Nairobi Noir E-Book
15,59 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: CASSAVA REPUBLIC
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
Nairobi Noir brings together some of Kenya's most exciting and acclaimed writers, in this celebration of noir writing, played out on the streets of Nairobi. "Although the range of issues explored in Nairobi Noir is as diverse as its contributors, it all gestures toward a common theme. In this concrete jungle, the hunters and herders live on. As do the hunted..."- Peter Kimani, introduction Featuring brand new stories from: Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Stanley Gazemba, Ngumi Kibera, Peter Kimani, Winfred Kiunga, Kinyanjui Kombani, Caroline Mose, Kevin Mwachiro, Wanjiku wa Ngugi, Faith Oneya, Makena Onjerika, Troy Onyango, J.E. Sibi-Okumu, and Rasna Warah.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
Ähnliche
Nairobi Noir
edited by Peter Kimani
To Anne M, the desert rose from Murkutwo
ALSO IN THE AKASHIC NOIR SERIES
AMSTERDAM NOIR (NETHERLANDS), edited by RENÉ APPEL AND JOSH PACHTER
ATLANTA NOIR, edited by TAYARI JONES
BAGHDAD NOIR (IRAQ), edited by SAMUEL SHIMON
BALTIMORE NOIR, edited by LAURA LIPPMAN
BARCELONA NOIR (SPAIN), edited by ADRIANA V. LÓPEZ & CARMEN OSPINA
BEIRUT NOIR (LEBANON), edited by IMAN HUMAYDAN
BELFAST NOIR (NORTHERN IRELAND), edited by ADRIAN McKINTY & STUART NEVILLE
BERLIN NOIR (GERMANY), edited by THOMAS WÖERTCHE
BOSTON NOIR, edited by DENNIS LEHANE
BOSTON NOIR 2: THE CLASSICS, edited by DENNIS LEHANE, MARY COTTON & JAIME CLARKE
BRONX NOIR, edited by S.J. ROZAN
BROOKLYN NOIR, edited by TIM McLOUGHLIN
BROOKLYN NOIR 2: THE CLASSICS, edited by TIM McLOUGHLIN
BROOKLYN NOIR 3: NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH, edited by TIM McLOUGHLIN & THOMAS ADCOCK
BRUSSELS NOIR (BELGIUM), edited by MICHEL DUFRANNE
BUENOS AIRES NOIR (ARGENTINA), edited by ERNESTO MALLO
BUFFALO NOIR, edited by ED PARK & BRIGID HUGHES
CAPE COD NOIR, edited by DAVID L. ULIN
CHICAGO NOIR, edited by NEAL POLLACK
CHICAGO NOIR: THE CLASSICS, edited by JOE MENO
COPENHAGEN NOIR (DENMARK), edited by BO TAO MICHAËLIS
DALLAS NOIR, edited by DAVID HALE SMITH
D.C. NOIR, edited by GEORGE PELECANOS
D.C. NOIR 2: THE CLASSICS, edited by GEORGE PELECANOS
DELHI NOIR (INDIA), edited by HIRSH SAWHNEY
DETROIT NOIR, edited by E.J. OLSEN & JOHN C. HOCKING
DUBLIN NOIR (IRELAND), edited by KEN BRUEN
HAITI NOIR, edited by EDWIDGE DANTICAT
HAITI NOIR 2: THE CLASSICS, edited by EDWIDGE DANTICAT
HAVANA NOIR (CUBA), edited by ACHY OBEJAS
HELSINKI NOIR (FINLAND), edited by JAMES THOMPSON
HONG KONG NOIR, edited by JASON Y. NG & SUSAN BLUMBERG-KASON
HOUSTON NOIR, edited by GWENDOLYN ZEPEDA
INDIAN COUNTRY NOIR, edited by SARAH CORTEZ & LIZ MARTÍNEZ
ISTANBUL NOIR (TURKEY), edited by MUSTAFA ZIYALAN & AMY SPANGLER
KANSAS CITY NOIR, edited by STEVE PAUL
KINGSTON NOIR (JAMAICA), edited by COLIN CHANNER
LAGOS NOIR (NIGERIA), edited by CHRIS ABANI
LAS VEGAS NOIR, edited by JARRET KEENE & TODD JAMES PIERCE
LONDON NOIR (ENGLAND), edited by CATHI UNSWORTH
LONE STAR NOIR, edited by BOBBY BYRD & JOHNNY BYRD
LONG ISLAND NOIR, edited by KAYLIE JONES
LOS ANGELES NOIR, edited by DENISE HAMILTON
LOS ANGELES NOIR 2: THE CLASSICS, edited by DENISE HAMILTON
MANHATTAN NOIR, edited by LAWRENCE BLOCK
MANHATTAN NOIR 2: THE CLASSICS, edited by LAWRENCE BLOCK
MANILA NOIR (PHILIPPINES), edited by JESSICA HAGEDORN
