NEWS ALERT: Barre Hiiraale shrine erected in Gedo!
Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 3:03 pm
http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/4877/shrinevl4.jpg
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On Friday, Barre Hiiraale followers around Gedo will hold their annual gatherings to mark June 29, the legendary date of Hiiraale's odyssey through the hospital immortalized in the eyes of the Marexaan.
A casual stroller through Gedo today might not easily find traces of that long-ago Hiiraale presence.
However, retired Baardheere shoe polisher Cali Madaxwasse and others hope to keep that memory alive in the Hiiraale Shrine and Railroad Workers Museum they will open and dedicate on Friday.
"What you had," said Madaxwasse, "was tiny houses no more than 10 feet wide with six to seven children in them, no sewage -- outhouses in the back, no water -- a pump at the end of the block, with kids sent down to haul water back to the house.
"There were narrow streets filled with wagons hauling everything, selling ice, food, coal in the winter; and there was soot -- coal- burning steam engines created prodigious amounts of soot -- which got all over the laundry hung out, and also made it hard to grow anything," Madaxwasse said.
"There were people working, dads going to work, kids running around -- everything you could think of; it was busy and bustling and noisy," Madaxwasse said. "But, you know, the interesting thing is that there was very little if any crime and delinquency."
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On Friday, Barre Hiiraale followers around Gedo will hold their annual gatherings to mark June 29, the legendary date of Hiiraale's odyssey through the hospital immortalized in the eyes of the Marexaan.
A casual stroller through Gedo today might not easily find traces of that long-ago Hiiraale presence.
However, retired Baardheere shoe polisher Cali Madaxwasse and others hope to keep that memory alive in the Hiiraale Shrine and Railroad Workers Museum they will open and dedicate on Friday.
"What you had," said Madaxwasse, "was tiny houses no more than 10 feet wide with six to seven children in them, no sewage -- outhouses in the back, no water -- a pump at the end of the block, with kids sent down to haul water back to the house.
"There were narrow streets filled with wagons hauling everything, selling ice, food, coal in the winter; and there was soot -- coal- burning steam engines created prodigious amounts of soot -- which got all over the laundry hung out, and also made it hard to grow anything," Madaxwasse said.
"There were people working, dads going to work, kids running around -- everything you could think of; it was busy and bustling and noisy," Madaxwasse said. "But, you know, the interesting thing is that there was very little if any crime and delinquency."
