NAIROBI,
Kenya — One evening in August, I climbed onto a dusty old truck in the
Dadaab refugee camp in the eastern Kenyan desert, about 50 miles from
the border with Somalia. A tarpaulin in the truck bed covered the sacks
of beans it was transporting to the Somali capital, Mogadishu. The
driver readily picked up some passengers: four women and eight men for
$60 each.
The
women sat in the front beside the driver. I sat with the men on the
tarpaulin. Six truck tires were strapped onto the tarp. We had to hold
onto the tires to keep from falling off the truck as it bumped along a
dirt road through a forest. Yet I was excited.
My
parents had lived in the Dadaab camp since fleeing Somalia’s civil war
in 1991. And it was only this year that my reticent father opened up and
spoke to me about his childhood in Luuq, a seaside town in southwestern
Somalia, and about Mogadishu, where he was a soldier in the 1970s.
I
was born in Dadaab, 22 years ago. With more than a quarter-million
people, mostly Somali refugees like my parents, the camp has turned into
a sprawling city.
It
was also this year that my parents moved to the United States to join
my sister. After they left in the summer, I felt compelled to travel to
Mogadishu, the city of my father’s youth. The stories my parents told me
described a Somalia and a childhood that I would never experience, a
world before the civil war, before the rise of Islamic militants and
truck bombings like the one on Oct. 14 that killed more than 300 people in Mogadishu. I wondered whether I would belong in Somalia, and set out to discover it.
The
truck drove on through the forest. The laughter of hyenas pierced the
night. I searched for patterns in the stars. On the second morning, we
were told we had crossed the border. We were in a quiet village named
Tuulo Barwaaqo. The sky was as blue as it was in Dadaab. It was the same
forest. The desert soil looked the same. But I was elated to be in
Somalia.
A
few hours later, we reached Shibah, a village so silent I wondered if
it had any people at all. A tattered black flag hanging from a pole
beside the road signaled that the village was controlled by the Shabab,
the militant Islamist group battling the Somali federal government.
Travel
through Shabab territory had rules. You stopped when you saw the black
flag and looked for Shabab men. They charged a fee at the first
checkpoint you encountered and issued a receipt, which allowed you to
cross their land without paying again. It granted you safe passage
through Shabab country — unless the militants suspected you of being a
spy or a journalist, which meant certain death.
The
checkpoint was deserted. We passed several villages with black flags.
When we stopped, we couldn’t even find clean water to drink. There were
no men around; only women and children. “The men have either joined
Shabab or gone on Tahriib,” said a woman I met in Daifa, one of the
villages. “Tahriib” refers to the desperate journeys of African
immigrants on perilous seas to Europe.
Later
in the afternoon we reached Waraha Dhobley, the first sizable town in
our journey. The houses here had iron roofs. There were young men on the
streets. Nobody wore a uniform. I couldn’t tell who was a Shabab
soldier.
The
shops were open, and women sold tea by the cup. Everyone was already in
the mosque for the afternoon Asr prayer. We alighted to seek food. I
walked into the first restaurant I found. A woman inside told me to get
out.
“Why?” I asked.
“Get out first,” she shouted.
A young man walking outside overheard us and came over.
“Sheikh,” he asked me, “why are you not in the mosque?”
During
prayers the Shabab expected everyone to be in the mosque. “I just
arrived here,” I replied. “I am traveling.” I knew in Islam the rules
were relaxed for travelers. “Serve him,” the man told the woman, his
voice now soft.
A
little later, I followed Adan, the driver, to a Shabab post to pay our
passage tax. We entered a structure of wooden blocks hammered with
corrugated sheets all around and painted blue.
A
boy of about 17 or 18 took out a customs form printed in Somali with
sections for the names and addresses of the driver and the owner, the
starting point and destination, the amount of luggage, the number of
passengers and the amount to be paid. He charged us the standard rate
for trucks carrying goods: $230.
Most
drivers preferred Shabab-controlled roads to government-controlled
ones. They saw the Somali government soldiers as greedy and corrupt and
had a name for them: “Cali-Uus,” or “the big-bellied Ali.”
A
journey through Shabab country was predictable. There was a sense of
order: You knew what to expect and how much you had to pay. It was
striking in a country where all institutions had broken down, where
corruption choked everything.
The
Shabab forbade bribes, khat, smoking and music. Most Somalis approved,
even if they did not actually follow these rules. You traded freedom for
safety.
Around
dusk we arrived in Buaale, a city on the Jubba River. We were stopped
by Shabab soldiers in military uniforms and masks on a bridge. Two young
soldiers asked us to step down from the truck with our bags. They
searched the luggage.
Before
setting out, I had been given several pieces of advice about traveling
through Shabab areas: Discard your smartphone or at least hide it. Cut
your hair (I had a cropped fringe; I got a crew cut). Don’t wear
body-hugging jeans.
Don’t carry items suggesting that you are a
journalist.
Adan,
the driver, hid a notebook I had on me. We were questioned and frisked
simultaneously. We were asked to remove and unpack our bags. The women
were told to stand aside. Only their bags were searched.
One
of the passengers, Abdi, was caught with a smartphone. The Shabab
soldiers gave him a hammer and ordered him to destroy it himself. They
tore Halima’s Somali passport. Hassan had the wrong haircut and they
shaved the middle of his scalp. Nobody protested.
We
couldn’t leave Buaale at night because of a curfew. The town had large
oak trees. It also had farms and concrete buildings. There were shops
and restaurants, an ice-cream parlor, some fluorescent lights, too. The
people spoke in hushed tones. When they spoke of the Shabab, it was in
praise. The only loud voices were of the children.
Everyone
seemed to be tuned to the local radio station, Al Rahma, run by the
Shabab. A speaker spoke about the faith and the land being under threat,
about foreign troops looting the country. The Shabab were the warriors
trying to stop them.
The
next day, a few miles after the last Shabab checkpoint, the truck
entered Afgooye, a city controlled by the Somali government.
Afgooye
was beautiful, with large farms, impressive buildings, numerous shops. I
watched heavily armed Burundian soldiers, in Somalia on an African
Union mission, marching down a road. And there were scrawny Somali boys
with guns roaming the streets. I was told they were the government.
I
could use my smartphone and play music. I had my freedom. I wasn’t sure
about my safety, though. The next morning, I set out on the road to
Mogadishu, the city of my father’s youth.
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