Somali Children Cry for Nothing

A two-year child clutches to his grandmother after fighting forced the two to flee their homes two months ago. His grandmother describes that ever since he arrived at the resettlement camp, he has been sick, struggling with pneumonia, diarrhea, and vomiting.
Xaawo Hussein’s weight has dropped to seven kilograms (about 15 pounds). Her stomach bloated and her arms and legs reduced to sticks, the girl has been sick for weeks. “She has diarrhea and it won’t stop,” her grandmother Asha Ujub says, who doesn’t know the child’s exact age but believes Xaawo is four years old. The hollow-eyed girl she holds in her arms is so small and thin she could be two

Camp life is taking its toll on young children, the most vulnerable among the more than 200,000 displaced Somalis who have settled along the road between Mogadishu and Afgoye after hostilities escalated in October and November of last year.

International Medical Corps runs three mobile clinics in the area since the exodus from Mogadishu turned the 30 kilometer long so-called ‘Afgoye corridor’ into the fastest growing displacement camp in the world.

IMC’s mobile clinics see approximately 8,000 patients in the displacement camps per month. The number of diarrhea cases among children under five has increased from 165 in November to 670 in December of last year alone. Health staff observe similar trends for anemia, respiratory infections, and intestinal parasites.

Every child coming to the clinics has her height and weight measured. The most severe cases of malnutrition like Xaawo will be referred to inpatient facilities run by partner organizations. Within the next few weeks IMC will provide nutritional support to children with severe malnutrition who can still be treated as outpatients.

“People have settled along the road and many women and children cannot travel the distances to the next health facility,” says Patrick Mweki, IMC country director in Somalia, who recently visited Afgoye. “We must provide support to children who are sliding into malnutrition closer to where they are currently staying.”

Humanitarian assistance from international and local NGOs is reaching the displaced, but the demand is overwhelming. Families sleep up to ten people in huts made from sticks, plastic sheets, and bits of fabric that hardly protect them from the sun and the dust. Although latrines have been built, more than 40 people share one outhouse, in some places even more.

Lack of hygiene and clean water have made diarrhea cases among young children increase dramatically. “We are concerned about this trend because diarrhea causes severe malnourishment and we are seeing more and more of it with young children,” says Mweki.

Why is there so much publicity about Dharfur (and rightly so!) yet we hear so little about events happening in Somalia these days?. They are certainly both experiencing the same horrors.Does it always have to come down to out of sight, out of mind?

As a population inside Africa, is it just not important enough for the rest of the world to worry about, or have we just had enough of seeing and thinking about starving and murdered children? If that's the case, then shame on us.

The World Food Programme has warned that Somalia is sinking deeper into an abyss of suffering with hundreds of thousands of women and children uprooted by fighting. Unless real action to end insecurity is taken very soon, the world is in danger of seeing a whole generation of Somali children growing up having only known war.

WFP warned that the lack of access to the most needy in Mogadishu was becoming untenable. The Somali capital is currently gripped by rising fuel and food prices, which are hitting the poorest families hardest when they were already struggling to survive with few opportunities to work.

So far this year, fighting between government and anti-government forces has caused some 20,000 people to flee their homes in Mogadishu every month. A total of 700,000 people – mostly women and children – escaped from the capital in 2007.

Fighting in the capital has caused widespread human suffering and more hunger. Nutrition assessments have been unable to take place in Mogadishu.

Nothwithstanding the insecurity, hot meals made with WFP food continue to be given to a daily average of 52,000 people in Mogadishu – 90 percent women and children – the first such programme in Somalia since the 1992-1993 famine.

September 24th, 2001, saw Bush's administration sanction al-Islamiya's finances under Executive Order 13224. They also sanctioned it's leader, Hassan Dahir Aweys.

Somalia is considered the most difficult place in the world for humanitarian agencies to work. WFP staff and beneficiaries risk their lives daily. Beyond Mogadishu, fighting and attacks have forced WFP staff to pull out of some key areas.

In order to help ensure food for some 1.5 million people in the country, WFP is urgently appealing for US$10 million, particularly in cash, required between now and July.

Without urgent new contributions, WFP warns that it will start running out of pulses in April, cereals and vegetable oil in May and corn-soya blend in June.

WFP has recently raised the number of people it expects to feed in Somalia this year to 2.1 million.

Living Hell as a Somali Journalist

I left my native Somalia in August, days after an unidentified man called my cellphone to inform me that I was about to be killed.Seven months later, living in exile, I’ve found that the threatening phone calls haven’t stopped. Read The rest of the story

Nowadays, however, they are not from would-be assassins. Instead my cellphone rings with warnings from immigration officials in countries where I have sought, usually without success, to find a safe place to live.
“Why don’t you leave?” was the near-daily taunt from one government official in Djibouti, who called so frequently I almost began to consider him a friend.

Since leaving my home, I’ve bounced from country to country around East Africa, trying to find one willing to accept someone with a passport from Somalia. I was threatened with arrest in Djibouti for overstaying my visa; kicked out of Somaliland for being a “foreign” journalist; welcomed by Uganda, but only as the country grappled with an Ebola outbreak; and finally allowed into Kenya after paying an exorbitant $700 fee. In keeping with my unlucky streak, two days after I arrived in Kenya, the country held its disputed election, ushering in weeks of violence and inter-ethnic killing.

