Excerpt:
"The final and most devastating stop for me was Banadir Hospital, where I was born. The doctors are like hostages of hopelessness, surrounded and outnumbered. Mothers hum lullabies holding the skeletal heads of their children. It seems eyes are the only ornament left of their beautiful faces; eyes like lanterns holding out a glimmer of faint hope. Volunteers are doing jobs they aren't qualified for. The wards are over-crowded, mixing gun wound, malnutrition and cholera patients.
"Death is in every corner of this place. It's lying on the mattresses holding the tiny wrists of half-sleeping children. It's near the exposed breasts of girls turned mothers too soon. It folds in the cots, all-knowing and silent; its mournful wind swells the black sheets. Here, each life ends sadly, too suddenly and casually to be memorialized."
I (this blogger) had a few Somalian friends in Saudi Arabia. One was Moosa who had left behind his family and migrated permanently to Saudi. He was a jolly chap ever-willing to crack a joke. The other was the driver Ahmed whose favourite word was "Atillo," the meaning of which I couldn't figure out. Whenever I would ask him what "Atillo" mean, he would sidetrack the issue or offer some vague explanation.
No comments:
Post a Comment