MARRAKECH NOIR (MOROCCO), edited by YASSIN ADNAN
MARSEILLE NOIR (FRANCE), edited by CÉDRIC FABRE
MEMPHIS NOIR, edited by LAUREEN P. CANTWELL & LEONARD GILL
MEXICO CITY NOIR (MEXICO), edited by PACO I. TAIBO II
MIAMI NOIR, edited by LES STANDIFORD
MILWAUKEE NOIR, edited by TIM HENNESSY
MISSISSIPPI NOIR, edited by TOM FRANKLIN
MONTANA NOIR, edited by JAMES GRADY & KEIR GRAFF
MONTREAL NOIR (CANADA), edited by JOHN McFETRIDGE & JACQUES FILIPPI
MOSCOW NOIR (RUSSIA), edited by NATALIA SMIRNOVA & JULIA GOUMEN
MUMBAI NOIR (INDIA), edited by ALTAF TYREWALA
NEW HAVEN NOIR, edited by AMY BLOOM
NEW JERSEY NOIR, edited by JOYCE CAROL OATES
NEW ORLEANS NOIR, edited by JULIE SMITH
NEW ORLEANS NOIR: THE CLASSICS, edited by JULIE SMITH
OAKLAND NOIR, edited by JERRY THOMPSON & EDDIE MULLER
ORANGE COUNTY NOIR, edited by GARY PHILLIPS
PARIS NOIR (FRANCE), edited by AURÉLIEN MASSON
PHILADELPHIA NOIR, edited by CARLIN ROMANO
PHOENIX NOIR, edited by PATRICK MILLIKIN
PITTSBURGH NOIR, edited by KATHLEEN GEORGE
PORTLAND NOIR, edited by KEVIN SAMPSELL
PRAGUE NOIR (CZECH REPUBLIC), edited by PAVEL MANDYS
PRISON NOIR, edited by JOYCE CAROL OATES
PROVIDENCE NOIR, edited by ANN HOOD
QUEENS NOIR, edited by ROBERT KNIGHTLY
RICHMOND NOIR, edited by ANDREW BLOSSOM, BRIAN CASTLEBERRY & TOM DE HAVEN
RIO NOIR (BRAZIL), edited by TONY BELLOTTO
ROME NOIR (ITALY), edited by CHIARA STANGALINO & MAXIM JAKUBOWSKI
SAN DIEGO NOIR, edited by MARYELIZABETH HART
SAN FRANCISCO NOIR, edited by PETER MARAVELIS
SAN FRANCISCO NOIR 2: THE CLASSICS, edited by PETER MARAVELIS
SAN JUAN NOIR (PUERTO RICO), edited by MAYRA SANTOS-FEBRES
SANTA CRUZ NOIR, edited by SUSIE BRIGHT
SÃO PAULO NOIR (BRAZIL), edited by TONY BELLOTTO
SEATTLE NOIR, edited by CURT COLBERT
SINGAPORE NOIR, edited by CHERYL LU-LIEN TAN
STATEN ISLAND NOIR, edited by PATRICIA SMITH
ST. LOUIS NOIR, edited by SCOTT PHILLIPS
STOCKHOLM NOIR (SWEDEN), edited by NATHAN LARSON & CARL-MICHAEL EDENBORG
ST. PETERSBURG NOIR (RUSSIA), edited by NATALIA SMIRNOVA & JULIA GOUMEN
SYDNEY NOIR (AUSTRALIA), edited by JOHN DALE
TEHRAN NOIR (IRAN), edited by SALAR ABDOH
TEL AVIV NOIR (ISRAEL), edited by ETGAR KERET & ASSAF GAVRON
TORONTO NOIR (CANADA), edited by JANINE ARMIN & NATHANIEL G. MOORE
TRINIDAD NOIR (TRINIDAD & TOBAGO), edited by LISA ALLEN-AGOSTINI & JEANNE MASON
TRINIDAD NOIR: THE CLASSICS (TRINIDAD & TOBAGO), edited by EARL LOVELACE & ROBERT ANTONI
TWIN CITIES NOIR, edited by JULIE SCHAPER & STEVEN HORWITZ
USA NOIR, edited by JOHNNY TEMPLE
VANCOUVER NOIR (CANADA), edited by SAM WIEBE
VENICE NOIR (ITALY), edited by MAXIM JAKUBOWSKI
WALL STREET NOIR, edited by PETER SPIEGELMAN
ZAGREB NOIR (CROATIA), edited by IVAN SRŠEN
FORTHCOMING
ACCRA NOIR (GHANA), edited by NANA-AMA DANQUAH
ADDIS ABABA NOIR (ETHIOPIA), edited by MAAZA MENGISTE
ALABAMA NOIR, edited by DON NOBLE
BELGRADE NOIR (SERBIA), edited by MILORAD IVANOVIC
BERKELEY NOIR, edited by JERRY THOMPSON & OWEN HILL
BOGOTÁ NOIR (COLOMBIA), edited by ANDREA MONTEJO
COLUMBUS NOIR, edited by ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
JERUSALEM NOIR, edited by DROR MISHANI
MIAMI NOIR: THE CLASSICS, edited by LES STANDIFORD
PALM SPRINGS NOIR, edited by BARBARA DeMARCO-BARRETT
PARIS NOIR: THE SUBURBS (FRANCE), edited by HERVÉ DELOUCHE
SANTA FE NOIR, edited by ARIEL GORE
TAMPA BAY NOIR, edited by COLETTE BANCROFT
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