My story is not uncommon. Many of Somalia’s 600,000 displaced people have left the country; but few are finding host nations willing to lay down a welcome mat. And in a region where free media are rare, my press pass hasn’t exactly opened doors for me either.

Unless you are willing to live in camps along the Kenya- Somalia border, qualifying as a U.N.-recognized refugee is tricky. Charities and United Nations agencies focus their help on refugees living in camps, but there is little assistance for those of us struggling to make it on our own. And amid the U.S.-sponsored anti-terrorism “war,” traveling as a Somali can be risky and complicated, even before you consider that Somalia has not issued valid passports since the government collapsed in 1991.

After leaving Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, my first stop was Djibouti, a tiny country just to the north. Early last year, I had relocated my wife and family there for their safety and it seemed a convenient place to settle.

But immigration officials did not agree, limiting me to a two-month visa. They reminded me that Djibouti has no free media, only state-run television and radio. So the last thing they wanted was a nosy reporter stirring things up. The message was clear: Don’t work.

Unable to make other arrangements and enjoying a reunion with my family, I exceeded the authorities’ time limit. But even before my 60-day visa had expired, the daily phone calls started. At first the callers were sympathetic. But soon their patience wore thin. Finally I was given 10 days to leave or face arrest. My family could stay, but I, as a journalist, had to go.

My next stop was Hargeisa, capital of the northern breakaway region known as Somaliland. I assumed I would be accepted there. After all, many still consider the region to be part of Somalia.

But due to the violence in Mogadishu, about two dozen other journalists had the same idea. We quickly became pawns in the political struggle over Somaliland’s independence. Authorities would only allow us to remain if the U.N. formally recognized us as refugees living in a “foreign” country. The U.N., which does not formally recognize Somaliland as a separate country, would only classify us as “internally displaced” people. So Somaliland gave us two days to leave.

Authorities there also appeared to be concerned that hosting journalists from Mogadishu might anger Somaliland’s powerful neighbor Ethiopia, which is backing Somalia’s transitional government and tightening relations with Somaliland.

Kenya was my next goal, but a visa was proving difficult to obtain. So I ended up in Uganda. The flight to Uganda was simple. The government was cooperative. The people were friendly. But as I arrived at the airport, officials informed me that the country was in the midst of a deadly Ebola outbreak, which ultimately killed 37 people and sickened more than 100 others.

So along with my visa at the airport came this friendly advice: Don’t shake hands with anyone. Avoid certain animals and food products. Stay away from public places. Don’t use public restrooms.

I thought living in Mogadishu was stressful, but I only lasted a week in Uganda. Most days I spent holed up in my hotel room, nursing a headache and glued to the television, watching coverage of the deadly virus.

I was relieved to hear that my Kenyan visa had been approved. The catch? It would cost $700 for one month. By contrast, Americans pay $50. To extend the visa would cost an additional $500 a month.

With no options, I dipped into my meager savings, said goodbye to Ebola and arrived in Kenya on Christmas Day, two days before the presidential poll.

While in Nairobi, the capital, I contacted the U.N. Commission on Human Rights office, hoping the agency would help me qualify for refugee status. If I could receive a letter from it certifying that I was forced to flee Somalia for my safety, I might be able to remain in Kenya without a visa.

The commission referred me back to the refugee camps near the Kenya-Somalia border, saying it would be easier to process my application there. I worried about the security risks of being so close to the border. And I had no desire to live in the camps, where I would be unable to find work and have to survive on food handouts from aid groups.

Meanwhile, I watched with dismay as Kenya, which I’d hoped would be a haven, descended into chaos. My front-row seat on the postelection violence and ethnic clashes stirred painful memories of my own nation’s struggles.

Somalia’s civil war began as early as 1988, when political disputes between President Mohamed Siad Barre and his political opponents began to take on a clan-based dimension, pitting the president’s Darod clan against the opposition’s Hawiye clan. It was like Kenya’s friction between President Mwai Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe and opposition leader Raila Odinga’s Luo tribe.

One important difference, however, was that Somalia’s police and army took sides in the conflict, joining their clans and participating in the civil war. Security forces in Kenya have, for the most part, steered clear of the political struggles.

I was relieved when Kenya’s leaders resolved their standoff and agreed to share power. I know firsthand what happens when political leaders put their own ambitions and greed ahead of their country.

But for me, the next step is unclear. I’ll keep paying the $500 monthly visa fee, but my money will soon run out. Perhaps I’ll try Somaliland again, but I’d like to find a place where my family can be reunited. And I’m eager, sometimes desperate, to return to work.

As a journalist, there are so many stories about Somalia that I want to write. But returning to work in Mogadishu seems impossible given the ongoing pressure on journalists. This month, the government raided three local radio stations.

For now, my only assignment is finding a new home

A Friends' Tragedy

A light breeze blew across my face, my feet were on the soft sandy beach. I was standing there turning towards the ocean the sun was setting, walking closer to the water..... a shiver went down my spine. Quite scared, I stepped into the cold, freezing night water. I looked down to see my reflection, I was totally screwed, and as I walk in more I felt like living a freezer.
The sun went down so slowly, the noise of the ocean vibrated in my head, I was splashing in the water. Now that it was up to my hips I began to swim. Swimming across trying to reach the sun I was exhausted, the trail was never ending and there was no way I could have gone to it.

The ocean was still and cold but I felt warm as sweat began to form on my forehead. Just as I stopped to hear a splashing noise, a cold breeze took away the warmth. Something was heading my way, I felt the force of the water pushing against me.

