Clubbing in Mogadiscio

Haji, a thin, bearded watchman in his 80s, rests. His bed is carefully placed within the solid shadow cast by broad glossy green leaves - between a tree trunk and a high wall.

People who want to drive in or out of the compound toot their horn in front of the gates and then they must wait.

Haji lies still. Is he alive?

...

.

Yes. Thank God. He stirs; from the shadows one leg swings out, another follows. Haji gets off his bed and shuffles towards the doors. Reaching the doors, his arms shaking, he extracts a key out from between the folds of his robe. Comically, he tries to fumble the key into the lock - scrapes metal.

He doesn't allows anyone to help him. If you are in a desperate hurry, then too bad. You do as my mother did:

Wait. Bite your lip. Grit your teeth. Stamp your feet. Give the wheel a thump. Say: "Jesus! Now I am really going to be late."

Haji finds the lock, turns it open, swings each panel of the palace gate open.

Call out: "Thank you Haji" and be careful not to knock him over as revving, you and your car bolt out into the sunshine. Haji smiles and waves you away. Haji, with a trembling panga raised above his head, is a fearsome sight.

It was a smooth drive down to the disused beach house set aside as the UN beach club. The buildings and walls on the way are painted white and shine painfully. There isn't much traffic. On the left is the ocean. The sea wall lining the Mogadiscio promenade has square posts set into it at intervals, and crumbling fasci symbols are moulded onto them in plaster.

"They should keep those fasci symbols," says dad in passing, "...to help them remember the history of the Italian occupation."

* * *

There were few places to go in Mogadiscio and so, in a spirit of communal solidarity, Dad had decided to repair the beach house, to condition it and help make it into a social centre for the hard working NGO staff. The son of a good hotelier, one of his sayings was: 'Maintenance is next to Godliness'. He set about repairing the building.

Every day, whenever he could, he went down to the old Italian house above the beach to fix it up. When I arrived he asked me if I would like to help and so we set about re-plastering the pillars that held up the roof of the veranda and began repainting it. The pillars were not smoothly plastered, but they were evenly plastered. The colour dad chose was a restful shade of mocha cream - I don't think there was really much of a choice.

I had to leave to go back to study for my language degree, but the next time I visited I mentioned the club.

Dad explained.

"It was quite nice for a while" he said. Everyone was very pleased. "We went from time to time for about a month and sat on the veranda, drinking cool drinks, relaxing and enjoying the view.

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"Once, though, about a month ago, we were relaxing, looking at the children playing in the surf, when one of the boys screamed. We thought it was just a jellyfish or a sea urchin, but we all saw the water turn red." "It was shocking how quickly it changed colour." added mom.

.

"In any event," said dad, "a tiger shark had taken a big bite out of the boy's calf. He was put into someone's car and rushed to hospital. We don't know if he lived. Everyone was quite shaken by the experience and, for a while, no-one went down to the club."

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"It was the Russians fault," said mom. "They made a bloody great hole in the reef to let their submarines through and let the sharks in."

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"The sharks are attracted inshore by the waste which pours into the sea from the government slaughterhouse further up the coast, " Said dad.

"Let's go see it, never mind all that," I said.

.

"Well, I am afraid it's not that nice any more." said dad. "I cajoled the two club watchmen into helping me, but after the incident with the shark and the boy and there was a lull and people stopped going.

.

"Then I heard through the grapevine that late at night someone was organising big drunken parties there. The watchmen might have had something to do with it. The landlord was probably getting a kickback and so there was nothing we could do to stop it. I went to the club then and saw some shady characters hanging around and saw several women who looked like prostitutes. I went to have a word with the landlord, but he must have cut a deal. He didn't want to hear my objections."

.

"They obviously liked what you did to the place, dad." I said. That's why they moved in.

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After ten years working for the ILO and commuting back and forth to refugee camps in Hargeisa, mom left for another assignment in Harare. Dad ended his contract with the UNDP too, in order to follow mom. But he stayed behind to pack everything up, organise the move and settle their accounts. He then also left. Bodies of the victims of the clan fighting were just beginning to wash up on shore.

A year on, in their house in Harare I asked Dad. "Whatever happened to the UN beach club in the end."

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"Sad." he said. "But the last I heard of it was that it was taken over by a local Somali warlord." "Of course we have no idea what happened to Haji. But do you remember Abdi Osman," asked dad. "Mom's Somali assistant?"

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"Yes, of course. That pipe smoking guy."

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"Well, we heard from friends that he was stopped in the streets by armed men. They took him out of the car and they shot him."

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"My God." I said.

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"Yes. He was a member of the wrong clan, so they killed him - right there, in the street."

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"But there is an even a darker side to this story."

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"Do you remember mom's Somali counterpart?"

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"Of course. She was like all the people you ever meet of that kind. Glamorous, cosmopolitan. Her father had been an ambassador and she travelled round the world."

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"Well he became one of the warlord's enforcers." Said dad. "We suspect he might even have had something to do with Abdi's Osman's death. They even knew each other socially. He probably felt obliged to off him as a sort of proof of loyalty, or something along those lines."

.

"He seemed so urbane and civilised." I commented.

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"Some people can surprise you in situations like this can't they? You never know what to expect. Perhaps the situation demanded it of him" said dad. "Perhaps he had to do it. But some say he acted with gusto."

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Silence.

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"Whatever happened to young Abdi. Mom's driver? He was almost her adopted son. At least he adopted her. Mr marvellous, Mr fix it. He was great."

..

"We think he might have gone to Yemen," said dad, "but the truth is we'd rather not know."

.

* * *

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Years later, when Google map was invented I looked for an aerial view of the compound - and found it. The compound is still there to the top right of the stadium. You can see Haji's gate. It's what looks like a long white rectangle. Mom and Dad's house was first at the back of the compound and then at the back on the right. Or perhaps I'm wrong and it's the compound immediately in fromt of the stadium in which case Mom and Dad's old house has been demolished.