form of emergency food or technical aid or as grants to be written off later, or soft loans. There are different designations, depending on the specific situation.” Ingrid remained confident.
“We receive,” Yussur said very clearly, “and you give.”
“In a general sort of way, yes. That’s right.”
“Why give, Ingrid?”
Ingrid fell silent, puzzled, and Yussur asked, “What’s in it for your people to give my people things?”
“Because we have certain things that you Apfricans need.”
Yussur said, “But that is ridiculous.”
It was Ingrid’s turn to feel offended. “What’s ridiculous about what I’ve just said?”
“Surely you don’t give something of value to yourself simply because someone else does not have it or is in need of it?”
Silence. Yussur sought Bosaaso’s gaze and was met with an appreciative nod of his head. But Ingrid was of a different mind: “Aid is aid, good or bad, whether there are strings attached and whatever its terms of reference. You say one thing but want another, you Apfricans. I am fed up listening to this nonsense. Why ask for help if you don’t like it? The headlines of your newspapers are full of your government’s appeals for more aid, more loans. Nonsense.”
Yussur’s legs had gone to sleep. To make the blood return to them, she rose to her feet, moving back and forth as she spoke:
“My husband told me only recently that the United States, the world’s richest country, between 1953 and 1971 donated so-called economic assistance worth ninety million dollars to Somalia, one of the world’s poorest. Over sixty million of this so-called aid package was meant to finance development schemes, including teacher-training and a water supply system for the city of Mogadiscio. But do you know that nearly twenty million dollars were accounted for by food grown in the USA by American farmers, given to us in sacks with the words DONATED BY THE USA TO THE REPUBLIC OF SOMALIA written on them? And of course from that we have to deduct the salaries of Americans working here and living like lords in luxury they are not used to at home. Why must we accept this intolerable nonsense?”
“Don’t ask me,” Ingrid retorted and shrugged her shoulders.
“Who do I ask?”
“Ourselves.”
Bosaaso had nodded thoughtfully, saying nothing.
Yussur continued, changing her tone of voice, “The other day I was reminding Bosaaso of a Somali proverb: ‘Qeehiyaa qada.’ Would you render that in English for Ingrid?” And both women looked at him.
He had reflected for a while, then said, “I would tentatively translate it like this: He who distributes the offerings of fortune receives little as his personal share.” Smiling, he told himself that this had been his only contribution to the conversation.
Yussur said, “What I’m trying to say, my dear Ingrid, is that a language is the product of a people’s attitude to the world in which they find themselves. Now can you understand why it irks me to hear you describe the china for which we paid ten US dollars as a gift?”
“You’re entitled to your opinion and I to mine,” Ingrid replied.