I was in terror when I felt a rough side of something brush by my leg, even more sweat had roll down my cheek and I was completely shocked. Thinking of what it was, I realized I have swam too far, but what was that mysterious creature hiding beneath the water. It happened again, slowly after a second or two, I heard a tiny splash, I wanted to scream but no sound seemed to come out.

I saw a shark’s fin bobbing up and down, too scared to move or scream I stood there, down in the cold water I felt the shark with those sharp teeth biting in to me. I wanted to scream and yell but I couldn’t and I finally could when I’ve been bitten, but it was too late. No one can turn back time. I felt very hot, I laid my hand across my forehead, sweat trickled on it. My eyes started opening, but my brain seemed half asleep. I smiled to myself and said it was all a dream.

As I started to get up, I felt this acute pain that flowed through my leg, the bitten one,and as I looked around I could hear so many people saying “ He woke up.” I was wondering where I was, and you’ve guessed it.......the hospital! Looking around so many people have now crowded around me and they looked like doctors and nurses. Well, I said to myself, who else could they be when I’m in the hospital. Back to the pain, I laid back down in my bed and my painful leg begun stinging. They put my to slept as I was taking to another room, which...Oh no, was the operation room!

I was panicking wanting to get out, putting me to slept wasn’t a good idea. I was struggling to keep awake but suddenly I felt so tired like I stayed up the whole night. I woke up again, the sun was now shining bright from outside the window, there was no more pain from my leg and as I looked at it........I was as shocked as when I was bitten.

No one actually told me and asked me about it, they had chopped my leg off!! And now I have to wear this fake leg all my life. I was very angry and disappointed, I didn’t think that this would actually happen, and if I had knew I wouldn’t have gone swimming. But as I said before, think before doing something because no one, absolutely no one can turn back time.

A Lifetime Dream

Some people only get to dream about what life might be like if they had accomplished their life goals. Some people dream about what it might not be like. Ahmed was one of these more fortunate people until.

Ahmed had to overcome more pain during his lifetime then some could imagine. He dreamed of becoming a wealthy, well known business man, with a loving family. He had no clue that it would be so hard to accomplish the few things that mattered the most to him, his dreams.

Ahmed grew up in a family of poverty, heartbreak, and violence. Every night Ahmed’s dad would come home drunk and beat on Ahmed and his sister, Asha. Sometimes Ahmed would hide in a closet with his sister praying that his dad wouldn’t come home. The pain Steven suffered during these beatings were unbearable.

Ahmed’s mother couldn’t do anything about it. She was afraid of her violent tempered husband. She tried to take her kids away from their father a few times, but she was threatened and beaten. There was no escape from what seemed like hell.

After years of violence and abuse, Ahmed’s mother had had it. After Asha had just been molested by her father, she thought that their was nothing left to live for. She had pulled the trigger on herself, killing one of the few people that Ahmed had cared about. After this incident, Ahmed rebelled against everything that he believed in.

He just felt like there was nothing to live for and no one he could depend on. Ahmed didn’t do his schoolwork, he ran away from home a number of times, and he even got addicted to heroin. Asha had moved to her aunt’s house in order to avoid getting into trouble with her father, but Ahmed refused to go.

Then on a cold rainy night, Ahmed went home to see a swarm of police around his home. He later found out that his father was killed in a fight over drugs, in which Ahmed was the source of. It was at that moment that Ahmed felt the worst he has ever felt in his entire life. He felt like he was to blame for his father’s death and his mind went blank.

Without hesitation, he got his father’s handgun, held to his mouth, and thought of his mother. The loving mother that he used to have, the one that was to afraid to help him, the one that was just there. Ahmed thought of his father. The one that would come home drunk and beat on him, the one that molested his sister, the one who’s going to burn in hell. Ahmed pulled the gun out of his mouth and realized that he wasn’t the blame for his father’s death. He thought that his father would be better off dead. Then he thought of his dreams. His loving family.

Ahmed decided to turn his whole life around. He wanted to see what it would be like to live a normal life. First, Ahmed had to quit his heroin addiction. That was simple compared to what he had already overcome. Then he went back to school, determined to make the best of it. Ahmed finished at the top of his class.

For a year after that, Ahmed had worked to earn money for college, while keeping up with his studies. He then went to law school in Maryland, and again finished at the top of his class. It wasn’t until soon after when Ahmed fell in love. He had found the girl of his dreams. He then realized that his dreams were halfway accomplished. Ahmed continued in the field of law and became a very successful lawyer. He even had two beautiful kids of his own.

By the time Ahmed was thirty six, he had accomplished every one of his dreams. He finally knew what it was like to live a normal life, but he had missed out on a giant portion of his life. He missed the joy of childhood. Ahmed began to have flashbacks, his father would beat him until he saw blood. Ahmed began to remember more and more about his youth.

Ahmed soon got addicted to heroin again, after having these nightmares. His life began to crumble right before his very eyes. His wife had left him, his kids were taken away, and he was fired from his job. What did he have left to live for? He kept asking himself that over and over. Ahmed decided to take a life... his own.

What are Emotions

Emotions can be classified, according to your personal experience, into three different categories: happiness, sadness, and anger. First of all, there is happiness. Happiness has no limits, for it can be felt at any time, any place and to any person.

