September 30
This morning I set out with the collection truck, whose duty is to collect all the overnight dead from the hospitals and feeding centers. For the past three months, the workers have picked up three hundred to four hundred corpses a day. After the first stop - five dead - I cannot stand it. So many of the bodies are tiny.
We move on to one of the twenty-two open-air kitchens in Baidoa, where rice, beans, and oil are distributed twice a day, at 10 A.M. and 1:00 P.M. People bring aluminum pots or even plastic bags to carry away the food. Skeletal children lie unconscious under a palm tree. The starving wait patiently for food to be distributed. Even at the feeding sites, many die from malnutrition that cannot be reversed. The rainy season is expected any minute, and the situation can only get worse, with outbreaks of cholera and malaria.
The refugees are bringing me home to something in myself. I'm utterly lost in their suffering, but I refuse to stay lost. Now, more than ever, I believe that their suffering must be, and will be, heard.
At 2:00 P.M., we leave for Mogadishu, a three-and-a-half-hour journey. The capitol city was divided in half (Mogadishu south and North) when full-scale war broke out on November 17, 1991. Fourteen thousand people have been killed and twenty-seven thousand wounded in the capitol. Months of shelling have destroyed the city beyond recognition. The famine is largely man-made; the fighting has disrupted cultivation and nomadic life. It is aid that two hundred poor farmers and nomads arrive here every day; this influx into Mogadishu, itself the scene of hunger, chaos, and unrest, is a statement about the desperation in the rest of the country.
Just at the outskirts of town, we are caught in crossfire. Gunmen are scattered everywhere, and children are screaming. We drive onto the sidewalk and escaped. All I can think of at the time is that bullets sounds much louder in the movies than in reality- these sounded like firecrackers.
October 1
It is time to begin tracing my personal history. Our first visit is to the Martini Hospital, where I was born on July 25, 1955. My mother used to work here, and all of my four siblings were born here. Going through the hospital's green gates and seeing its pink walls brings back memories of dental checkups and minor childhood injuries. The hospital still treats the sick, but now it also housed two hundred displaced families, and about one hundred workers, doctors, nurses, and their families.
On our way to my old school, our technical team collides with another, and firing starts. It is about nothing - young kids with guns become very macho men. We drive as fast as we can to the ICRC compound until they settle their differences.
Banadir Secondary School was the last school I attended before my family was forced into exile. There were about 450 students, of which only fifty were girls. Political indoctrination and military training were compulsory, and at the end of each term, the Russian teachers selected a group from among those with the highest IQs to be given scholarships to Russian universities. The chances of a female being selected were nonexistent, and so I was spared.
Now, the school is an orphanage. The old classrooms accommodate fifteen children per room. In a corner of one room, there are stacks of old books and notes and report cards. I wonder if one of them is mine.
October 2
Somalia is a Muslim country, so today, Friday, is considered the beginning of the weekend, and the streets are relatively quiet. After breakfast, we begin our search for my family home, the house that we lived in twenty years ago. I trace the path that I used to take from school, passing the Equator Cinema, a movie theater that was a source of wonder to me. (I especially remember seeing Lawrence of Arabia here - the British film crew teases me about that.) And then I come face to face with the house, a baby pink house with wooden gates. I am very surprised to find the interior in decent condition. But the roof badly needs repairing, and all the doors have been taken by looters, probably to use as a fuel for cooking.
There are four families living here now, with no water or electricity. They are afraid that my return means that they have to leave, and they beg me not to throw them into the streets. I assure them that they are welcome to stay, that on the contrary, I'm very happy the house is of use to them.
The kitchen brings back the most memories - of countless discussions and arguments, good times and bad times, and of that final meal in 1972, after my family decided to leave our homeland. The former government under Siad Barre has suspended the constitution, disbanded all political parties, and arrested all civilian politicians. My father, who had been the ambassador to Saudi Arabia, was under house arrest, and my mother believed that jail was just one step away. We asked for and received political asylum in Tanzania, and left with nothing.
That afternoon we find out that Ambassador Mohamed Sahnoun from the United Nations has granted me a meeting. He agrees with me that the U.N. has responded late to the tragedy. Ambassador Sahnoun, a tireless man, unstoppable, has been doing a superb job despite all the pitfalls that surround him. He encourages me to hang on, and full of hope, I leave him.