Concrete Jungle
Nairobi, shamba la mawe—Nairobi, the stone garden—is a pithy formulation intimating the city as a place of pleasures and perils. Its colonial founders declared it their Eden, the garden where they found easy nurture, living close to nature. They christened it the Green City in the Sun. It was this allure that, centuries earlier, drew Maasai herdsmen to the space that they knew as Enkare Nyrobi—the place of cool waters. They found enough water and pasture for their animals.
Over the past one hundred years, Nairobi has evolved from a supply depot for railway workers to the largest metropolis in East and Central Africa, with an estimated five million residents. This has come with a unique set of challenges: water is always in short supply, power blackouts are rife, and traffic jams are so bad, even lions come out of the wilds to marvel at the snarl-ups! This is no exaggeration; Nairobi is the only city with a game park, and the kings of the wild occasionally stray on major city highways to kill boredom … as do pastoralists who insist the city occupies their grazing fields. A place of hunters and herders is a good way of thinking about it.
The Maasai were not the only community displaced to make room for what became the White Highlands, the centerpiece of the colonial agri-based economy. Other communities were similarly dislodged from their ancestral lands in central and eastern regions of the colony, where they had been converted from self-sustaining herders and hunters into rent- and tax-paying subjects of the Crown. This precipitated an exodus of villagers into the new, segregated city where suffrage, labor, and residence were assigned according to racial hierarchy: whites, Indians, Arabs, and Africans, in that order.
Nairobi remains one of the most unequal cities in the world. The western part of the city boasts a United Nations headquarters—the only one located in the so-called developing world—with heated pools and other trappings of comfort. On the other side of town, in the Kibera slums, hundreds of thousands are hemmed into a few hectares of earth, without running water or electricity, so dwellers have invented “flying toilets.” Nothing lofty, really, just a mound of shit wrapped in polythene and hurled to the farthest reach of the arm. And in keeping with the spirit of the city, which means finding lucre even in the most propitious of circumstances, slum tourism has become quite popular in Kibera.
The journey toward a just, multiracial, multiethnic society, as you, dear readers, will attest from this collection, remains on course, the most abiding evidence being the seamless, if unintentional, infusion of Sheng throughout many stories in this collection. This hybrid Kenyan patois, fusing Swahili with other indigenous languages, was the by-product of the quest by youngsters in Nairobi’s Eastlands area to communicate without their parents—with whom they shared very modest dwellings—getting in the way.
By incorporating words and expressions from other Kenyan languages, the youngsters were making a salient proposition: out of the old, they would create something new; out of the many languages, they would make one collective whole, and claim it as their own. It is this principle that Nairobi Noir affirms; from the chaos that marked its origins, a thriving city has emerged.