It cannot be hunted for; it is not obvious, but inscrutable. Happiness is realized by understanding one's self, which is completely a personal experience. For instance, a person may find happiness in one thing, whereas someone else may in another. Happiness is what we let it be, and even though carry the abilty to let ourselves be happy, we rarely do.

The second catagory that emotions can be fall into is sadness. Why is the quest for happiness left us more vulnerable and sad? Are we a society of people who are all looking for happiness and disappinted with what we find? In most cases, sadness leaves us in a state of depression and unstableness.

When you become sad you feel as though you hate life at the present time and in most instances you cry, become depressed and feel like your sadness will be everlasting. If we were always happy and never expressed our sadness, it would eventually build up and one day we would just explode, and mabye go into a form of deep depression.

The last but not least of the catagories of emotion is anger. Quick to rise, and even quicker to lash out, the simple emotion of anger has the power to destroy and create. Anger is not always a bad emotion. Without anger lives would be lost, tyranny would go unopposed, and inhumanities would be quietly accepted.

Anger, the most powerful and feared emotion of the soul's repertoire, destroys and created in the same breath. Moving from one person to the next anger is an every present force in our world, and has been since the beginning of time. Anger is a great objective cycle: destroying what it created and creating what it destroys.

Various people look at emotions in different ways. Everyday we experience different types of emotions, including happiness, sadness and anger. Every emotion means and is dealt with differently by each and every one of us; we have the choice of how we let them affect our lives.

Love and happiness

Have you ever heard of someone that was “so in love” but wasn’t actually very happy? It is possible for this to happen because actually, what we sometimes refer to as “love” isn’t really love at all.

Some people claim to “love” another person and sacrifice “everything” but later they find out that they weren’t really happy because they weren’t really considering their own needs in the first place.

Before we can love someone and spread our happiness to them, we have to be happy ourselves.. War hadaadan adigu faraxsaneyn, maxaad ii jeclaan. banaaka iga mar dee.

Most of the time, love is associated with happiness but, when you start losing that love,(Horey ayaan sadex iga lumayee) you also start losing your happiness and you may find that you never really had those things to begin with. This kind of “love” and “happiness” is not really love and happiness at all.

Unfortunately, these misconceptions are a lot more common than many people like to admit. Falling in and out of love happens all the time and nobody is ever really sure what makes things fall apart. Walee kuwiii jacely ka lumey uun baa ii taageeri doona.

You’ve probably seen it before. In the beginning, two people walk hand in hand and seem to go together like night and day, coffee and cream, caano, iyo shaah, husband and wife. Over time, however, there are problems and they begin to feel bad, to argue and lose hope.

Life is not without it’s problems even when you are in love. Maintaining that love and that happiness is something that very few people are capable of because, actually, it comes from somewhere even deeper inside a person than they are truly aware of.

A lot of things can aggravate the negative feelings that we have inside ourselves and we may think that the person we love is “no longer the same” or “doesn’t care about us anymore”. You may begin to feel that everything is hopeless and fail to see any light at the end of the tunnel.

Something has gone wrong and you don’t know what it is. The problem that has befallen you is that you never found that wellspring ama ceelka inside of yourself but wrongly imagined it to be coming from someone else. Waad faraxsaneyd for a while but you didn’t really know why. Those feelings of love and happiness weren’t coming from the other person! You thought they were but, actually, they were coming from inside of you!

It’s true! They were coming from inside of you! Once that person begins to appear commonplace and boring, the feeling you had begins to fade. You no longer feel the great feelings of love that were actually coming from inside of you to start with. You decided to turn them off. Instead, you covered them up again and all you felt was a sense of darkness oo mugdi iyo shaki ka buuxaan..

Real happiness comes from a heart that is so filled with genuine love, (iyo cishqi kalgacal ku dheehan) that nothing on the outside can really affect it in any lasting way. There are rare Somali people who have practiced many techniques and teachings and learned to overcome their fears and their negative emotions to find a wellspring of energy inside them which is the real place that love and happiness come from.

Life is a long road with many challenges ay qodaxyo miidhan ah and the winners learn to lift up their heads and go on even in the hardest of times. Love and happiness are what make this world worthwhile, so let’s keep our head up and learn to be the person in charge of our own destiny. We are truly the one’s who are in charge and we can make it an award winning movie that everyone will pay to see!

Nothing is Anything

Zip! Zero! Nada! The absence of anything. Not a thing. No portion, no part. What could be simpler and more straightforward? Actually, it's pretty complicated. Nothing is hardly nothing. In mathematics you taught that zero is nothing. But as soon as you understand that concept, you find out that you can have less than nothing. So nothing must really be something, simply because it is greater than negative and less than positive. And forget about physics.

Physicists, while attempting to calculate the mass of the universe, are determined to prove that nothing must really be something, since they can't find enough something to add up to what they consider to be everything.

Confusing? Illogical? Unreasonable? If you are not dumbfounded yet then you have grasped this concept better than I have. On the other hand, we can look at it from a radical's point of view, who considers everything to be nothing, while many minimalists think that achieving nothing is everything.

And, if you are the insolent type, nothing is sacred. If you are religious, you believe that Allah created everything out of nothing. If you are a taxpayer, you are constantly amazed at the ability of politicians to create nothing out everything you have paid towards the government in the past year.

Now let’s consider what goes on in your head. If you have nothing on your mind, you have no direct thoughts on one particular thing. If you have nothing in mind, you're undecided and probably open to suggestion, and that is not bad.

