     Ninka | Sunday, January 21, 2001 - 12:50 pm
Quite by chance,on my travels, I met an Italian who had run a farm cooperative in southwestern Somalia before the civil war. The man was traveling from Turin to Naples in the same train as me, accompanied by his Somali wife. After he had stared at the clear heavens for a long while, he said, "Somalis are a heartless evil to one another, but hospitable to foreigners."
How naive of him, I thought, as we introduced ourselves. His name was Luigi, and she was called Saida. They were recently married, after a long
separation. They had met in Mogadiscio, where Saida worked in the office of Luigi's cooperative. They had been planning to announce their intentions to her parents when the civil war broke out. Forced to leave hurriedly, each fled in a different direction, certain that their affection was powerful enough to justify their hopes for the future. He flew to Nairobi; she fled first to Kismaayo and then to Mombasa--thanks to Luigi, who provided her with funds to take her parents and herself to safety. Later, Luigi followed them to Mombasa. Upon arriving at the refugee camp late one afternoon, he was taken to the room where Saida and her family of five were living. Her father put his foot down, forbidding her to entertain Luigi. In his broken Italian, the old man said to his future son-in-law, "Mia bambina puttana!"
There was an ugly scene: somebody got hit, another was frog-marched out of the room. A crowd gathered outside to hear about the family whose
daughter supported them by whoring. "Can anyone believe that my own daughter is a puttana? Or that I am no better, since I have eaten food purchased
with money belonging to the man who has been sleeping with her?"
Saida lay on her spine for almost a month; her bones refused to mend, her muscles were in abject agony, tense. They hurt every time she thought about how her father had treated her, and how little her mother had done to restrain the old man. Her younger brothers had taken her father's side, even as they lavishly spent the money the Italian had given her. For his part, Luigi was humiliated by his future father-in-law's words. Enraged, Luigi nearly punched the old man for calling his daughter a puttana when God could attest that the two of them hadn't touched, much less made love. "I am a virgin," she had told
Luigi time and time again. "And I will remain a virgin until you make an honest wife of me." They had never even kissed. He had planned to convert to Islam.
Luigi returned to Nairobi with a broken heart. He spent many miserable days house-sitting for a fellow Italian there--the house was big enough to accommodate Saida's entire family. (He had borrowed it with this in mind.) One Friday afternoon, when he went to the Italian embassy to pick up a fax, he met a Somali from the same refugee camp as his beloved. The man had tried, and failed, to get an Italian visa. They got to talking; the man happened to know Saida. Yes, the man had heard the sad story, and he seemed more sympathetic than any other Somali Luigi had met. The man commiserated with him: "Her father had no business humiliating you."
Luigi and the man left the embassy together. They went to a bar, and then to a restaurant. Luigi hosted the man for days. When he got to know him
better, Luigi asked if there was any point in appealing to the conscience of Saida's father. If not, Luigi wanted to know if the man would assist Saida in escaping to Nairobi. They schemed all night long, and the plots they hatched would eventually bear fruit: the Somali got his Italian visa, and Saida was able to join Luigi.
"He was a witness at our wedding," Luigi explained. "Now he's our neighbor." I didn't ask the man's name, nor did I want the name of the city where they all lived. But I had to ask what they thought about Somalia after all that had
happened.
Luigi grimaced. "I long to go back," he said.
Saida was adamant. "I don't ever want to see that country again," she said.
Luigi looked at the two of us. "I'm cynical about these things," he said. "I tell myself that I have gained a woman, and lost a land. But who knows?
Perhaps the years will remove all traces of bitterness. Perhaps years from now, we'll all be able to visit Somalia, at peace." |
if you are man enough you wouldn't being jealous of that poor italian man. You would have had four of cheap somali bitches who nearly any lving creature can find those days instead.