Today, huge swathes of the city resemble a construction site. As I went to work, soliciting and editing contributions from writers within Kenyan and beyond, diggers were revving to tear down old estates in the Eastlands, which are no longer able to contain the ballooning population. More affluent suburbs, such as Westlands, were also in the process of reconfiguration from residential to office blocks. Other estates, such as Kileleshwa, once a leafy suburb, were being remodeled to accommodate large apartment blocks that ensure neither the sun nor the green are visible to its dwellers, calling to mind Bob Marley’s “Concrete Jungle”:
No sun will shine in my day today
The high yellow moon won’t come out to play
I say darkness has covered my light
And has changed my day into night …
In that sense, Nairobi Noir is an act of excavation, rediscovering the city’s ossified past and infusing life to preserve it for future generations. It is also an act of celebration, reminding readers of the brilliance of the best-known writers to emerge from this part of the world, and heralding the birth of new writers whose gifts, we can safely predict, will shine brightly in the years ahead.
The oldest writer in this anthology is eighty-one, the youngest is only twenty-four; if there is any inference one can draw from this demographic it is that this anthology offers an entire spectrum of Kenyan writing: the past, present, and future. If we can allow one extravagant claim, a collection of this nature is unprecedented in Kenya’s literary history.
Although the range of issues explored in this volume is as diverse as its contributors, it all gestures toward a common theme. In this concrete jungle, the hunters and herders live on. As do the hunted …
The wealth of Nairobi, no doubt, is its people. One visual that defines that wealth is the muscled men who sit out in the sun, bare-chested, at Gikomba market, knocking scraps of iron into shape. By nightfall, the hunk of iron is miraculously hewn into bright-blue tin boxes, sturdy jikos that make the tastiest nyama choma in the world, among other innovations.
That’s the Gikomba of my childhood, though it hasn’t changed much. The well-built men still sit out in the sun—Jua Kali, scorching sun, is also the name of the market—but I suspect it’s the sons who have replaced their fathers. And the rhythmic gong goes on uninterrupted, pulsating with life to power the city, and by extension, the nation’s economy.
Such analysis proffers an interesting paradox: the minions toil under a scorching sun all their lives, putting extraordinary efforts to earn their day-to-day, ordinary living; those in the “leafy suburbs” burrow in a labyrinth of concrete, where the sun never shines.
How do we account for this phenomenon? And how have the conditions of the workers remained unchanged, despite the passage of time? The answer, perhaps, lies in these pages. The opening story is set in Eastleigh, once a bustling middle-class suburb inhabited by Arabs and Asians in the city’s segregated past. In recent decades, these demographics have been largely replaced by ethnic Somalis, earning Eastleigh the moniker of “Little Mogadishu,” following an influx of refugees from Somalia’s conflagration. At the heart of this story is a quest for belonging: the pain of homelessness and the angst of being a constant target of bribe-taking, gun-toting policemen.
The last story in the collection is set in Mukuru kwa Njenga, to the east of the city, where more policemen are on the beat with one solid idea on their minds: how to make an extra coin—by any means. The persistent police presence in these stories highlights Nairobi’s noir character: law and order, crime and punishment, in a province regulated by complex characters who create problems for law enforcement. And policemen who are complicit in violating the law.
The stories in between course through the city, excavating refreshing perspectives on race, caste, culture, politics, religion, and crime, among other themes, in ways that will surprise the reader, just like they surprised me. The Green City in the Sun may have turned into a concrete jungle, but it is still enchanting. And the spirit of its forebears, the hunters and the herders and the hunted, still lives on …
Peter Kimani Nairobi, Kenya October 2019
PART I
The Hunters
SHE DUG TWO GRAVES
by Winfred Kiunga
Eastleigh
Her brother’s body was found in a dark alley in Eastleigh Section One, near the old post office. His torso was a collage of torture marks and bruises, already dark blue against his light-brown skin. Were it not for the notable birthmark on his neck, Ahmed would have been unrecognizable. It was the local imam who saw the body as he was going to make the morning call to prayer.
“Eebe naxariiso! Allah, have mercy!” he screamed, waking up the sleepy neighborhood. Most of the tenements lit up and a few faces cautiously emerged from the small barred windows.
“What’s going on?” asked Fartun, the number one Eastleigh gossip. Everyone called her CNN, a title she accepted. No one answered. The streets were now empty as the imam had hurriedly left for the mosque to avoid the police. He had firsthand experience with their brutal force.