However, if you have nothing upstairs, that is not good at all, in fact, you probably do not understand a word that has been written, or that you are so confused that your head hurts and you have wished that you would have read nothing at all.

Ciyaalka who have nothing up their sleeves are honest. But if they have nothing in their pockets, they are broke, gacamahey kor u taagaan.

Although doing nothing can be quite relaxing, having nothing to do is very boring. And beware when someone offers you something for nothing. You will find that nothing can be very expensive. And when you buy something on finance, "nothing down" usually means a whole lot later.

So we will never truly no when someone says they did nothing whether they are telling the truth or not. Maybe it is better we leave that to your imagination. Next time you ask ilmo yar (a kid) what they did at school and they reply, Nothing,and try and imagine them holding up the local 7-11 or maybe blowing up their chemistry lab, it might make life a bit more interesting. Exactly what is nothing, it certainly is something, and something is not nothing

Don't Judge people

We should not give each other labels, everyone should be a part of a family, but I guess we do have to play a different part. We do have to stand out in a way that cannot hurt others in any way, physically or mentally. Labels make me feel very sad. How can we judge each other like that? Most labels are put by peoples' appearance.


How dare we judge people for their appearance instead of the beauty of their character? You think you have best friends that will always be there for you, what will happen if another group disliked you, or you won some big reading award, would your friends be ashamed to be seen with you?

What makes a great friend in your opinion? Is it the friend who will share lunch with you and tell you if you have something between your teeth, is it the person who will help you with your homework, tell you to stop cheating, or talking if the teacher does not except that?

Or is it the person that talks back to the teacher, cheats on tests, would never enter a school competition, unless it includes hot guys, hangs out with you only when you have a cute outfit on, and other days just tries to make excuses to hang out with someone else?.

I admit, I do label people sometimes, and I am extremely happy if they, or others that notice point it out to me. I try to change that as soon as possible and make it up to them.

The best way to fight a label is to confront the person, or the group that is labeling you. Explain to them, that every person has their own likes and dislikes, but that doesn't mean they are any different then the other people.

Just because they are not wearing the tightest clothes, or having the juiciest gossip, or news, does not mean they are less valuable or less fun. The people that you call nerds and geeks iyo doqon will be our next presidents and other high-intellectual people.

Therefore think about the next label you lick and stick on a person's forehead. Maybe you should get to know the person better.

No More Housekeepers.

She dresses like Carol Vorderman, idolises Oprah Winfrey and, although she grew up in a male-dominated society where a man’s word is law, she likes to be seen as a feminist.

Following the collapse of her four-year marriage, Amina Shakur lives in temporary accommodation in west London with her two young children, Maymuun, five, and Mustaf, threeAfter a nightmare year in Russia, Finland and Norway, the 29-year-old refugee from Somalia arrived in the United Kingdom, her preferred destination, on March 1996. The main reason for her coming to the UK was to marry her long-term sweetheart, Mohamed Ali, who had arrived five months earlier.

Read The rest of the story

A sumptuous Western-style Somali wedding in London on 7 April 1996, four weeks after landing in the UK, they married in a small, colourful ceremony at which guests, friends and relatives were entertained by dancers and musicians.

"We were both enthusiastic about the prospect of building a family," recalls Shakur. The future looked bright. They knew each other intimately, although the relationship between Muslims precludes sex before marriage. For Shakur was marrying a man she had met at high school, when she was 16 years old. She was in Form Three and he was in Form Four at the 21 October Secondary School in Somalia, named after the day dictator Mohamed Siyad Barre took power in 1969.

When Barre was toppled in January 1991, Shakur and Ali fled the country. They separated, and their only point of contact was through Shakur’s sister in London. They used to call her in order to keep in touch with each other. So marrying in London was special for Shakur and Ali. They were joining an estimated 100,000 Somalis living in the UK.

Things fall apart

It was after the birth of their first child that Shakur started feeling that things were not going according to plan, though Ali had no idea that anything was wrong. She admits that she had always wanted to rear her family in the European way.

Like most Somali women in the UK, Shakur’s name is registered for state benefit and housing allowance. She wanted to study, to work if possible, to socialise and join in with the new culture. Ali, a devoutly religious man, felt differently. Like most other Somali men, he firmly believed that women should remain at home, provide meals and raise the children.

By July 2000, their relationship was damaged irreparably. After an argument over sharing the housework – a major point of contention between husbands and wives of the diaspora – Ali allegedly hit Shakur in the face. It was the third time he had physically assaulted her, and she wasted no time in dialling an emergency number.

Like many other Somali families with troubled relationships, divorce became the only solution. On the Christmas night of the same year, Ali officially pronounced the third and final procedure in Islamic law and divorced Shakur.

Somali marriage breakdowns first became frequent in the early 1990s when thousands of Somalis fled the civil strife and political upheaval in their country. Back in Somalia, the commitment to marriage was so strong that divorce was practically unheard of. But migrants to Europe found that the new culture meant that they faced rigorous challenges. Marriage became less valuable.

In a survey conducted for this article, 78 Somalis of different sexes and ages, both married and single, were asked to give their views on the main causes of marriage breakdowns within the UK’s Somali community.

Family counselling for the Somali community in London

The new culture was not supportive of traditional marriage customs, the interviewees felt. External cultural influences were the main reason given for marriage break-ups (76%). The rest of the interviewees (34%) blamed the economic independence of the diaspora women.

