Most Africans are (paying?) members of extended families, these being institutions comparable to trade unions. Often, you find one individual’s fortunes supporting a network of the needs of this large unit. On a psychological level, therefore, we might say that the African is unquestionably accustomed to the exchange of potlachs. Those who have plenty, give; those who have nothing to give, expect to be given to. In urban areas, there are thousands of strong young men and women who receive “unemployment benefit” from a member of their extended family, somebody who has a job. Hence, it follows that when the bread-winner’s earnings do not meet everyone’s needs; when the land isn’t yielding, because insufficient work is being put in to cultivate it; when hard currency-earning cash crops are grown and the returns are paid to service debt; and just when the whole country is preparing to rise in revolt against the neo-colonial corrupt leadership: a ship loaded with charity rice, unasked for, perhaps, docks in the harbour — good quality rice, grown by someone else’s muscles and sweat. You know the result. Famine (my apologies to Bertold Brecht) is a trick up the powerful man’s sleeve; it has nothing to do with the seasonal cycles or shortage of rain.
If I could afford to be cynical, I would say that the African, knowing no better, accepts whatever he is given because it is an insult to refuse what you’re offered. If his cousin or a member of the extended family doesn’t give, God will or somebody else will. God, as we know Him, has been “given” to us, together with all the mythological paraphernalia, genealogical truisms that classify us inferior beings, not to forget the Middle Eastern philosophical maxim that God (in a monotheistic sense) is progress. Yes, the truth is, our Gods and those of our forefathers, we have been told, do not give you anything; and since they have a beginning, they have an end, too.
Somalis are of the opinion that it is in the nature of food to be shared. If you come upon a group of people eating, you are invited to join them. There is, of course, the prophylactic tendency to avoid the wickedness of the envious eye of the hungry, but this isn’t the principal reason why you’re offered to partake of the meal being eaten. Linked to the notion of food is the belief regarding the shortlived nature of all perishables. The streets of Mogadiscio are overcrowded with beggars carrying empty bowls, wandering from door to door, begging to be given the day’s left-overs. Is it possible, I wondered the other day, to equate the donor governments’ food surpluses which are given to starving Africans, to the left-overs we offer to famished beggars? Or am I stretching the point?
When Somalis despair of someone whom they describe as a miser, they often say, “So-and-So doesn’t give you even a glass of water.” So when they hear stories about butter being preserved in icy underground halls, foods kept in temperatures below freezing point, racks and racks of meat shelved, rows and rows of rice and other luxuries kept in a huge cellar colder than the Arctic, it is then that Somalis say, “But these people are mean.” Press them to tell you why they should be given anything, and they take refuge in generalizations. Ask them why Russia doesn’t provide them with food aid, and they become cynical. The only difference between us and Russia, although we eat the same American wheat, is that we pay for it with our begging, and they with their foreign reserves.
Last week the world ran and Africa starved. No doubt, television is a personality creator, and donors have their smiling pictures taken, alternating with scenes of Ethiopian skeletons. For the first time Africa has been given prime time TV” coverage, but alas, Africa is speechless, and hungry. In Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the one and only moment the African is given a line to speak, the poor fellow is made to employ an incorrect grammatical structure. That was of prime and all-time literary significance. A hundred years later, in a film called Out of Africa, directed by an American, based on a book by a Danish woman who lived in Africa and maybe loved the part of the continent she lived in but had no love for its people, this film counted among its actors Somalia’s most famous daughter, Iman. Guess what: she has a non-speaking role. Make of all this what you will; but ask yourself, now what? Who gets what, gives what to whom?
I retreat into a skeletal silence: when the world runs and starving Africa starves; when the cameras click and runners catch their breaths, having chested the finish ribbons of a momentary glory. And when the TV-watching public and video-producing crews turn and ask me to say something, I feel shy, I am tongue-tied. Like a child to whom an adult has given a gift, who smiles timidly and takes it, and whose mother says, “Say thank you to Uncle,” I too say, thank you one, thank you all, Uncles Sam, Sung, and Al-Mohamed too.
She put aside the newspaper, delighted that Taariq could still have lucid moments of virtuosity. But why was the article published only now? Did the censors disallow publication when he submitted it, following the week in which the world ran while Africa starved?
Exhausted and yet unable to sleep, she contemplated the world surrounding her with a frown. And the world was a key. By staring at the key to the city flat, the one Fariida had brought from Miski, Duniya had the feeling she was looking at the levers, the carved bends and twists of her own future.
And suddenly, she knew what she was going to do. “Tomorrow evening,” she said, “Duniya will spend the night at Bosaaso’s to make of her body a gift to him. Tomorrow evening.”
IV. Duniya Gives
16
Duniya, in a mood of elation, calls at the city-centre flat where three cleaning women are busy preparing; it is in that exalted state of mind that she suggests she and Bosaaso spend the night at his place.
The scene opens in darkness, then a spotlight is directed on a woman standing in a river. As she readies to swim away, an unknown man is saying to her, “Gum to gum, dust to water, fire to earth, and you are in such a wonderful state of happiness where seven comes before eight, a cot before a baby, the bed before the ring.”
Her splashing arhythmic, the woman swims away, and the spotlight is switched off: end of dream sequence. Soon after a bulb is burning in Duniya’s and Nasiiba’s room.
Immediately after breakfast, Duniya, her children and Bosaaso went to the city flat — and they all liked it. She had arranged for three hospital cleaning women to perform a moonlighting job, to mop, dust, wash the floors and walls. Bosaaso ferried to and fro getting a plumber to fix the dripping taps and toilets that weren’t flushing properly, or a carpenter to repair the creaky garden door that wouldn’t shut, or pick up some US-made chemical with which to unblock the sinks and drains.
It was agreed that Abshir would use the city-centre flat, it being more central, more spacious. For his meals he would come to Duniya’s; alternatively Nasiiba would move in with him to help him cope, cook if need be. Duniya considered renting a car for the period he was in Mogadiscio, so he would be free to go as and when and where he pleased. Mataan was generous in giving up his spring bed, insisting that he didn’t mind sleeping on a mattress on the floor. Nasiiba offered to spend all day in the flat with the three cleaning women, doing as much as them, if not more, her hands and arms dirty to the elbow, her plaited, beaded hair brown with the webbed dust the spiders had spun. Although more of a hindrance than a help, little Yarey washed the midget sink in the kitchen, wasting precious detergent, time and water. Duniya vowed not to take a break until after she had prepared the bedroom, whose french windows overlooked the garden, certain that Abshir would prefer it to the other room facing a hallway. Meanwhile, Bosaaso hired a pick-up truck to bring from Duniya’s place Mataan’s spring bed, a couple of chairs, tables. A little later, Duniya sent him on a simpler errand: to have the new flat’s keys cut.