Fartun quickly put on a hijab and ran down the stairs, making an awful lot of noise as she heaved her body against metal doors when she briefly paused to catch her breath on every floor. She was the only one courageous enough to leave the confines of her apartment at that hour. She had to get the latest information, she always argued. Neighbors depended on her to bring fresh and juicy news every day. Two stray cats were gnawing and fighting over the body but Fartun’s approach scared them off. They stayed close by, though, their yellow-green eyes creating an eerie feel in the dark and smelly alley.
After poking and inspecting the body like a seasoned mortician, Fartun shouted her discovery to the waiting faces up above: “It is Ahmed!”
“Which Ahmed?” someone inquired.
“A fair question, Imran, as Section One has over a thousand Ahmeds. It is Ahmed Farah, brother to that pleasant woman called Fawzia, the refugee who refused to spit on her former husband when he begged her to take him back. If I was her, I would have spit on his henna-dyed beard. I hear that he pleaded with her like a dog and—”
“Relevance!” Imran interrupted, halting what would have been a long story of Fawzia’s entire marital history. “We are only interested in the body and the cause of death.”
“Stop badgering me. Are you not the one who wanted to know whose body this is? Don’t interrupt me when I am adding details to the story. Don’t you know that a good story must be embellished, seasoned a bit with other niceties to keep listeners engaged? I am not called CNN for nothing. I do my research, I dig deeper, and I unearth all the details.”
She paused to let that sink in among her attentive listeners above. Most people regarded her as a gossip, but Fartun considered herself a community reporter.
“I heard that this young man was among those arrested last week by the antiterror police unit. I need to talk to a few people to figure out exactly what happened.”
At that, everyone retreated to their apartments. They knew that Fartun would go out to gather more “intel,” as she usually referred to her gossip, and would update them before sunup.
* * *
When Fawzia received news of her brother’s brutal murder, she lay prostrate on her carpet, crying and rocking sideways in deep anguish. Her grief came in torrents, like a dam that had burst its banks, spewing the slush that had accrued on the bottommost part of her being. There was no grip, no foothold, so she let the floodwaters engulf her body and soul. She sank in the miry depths, and for the next hour she just lay there in the obscurity, in the nothingness. She awoke from the hollow pit, eyes swollen like Sodom apples, head throbbing like Burundi drums. She rose slowly and walked toward the mirror. Just two hours ago, before the news about Ahmed, the mirror had reflected a beautiful woman with sparkling eyes. That aspect of her life was a lie, always fleeting. Her true reflection was what she saw now—a crushed woman whom calamity had trampled on, over and over. Happiness was elusive; it came rarely, like Atacama Desert rains.
Now tragedy had completely overshadowed her recent accomplishment. Just three days before, she had bought her own apartment. Now, looking around at the place, a sense of despondency overcame her again. Why even bother? There was no man to share her home with, no husband to make basta for, and no children to liven the huge space. Due to her childlessness, her husband Ibrahim had given her talaq, usually considered a disgraceful means of divorce in Islam.
But she had not always been barren. When the doctor announced that she was pregnant with twins at the turn of the century, the women at the Dadaab refugee camp where they were living at the time began saying that she was as fertile as Mahmoud’s camels. Mahmoud was a Somali refugee whose camels had had twin calves four times. Camels seldom bear twins, so it was a rare phenomenon and one that had amazed the whole camp. But her luck was abruptly changed one fateful night. Instead of double cries expected from a healthy set of twins, there were two small bodies on the doctor’s operating table.
Neither of the twins survived due to intrapartum complications related to female genital mutilation (FGM), a procedure that Fawzia, like other Somali girls, had undergone when she was eleven. The doctor at the camp hospital had tried deinfibulation in the hopes of saving the babies, but it did not work. Postpartum hemorrhage further prompted him to remove her uterus to save her life. This was the worst possible outcome, of course. Without a baby in her arms, what was she? Who was she? Among Somalis, a woman is only worth her children. Minus a womb, she was as good as dead. She wanted to punish the good doctor for saving and killing her at the same time.
