But the guest of honour still isn’t here …
‘Where is she?’ you ask Jamilah. ‘She can’t be late for her own birthday party!’
‘Oh, you know her,’ says Jamilah and laughs. ‘She takes forever in the shower!’
Just then, a breath of hot air and sweet-smelling shampoo wafts into the living room as a figure walks in, a towel around her head. She gives her frizzy hair one last rub and throws the damp towel back, and you see that wonderful face – the face of the woman who hid with you in a hole in the ground, who faked her own death to trick the terrorists, who Jamilah saw on the TV as she was dragged from the ocean; the face of the woman who managed to save all your lives. Aunty Rahama.
You run to her and she squeezes you into a hug as if you were still a little boy, although by now her head fits under your chin. She takes your hand and limps to the table. The doctors have said she’ll always have that limp, a legacy of the stroke she had after she was pulled from the ocean, which kept her in a coma in an Italian hospital all that time you were searching for her.
Aadan comes in from the kitchen carrying two amazing-smelling platters of food – Somali and Australian dishes, all Aunty Rahama’s favourites, a feast to rival the amazing wedding party they held three years ago for all their family and friends.
When you hug Rahama now, you notice how you have to bend around her growing baby bump. She and Aadan are expecting a little boy in the autumn. They are thinking of naming him Zayd.
Zayd stayed by Aunty Rahama’s side in Italy the whole time she was unconscious, never giving up hope, trying every way he knew to try to trace you, until she eventually regained consciousness and told him how to contact Aadan. He now lives in Germany and works as a taxi driver.
Jamilah is in the doorway now, hissing your name. You follow her to the kitchen.
‘Here – sign Aunty Rahama’s card,’ she says.
You always keep the Freedom Pen in your shirt pocket – it’s both a good-luck charm and a badge of honour to you. You pull it out now, and write in Rahama’s birthday card: To Rahama, you make my heart come alive.
You still write poems with the golden pen, too – although you’re now studying to become a qualified journalist, you still have a heart full of poetry. The book you’ve just published ends with the words:
I write because my tongue has no bones
But it’s strong enough to break down all the haters’ words.
You and Jamilah are called to the table – it’s time to feast! A circle of raised glasses catch the light, and three smiling faces turn to you: your family. A kookaburra laughs in the garden, and the sunset turns the steam from the feast golden. ‘To freedom!’ says Rahama.
It’s the same toast she makes – you all make – every time you sit down together, but you never grow tired of it. It’s a family song you all know the words to. It reminds you of everything you’ve been blessed with.
‘To freedom,’ you reply.
FACT FILE:
SOMALIA
Somalia is a country on the north-eastern coast of Africa. It’s shaped like the number ‘7’, with the long part of the ‘7’ adjoining the Indian Ocean. It is home to 14.3 million people, most of whom are Sunni Muslims, and its capital is Mogadishu.
These days, when you mention Somalia or Mogadishu, most people think of war and famine. But it wasn’t always like that. Records show that as far back as when the ancient Egyptians were building their pyramids, they were trading commodities such as gold, wood and ivory with those from the rich southern ‘Land of Punt’, which historians think was around the area of present-day Somalia. Mogadishu was such a beautiful city that for many years it was known as ‘the White Pearl of the Indian Ocean’.
As European countries became more powerful in the 1800s, though, they weren’t going to leave this African treasure-trove untouched. Italy and Britain colonised (took over) Somalia, and controlled it for nearly a hundred years, from the late 1800s until 1960.
After Somalia gained independence from the colonisers, there was a brief period of peace until, in 1969, a dictator* called Siad Barre seized power. Eventually, more than twenty years later in 1991, Barre’s government collapsed and Somalia was left without a leader, which threw the country into chaos as different would-be leaders fought for power.
The civil war – a type of war where a country fights within itself – began in 1991 and continues in some parts of the country today.
In 2006, a radical Islamic terrorist group called al-Shabaab joined the struggle for control of Somalia. At the time this story opens, in early September 2011, Mogadishu is protected by AMISOM†. However, al-Shabaab still controlled much of the countryside and sometimes mounted attacks in central Mogadishu, hoping to overthrow it. Today, al-Shabaab continues to represent a significant threat to peace in Somalia. A truck bomb in Mogadishu in 2017 killed 512 people. The history of clan-based conflict in Somalia makes it difficult for the country to unite against al-Shabaab.
This continuing conflict, and ongoing droughts and famine in the region, mean that every day, Somali people still face huge hurdles to making a living, or accessing healthcare or education.
Despite its turbulent history, Somali people love their country and their culture. Somali people say that they love to laugh, that their cooking is the best in the world, and that they have a strong sense of family and community spirit. There is so much more to know and understand about Somalia – and, luckily for Australia, over6000 Somalis now live here, and many of them