28% blamed khat, a green narcotic leaf widely chewed by the Somalis. Khat was illegal in Somalia from 1983 until 1991 when the regime that banned it was overthrown. In the UK, where it can be purchased legally, it is widely believed that the substance causes financial hardship and sexual impotence.

Interestingly, nearly half (46%) said Somali marriages in the diaspora were simply not strongly rooted in a committed relationship. When asked what the most common reasons for getting married were, 53% considered love as the starting point, while a staggering 44% said that Somalis in the diaspora married for financial reasons.

As to who was to blame, women or men, interviewees split on gender lines: 70% of the women blamed men’s failure to adapt to the new environment; 74% of the men blamed either the host culture, or the women for adapting to it.

Women’s financial independence

"This does not mean everybody is forgetting our history," insists Ahmed Mohamed Wasuge, a linguistics professor from the former Somali Faculty of Languages, who is now a refugee in London. But he admits that the situation is worrying.He has been trying to mediate between troubled Somali couples. ‘Of the twenty families I have intervened in, only nine are still married.’ He sees the root of the problem as lying in the fact that Somali women are refusing to respect their tradition and religion. ‘A man feels guilty when he cannot pay the bill, and our women see this as a victory over men.’ He himself is married for the fourth time, and has six children.

In his report on Somali refugees in London, Dr Anthony Olden, of London’s Thames Valley University, agrees that the balance of power between husbands and wives within Somali families of the diaspora has changed. ‘Women find that they now control the family finances because social welfare payments are channelled through them. This alters the relationship between them and their partners, particularly if the man is out of work,’ he concludes in his report.

But according to Professor Wasuge, the largest source of income in contention between spouses falls outside the welfare system. Most Somali women living in Europe benefit from an interest-free loan system. Shalongo, as it is known in Somali, involves large sums of money, managed centrally, which circulate within a fixed number of women. The Shalongo can raise between £5,000 and £12,000 annually for a woman who needs it – depending on how much is invested. This sum has to be repaid in instalments over an agreed period of no less than a year.

Women and children account for the highest number of Somalis who migrate to the UK. Men often opt to stay, either to look after properties left behind, or to fight along side their clansmen, politically or militarily. Many such women either divorce their husbands immediately on arrival, in order to start a new life, or do so a few years later, when their applications for family reunion are turned down.

owards a European way?

Qali Farayare is a mother of seven who divorced the father of six of her children in 1995 when he failed to join them in London. A year later, she married the father of her seventh child but split up after just eight months.The reason she gives for the break-up with her second husband exemplifies the way in which the host culture brings its influence to bear on a couple. ‘He refused to contribute to housework and the family income and was not the most wonderful person,’ Farayare claims. He also had a weakness for khat. ‘He chewed with other people and came home to sleep,’ she remarks. ‘He never spent time with me…a lot of single mothers would agree with me.’

Farayare admits that external influences played a part in the deterioration of the relationship. ‘Men should learn how to cook, do the laundry and change the nappies,’ she says with a chuckle. Back home, Somali men would never have been required to share in the housework.

Fellow single mother Shakur agrees with Farayare: Somali men should accept the European way of life. ‘This is a husband and wife meeting their family duties,’ she says. ‘Men should cook, wash the dishes, and do the ironing if the wife seems to be busy on something else. This is nothing to be ashamed of.’

Shakur does not accept that the effect of the move to a new culture has pushed Somali men to the wall. ‘Somali men are known to rate themselves very highly and are mentally robust,’ she says. ‘They are using religion as a scapegoat when they say that women are abandoning Islam. This is the way this country is, and we should adapt to it,’ she concludes.

Ali disagrees with his ex-wife. Living with a woman is a tricky business these days, he thinks. ‘Most of them deviate from Islam, they abandon the Islamic doctrine – that is the stumbling block to every Somali family in Europe,’ he complains. ‘They feel in control, become westernised and are now sitting on us…they want the situation to remain like that.’

He himself comes from a deeply religious family. He has been raised to expect a hierarchy of respect within a family structure where everyone knows their role. ‘Don’t think I am a dictator. The Somali men in the diaspora make some mistakes. But I also think women constrain them to do so. Women always look for weaknesses in men.’

Western media role models

The truth of Ali’s claim is borne out by women such as Shakur, who exemplifies the so-called ‘westernised woman’. She idolises Oprah Winfrey and the way her talk shows address women’s issues. ‘You can call me a feminist,’ she said. A glance at her video cassette collection reveals that she also admires movies that possess a taste for love, romance and feminism. One example is Madonna's Innocence Lost – an intimate, rags to riches story, which testifies to the way in which sheer ambition can lift a charismatic woman to the pinnacle of the entertainment industry. The other movie, Sliver, involves a women (Sharon Stone) looking for excitement in her life after ending an unhappy marriage.

So does Shakur plan to remarry? ‘Any woman who wants to marry must learn enough about the man before getting hooked up. This is Europe and there is plenty of time. She can go out with him and give it a try. She can even ‘tempt him unlawfully’.

‘Women should avoid marrying men for money and looks. What is important is his intelligence and his behaviour in the family,’ she says. ‘As to whether I will marry again…no comment! But of course I need a man.’