Her husband gave talaq even before she left the camp hospital. There was no iddah, the waiting period intended to give the couple an opportunity for reconciliation and to confirm that the wife is not pregnant. For the months that followed, Fawzia was the object of ridicule from the very neighbors who had broken into ululations when they had learned of the pregnancy. It was her best friend Marian who eventually saved her. Marian now lived and worked in Toronto after getting resettled through a scholarship. She had heard of her friend’s predicament and had committed to removing her from the deep mire she was in. She sent Fawzia an e-mail.
My dear Abaayo,
I cannot believe that you did not tell me of the calamity that has befallen you. Am I not your bond sister? Did we not play on the same streets in Kismayo? Didn’t our families leave our motherland on the fateful night of guns? Did we not survive the treacherous journey to Liboi and finally to Dada-ab? Did we not share our shah, our anjera, our buskut? Did we not go to the same school? Were we not subjected to the knife on the same day? Did they not remove our “thing” by that same knife? Did you not weep with me when my brother Karim died of cholera?
Why then would you, Abaayo, not allow me to weep with you? Why would you deny me the opportunity to hold you, so that your tears can fall and form trails on my hijab?
I have sent you 1,500 Canadian dollars. I want you to leave Dadaab, travel to Eastleigh, and stay with my sister Ayan for a while. Register as an urban refugee with UNHCR at the Nairobi office. The money is for you to start a business. I recall that you trained at the camp to be a masseuse. Remember how other girls frowned at the course, saying that it was a dhillo, a whore’s job, to touch another’s body? And how you didn’t care what people thought about it? Why is it that now you believe in the blinkered words of the doom prophets at the camp? What happened to the strong woman I once knew? Have misfortunes put a veil on her face and faith?
I may not be able to actually cross the ocean and the vast lands that separate us. But I will do anything for you, as long as I am able to. So take the money and run. Run from those big-lipped women, run from that dog Ibrahim, run from the mockery. Who are we, if we do not put our feet into the waters? How will we discover new lands, new frontiers, if we grow afraid of the waves?
I dare you to find joy in the unknown.
Your four-leaf clover, Marian
Fawzia remembered how Marian was always there for her. She shouldn’t forget to e-mail her and let her know of Ahmed’s death. She needed somebody who would grieve with her without judgment.
Relatives had already prepared Ahmed’s body for burial when Fawzia arrived at her father’s home. As a woman, she could not be involved, but she knew the process since she had been part of prepping her mother for burial a year before. She remembered how she and her aunt had closed her moth-er’s eyes and mouth, straightened her limbs, and then gently washed the body with warm water as they recited prayers. Once they were done and the body had been sprayed with a perfume called Adar, they wrapped it with white cotton cloths from head to foot. It was such a tender process, one that allowed the living to show love, one last time, to those who had gone back to Allah.
Now, as the men took Ahmed to the mosque, Marian wished that she could be allowed to say janaaso, the goodbye prayer for him. She wished that she could be there to bind his body in the green cloth with Allah’s name stitched in gold yarn. She wished she could see her brother’s face, just one more time. But women were not allowed to attend the funeral or the burial, so she stayed at home. She was jealous of the linen, the grass, and the soil that would cover Ahmed’s body. It would be closer to him than she would ever be.
They had been close friends growing up, even though Ahmed was five years younger than Fawzia. He was born on the road between Liboi, a town on the Kenya-Somalia border and the Dadaab refugee camp. A Médecins Sans Frontières doctor assisted in his delivery. The doctor was part of a refugee rescue mission after a resurgence of conflict in Somalia in July 2006. Ethiopian troops, sponsored by the United States, had entered Somalia to buttress the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Baidoa. Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, then leader of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), declared war against Ethiopia and forced civilians to join the bloody conflict. Thousands fled to neighboring countries, especially Kenya, which was already hosting over four hundred thousand refugees at the time. Fawzia’s family was among the hundreds of refugees that arrived at Dadaab on July 29 of that year.
They had grown up in the camp, playing shax and Layli Goobalay. Sometimes people thought they were twins as they were always together. As teenagers, they discovered they had different dreams: Fawzia wanted to be an entrepreneur and Ahmed wanted to be a doctor. Fawzia did not like history and often quoted Thomas Jeffeson: “I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.” She was not proud of her conflict-ridden nation’s history, or her people’s. Ahmed, on the other hand, believed like Marcus Garvey that “a people without the knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots.” So he read about Somalia, the land of his fathers, and about Kenya, his adopted motherland. It is not a wonder then that when Fawzia invited him to Eastleigh, he—the history buff—wrote to her in response:
My dear walaashaa,
You say that you don’t like the past, yet you are living in a place that reflects where our fathers came from. Eastleigh is referred to as “Little Mogadishu” because 90% of the people who live there are Somalis. And doesn’t that place remind you of the stories that mother used to tell us? Of mosques, of bazaars, of women dressed in hijabs, of orange-bearded men spitting on the streets during Ramadan? Doesn’t the call to prayer, doesn’t the gathering of faithfuls for salat, remind you of home—the home we may never see?
