Open Writing

Chapter 15
‘You Shall not Covet ....’

I was a different kettle of fish – wanted by the regime, and perhaps
now with renewed sense of purpose on their part. I had no
choice but to stay with my rescuers. Once more we set sail.

Once
more I was asking myself questions about the nature of Nimrod’s
business. One minute he is in the middle of the desert astride a
camel, looking as poor as a church mouse, as the English would say.
The next I find him and his men merrily sailing a dhow in the Indian
Ocean. Neither preoccupation had the hallmark of Maasai. Neither
did a purse of ten thousand dollars. Before I lay down on the deck
to attempt sleep, I just had to ask what was going on.

‘As a refugee of sorts you should feel happy with the deal we
have just completed,’ Nimrod smiled.

‘Explain!’ My expression made it plain that I wasn’t pleased about
him being reticent with me.

‘The cargo was mainly ammunition. And a hundred kalashnikovs.
It is the third such consignment which we have organised for Mr
Scallattari.’

‘So, you enter Mogadishu, and just like that, you hand over guns?
For whom?’

‘What does it matter. For anyone who may be fighting against
Siad Barre. The warlords in Mogadishu; the Isaaq clan. I don’t know.
I don’t care. The news is that Barre will soon be gone.’

‘Nimrod, this isn’t your country! What are you doing meddling
here? You aren’t helping. If anything you are further destabilising
Somalia. We don’t need more weapons. Look what happened to my
brother! What we need is national reconciliation; a government
which is motivated and has enough wit to convince competing fac-
tions to lay down their arms; with a leader committed to spending
our scarce resources on people, and not on repressive military buffoons.’

‘I will tell you why I do what I do, Amina. Then you will see why
I believe that peace and order are desirable, but not at any price. A
year ago I was like any other Maasai, happy to herd and count my
cows. You may recall there had been drought in Kenya. The rivers
were dry. My cattle were dying. Even wild animals could not survive.
The corpses of hundreds of elephant and hippopotamus lined our
dried up river beds. Others suffered terribly, encased in dried up
mud, still alive if barely. Only the vultures and hyenas prospered. We
had been told there was water further north in the tributaries of the
Juba. That in itself was a trick of nature. We could not understand
why the traditionally drier areas in Somalia were blessed with rain
that year, while we in Kenya parched. We had no choice but to cross
the border into Somalia. We had been desperate. Our cows were skin
and bone. At last they could drink.’

An unexpectedly large wave hit the bow of the dhow. The resulting
spray of water soaked my second-hand clothes. All right for
Nimrod with his precious raincoat, I thought. He’d adopted a serious
tone and was intent on finishing his story.

‘We were doing no harm. There was me and my brother, Cederick,
and some of the boys you see with me now. One morning, a
convoy of trucks approached. They were full of Barre’s soldiers. The
Red Berets. They climbed out of the vehicles and without a word,
started to shoot our cows. My brother shouted at them and raised
his spear. So they shot him as well. A burst of two inch bullets exploded
through his chest. A spear against an AK47. Enraged, I
sprang at the gunman but his friends beat me down with their rifle
butts. Joseph over there was beaten too, to within an inch of his life.
He is my cousin. The soldiers then went on killing our animals. What
could we do. Can you imagine what that day was like? My brother
murdered before my eyes. Our livelihood gone. We could name each
of those cows. They were our life. Honour now requires me to
avenge Cederick’s death. I will not rest until the ancestors signal that
they are satisfied.’

I felt a wave of sympathy for Nimrod and reached out to take his
hand. There were tears in his eyes at the recounting of his experience.

‘So we have something in common, Nimrod. The loss of a
brother.’

‘Yes. Each at the hands of Barre’s regime. Do not chide me for
wishing to see an end to him,’ he pleaded.

I could now add my mother and dearest Papa to the long list of
Barre’s victims. He and the stooges who did his bidding.

As the dhow negotiated the swells of the ocean, I lay down on
the hard decking to rest. Only then in a private moment did I allow
my thoughts to return to my parents. Unseen by the others, I cried
for them. My head boiled. By the time first light came I had, like a
dilettante, changed my mind about Nimrod’s interference in the affairs
of a land which was not his own. He had a point. Living in fear
of a dictator’s whim was not a life at all. For better or worse I decided
I would take up with Nimrod, at least in the short term. A
woman might not have influence in the formal structures of Somalia’s
government, such as it now was, but as a member of this man’s
band, I imagined making waves of a different sort.