Haweenkeenii waa la duufsadey, Alle ha noo soo celiyo. Amiiiiin

It is Time to Break up

When we first start a new relationship we are so filled with happy euphoric feelings of love that it seems like things couldn't ever change, but more often than not they do. More often than not they end. It is a sad fact of dating that things don't always work out and when a relationship starts to turn it can be hard to accept. Is your relationship reaching it's expiry date? Is a break up in the near future? Should you get out before things get ugly or hang on and see if there is something left.

Remember: If your relationship is emmotionally or physically abusive, or if it causes you to act in a self destructive manner you should get out regardless of how "in love" you feel. Relationships that hurt don't need to be saved. Waa yaab aduun in la isaga dhex jiro relationship aan shaqeyneynin. Breaking up is always my motto to save my ass.

Most relationships could be saved only if the couple spent many years together, and there is some trust in it. What, however, I'm talking about is the so-called TESTING THE WATER, to see if someone is actually compatible with the other one.

Any realtionship less than a year is doomed to fail and giving it another try is as simple as just saying"I'M SORRY", but those words are actually the main killer and they should be avoided altogether. It's up to that couple to work out or get a help to save their damn relationship, otherwise there is nothing wrong to throw it in the towel.

Breakingup is a very difficult situation and it is considered like your loved one is dead, and losing someone you loved for many months or years is the same. We have to go into a period of mourning and start over again and look for another lover at the end of the tunnel.

I often hear about couples breaking up because of "incompatibility." The concept of compatibility has been around for many years, and many have accepted this as a fundamental truth of relationships. According to this axiom, people, like chemicals, can be categorized - with certain personality types mixing well together whereas others producing destructive explosions when combined in a close relationship. (Ma rubaa )

Another flavor of this conventional wisdom is that couples are held together by shared values or preferences. So when two people find themselves "drifting apart" they may conclude that they have changed and no longer have much in common.

On the other hand, some proverbs present a contradictory viewpoint - "opposites attract" and "variety is the spice of life." So where's the truth? Are compatibility and commonality critical success factors in a relationship?

Here's a little story someone wrote:

She married him because he was such a "strong man." She divorced him because he was such a "dominating male."

He married her because she was so "fragile and cute." He divorced her because she was so "weak and helpless."

She married him because "he is a good provider." She divorced him because "all he thinks about is success."

He married her because she was "steady and sensible." He divorced her because she was "boring and dull."

This makes clear that the perception of compatibility and commonality can indeed make or break a marriage. So the real question is - can we change our perception?

Paid in Full with One Glass of Milk

One day, a poor boy who was selling goods from door to door in Afgooye to make ends meet, found he had only one thin dime left, and he was hungry. He decided he would ask for a meal at the next house. However, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman opened the door.

Instead of a meal, he asked for a drink of water. She thought he looked hungry and so she brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it slowly, and then asked, "How much do I owe you. You don't owe me anything," she replied. "Mother has taught us never to accept pay for a kindness." He said, "Then I thank you from my heart." As Saalax Axmed left that house, he not only felt stronger physically, but his faith in Allah and man was strengthened also. He had been ready to give up and quit.

Years later, that young woman became critically ill. The local doctors were baffled. They finally sent her to the Mogadishu, where they called in specialists to study her rare disease.

Dr. Saalax Axmed(living in New York) was called in for the consultation. When he heard the name of the town she came from, he went down the hall of the hospital to her room. Dressed in his doctor's gown, he went in to see her. He recognized her at once. He went back to the consultation room determined to do his best to save her life. From that day, he gave special attention to the case.

After a long struggle, the battle was won. Dr. Saalax requested from the business office to pass the final billing to him for approval. He looked at it, then wrote something on the edge, and the bill was sent to her room. She feared to open it, for she was sure it would take the rest of her life to pay for it all. Finally she looked, and something caught her attention on the side of the bill. She read these words:

"PAID IN FULL WITH ONE GLASS OF MILK....

(Signed)
Dr. Saalax Axmed."

Tears of joy flooded her eyes as her happy heart prayed: "Alaxamdulliaahi."

Great story shows how an act of kindness can keep on snowballing.

No More Reer Baadiye

Still looking !. Have you guys seen Suuqa haweenka lagu naadiyo. They said"Got Money, we got Islaamo. I visited Qabridahare, my parents hometown. What happened? Uh! I was welcomed like a king.They threw a big part including geel la qalo, dhaanto la bood boodo oo Hoobeey hoobeey ka buuxaan. Miskiin dheh geelii bey iska qaleen anoon waxba u wadin.

Unware that I had a secret woman back in the USA, a lot of foodleey thought I was there for lady shopping. A lot of beautiful qalnjoos took position, each wants to be the first to advertise herself. Aniga, Aniga, aniga, iyo aniga ka waran nooh! I have this and I have that. I'm only 16, 17, 18,. Yes, I have full package complete with everythinng. Those were some of their advertisement.

Aah, those are my miyi girls. where the hell did they learn those things. I didn't even expect to see a house with a phone, let alone a mobile phone. Oh! I was stunned when I saw eedo Khadiijo who was on paltalk with a computer in her jiko. waa wareey, war no more reer baadiye any more. dadkii waa wada ilbaxeen ee xageen qabanaa yaakhey

Prophet Muhammed's (PBUH) Farewell

"O People, lend me an attentive ear, for I know not whether after this year, I shall ever be amongst you again. Therefore listen to what I am saying to you very carefully and TAKE THESE WORDS TO THOSE WHO COULD NOT BE PRESENT HERE TODAY O People, just as you regard this month, this day, this city as Sacred, so regard the life and property of every Muslim as a sacred trust. Return the goods entrusted to you to their rightful owners. Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you.