I know you don’t like history lessons, but I have to share this. When you invited me, I decided to research the place I would be moving to. Guess what I learned? It was not always called Eastleigh. In the late 1900s, it was divided into Nairobi East and Egerton Estate demarcated as a “whites only” zone. The original owners were European and South African investors who made very limited developments in the area. Egerton was blandly structured, with streets named after important colonial personalities such as the first Nairobi superintendent, James Ainsworth. Nairobi East was also unexcitingly organized in a grid with streets intersecting numbered avenues. Those are the same vibrant streets you see today.
It was not until 1921 that the colonial government integrated the two suburbs into one. Having realized that few Europeans wanted to settle in the area, the colonial government opened it up to Asians. When Allidina Visram, a rich Indian trader, moved into the area, he made substantial investments that spruced it up, and before long Eastleigh began to be referred to as “Little India,” evidenced by still-existing street names like Moghul Lane and Saurashtra and Ganges roads. You thought we were the first ones there, eh?
Soon after Independence, Asians began to leave and Kenyans—most of whom had been living in the area unofficially despite the segregation—began to buy plots and sections in Eastleigh. Most European and Indian street names were removed. Now we, the Somalis, are the kings of Eastleigh. From the look of things, we are here to stay and to expand. Soon, Father’s shop will be a full-blown mall. And you, with your business acumen, will run things after he is gone.
So, would I like to come to Eastleigh? Hell yes! I can’t wait to walk on those dirty streets and to jump over the potholes. I can’t wait to hear the businessmen and women calling the customers: Yimaadaan oo iibsadaan! It will give me a sense of home, of how Mogadishu, the real Mogadishu, used to be, or I dream will be.
See you next month!
Your favorite walaalkiis, Ahmed
O Ahmed! She cried at the memory of him. Of how fun it was to have him living with her as he attended Eastleigh High School and later the University of Nairobi. Of his impromptu history lessons. Of his innocence and playfulness. It was just her now. And her father. She grieved for him, for his fragile heart that had lost a wife and three sons. Two had died in a tragic car accident on the Garissa-Nairobi highway. The last born had just been murdered by the Kenyan police. Somalis generally believe that life and death are in the hands of Allah and therefore the cause of Ahmed’s death was “by God’s will,” but Marian refused to accept it as such. Ahmed’s death was by human hands and she vowed to avenge him.
When Fawzia heard that a news van had been spotted near Madina Mall, she took a boda boda from Abdiwalla’s food kiosk where she had been getting information from Fartun on Ahmed’s death and instructed the driver to drive like the wind. None of the few passersby were willing to be interviewed so Fawzia volunteered on condition that her face would be blurred on TV. The minute the camera was pointed at her, she started like a magpie. She did not even wait for a prompt from the reporter. She had already prepared what to say.
“You want to know about what’s going on? I will tell you. After the Kenyan government ordered the UNHCR to stop registering urban refugees and asylum seekers and for all urban refugees to move to the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps, the harassment of Somali refugees intensified. Even when some human rights groups fought for refugees, even after the court blocked the government strategy—albeit temporarily—it did not stop the police from harassing us, especially those living here in Eastleigh.”
“Are all refugees being harassed or it is just Somalis?” asked the reporter.
“Mostly Somalis. In this day and age, being Somali is a crime. They ask you for your ID, but even if you have the necessary documents, they still arrest you. They pack you into the police vehicles and take you to Pangani where they grill you for hours, calling you a terrorist. If you are a businessperson, they call you an al-Shabaab financier. If you don’t bribe them, they bring you to Kasarani for three days for further screening. Some people disappear, especially young men, or reappear dead, with torture marks.”
“Are you claiming that the police are brutalizing young men?”
“Jijazie! Must I cook and chew the food for you?”
The reporter looked like he wanted to crawl and hide under the camera. But then he just smiled and went on: “What happens if one doesn’t have an ID?”