Remember that you will indeed meet your Lord, and that He will indeed reckon your deeds. ALLAH has forbidden you to take usury (interest), therefore all interest obligation shall henceforth be waived. Your capital, however, is yours to keep. You will neither inflict nor suffer any inequity. Allah has Judged that there shall be no interest and that all the interest due to Abbas ibn 'Abd'al Muttalib (Prophet's uncle) shall henceforth be waived...

Beware of Satan, for the safety of your religion. He has lost all hope that he will ever be able to lead you astray in big things, so beware of following him in small things.

O People, it is true that you have certain rights with regard to your women, but they also have rights over you. Remember that you have taken them as your wives only under Allah's trust and with His permission. If they abide by your right then to them belongs the right to be fed and clothed in kindness. Do treat your women well and be kind to them for they are your partners and committed helpers. And it is your right that they do not make friends with any one of whom you do not approve, as well as never to be unchaste.

O People, listen to me in earnest, worship Allah, say your five daily prayers (Salah), fast during the month of Ramadan, and give your wealth in Zakat. Perform Hajj if you can afford to.

All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action. Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly. Do not, therefore, do injustice to yourselves.

Remember, one day you will appear before Allah and answer your deeds. So beware, do not stray from the path of righteousness after I am gone.
O People, no prophet or apostle will come after me and no new faith will be born. Reason well, therefore, O People, and understand words which I convey to you. I leave behind me two things, the QURAN and my example, the SUNNAH and if you follow these you will never go astray.

All those who listen to me shall pass on my words to others and those to others again; and may the last ones understand my words better than those who listen to me directly. Be my witness, O Allah, that I have conveyed your message to your people".

The Smart Lady and her Stupid Man

Well, I'm gonna tell you a true and complex story happened to my neighbors. This kind of story happens all the time, but this one is very especial. It's about a married couple who used to be my next door neighbors.

Kamal Ahmed, a Turkish born American citizen, is married to Sofia, a Russian born British citizen. Sofia is about 28 years old smart and pretty babe, but she is overweight. Kamal, a 35 years old engineer, is a very strong and mascular guy. Because he is gym man, he hates to see overweight people. He calls them greedy , lazy, and stuborn..

Sofia, a shopkeeper, has no college degree, but she is very intelligent and nice girl. Kamal, on the other hand, is educated, abusive, and dangerous dude. He complained that his wife was getting fat and he was running out of patience. Sofia was head over heels in love with Kamal. They had a lot in common and their personalities were compatible, but they had one major problem. Kamal loved everything about Sofia, but his love for her was contingent upon losing weight.

He compalined that he could no longer handle this fat woman, and he ordered her to fix her fat ass. He took her to the gym and told her to work hard and lose some junks. Sofia doesn't want to waste her time and torture her body, but she had no choice. She bowed to her man's order and she did everything she was told to do.

Few month's later, Sofia lost some junks of weight, and to Kamal's delight, she become slim and strong. As happy as a lark, Kamal bought a new car for her and congratulated her for being a good and loyal wife.

Unfortunately, she was losing weight in alarming rate. She already stopped going to the gym, but her body refused to slow down, and it keeps losing more and more fat.

Sofia, the beautiful babe, was nothing just a walking skeleton. Upon noticing his wife's bad look, Kamal started getting crazy again. He complained and said, why the hell on earth were you doing. Sofia, you look terrible and you need to get a little fat back, Kamal told his wife.

Sofia, once again, had no choice. She had to eat more and satisfy her beloved husband. Even though Kamal abused his wife emotionally, he loved her and he had never abused her physically. Sofia was loyal to her man and she did everything he orders her to do. She never talked to a doctor, because her man won't allow her seeing a doctor without his permission.

It wasn't too long when Sofia started picking up more fat again. She was back to square one. She was as overweight as she was few months ago. That was not acceptable to Kamal. He asked her why she couldn't be a normal woman. He said I don't want you to be uusleey, and I don't want you to be lafo lafo, either. Sofia remined him that the solution was beyond her ability and that only God could give her a perfect body

Many people were surprised to see how easily Sofia's body could change. But the problem was that her body was either picking up, or losing fat in alarming rate. this problem was too much to Kamal and at last they decided to untie the knot. This was Kamal's decision and he would regret later.

Sofia wasn't happy about leaving her beloved husband, but she accepted the divorce and left. She won everything they had. She got the custody of the kids, the house, all furnitures, all their saving money. She even won the custody of their pets. Kamal, the arrogant and powerful guy, was in total pain and tears . Yes, he was a strong man. Yes, he was an educated man with a master degree in electrical engineering. Yes, he had a high paying job, as an senior engineer. Yes, he had a beautiful wife and three beautiful kids. He lost all of those things and now he is high and dry. Even his family and friends abandoned him. He lost his job, got a lot of deb, and he had no where to live.

That is a good lesson for all of us, and we all need to think twice before we put our lives in danger. Poor Sofia was Kamal's true and loyal wife. They both promised that they would stay together until death do them apart. They promised they would help each other in health and sickness, in poverty and richness, in happiness and sadness.

Waxaas oo dhan waxey noqdeen hal bacaad lagu Lisay.
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