Dr. Abdishakur Jowhar
November 25, 2004

Part I of 2

There is a physical journey and there is a spiritual journey. The two may coincide in time but they are as different as day and night. I learned the difference between these two on November 25, 2004 when my journey to Burco morphed to a spiritual one. And I share them with you here…

9:00 Burco Plaza Hotel

We checked out of the Burco Plaza Hotel. It was the third day of our short visit to Burco. My wife and I were impressed by the modern amenities and excellent service of the hotel. The hotel’s architecture is contemporary, fresh and unique. We met the architect who lives and works in Burco having returned home from Diaspora and planting his roots and his craft firmly in the red earth of his homeland.

Just last night we had the privilege of seeing the great Poet and humanist Hadrawi sipping Somali tea in a joyous company of adoring apostles right in the Café of the hotel’s restaurant. We imagined that he was yarning wisdom and that his apostles where recording it all for posterity. We maneuvered for introductions and we were ecstatic to achieve it.

We had 5 hours of drive ahead of us back to Hargaysa. We packed; loaded our belongings and we were on the road.

9:30 Divine intervention

Providence had other plans. We were running these last minute errands that always manage to wait for the last minute before travel, when we saw a poster by the roadside. It read “Burco Psyho-Social Rehabilitation; Saraar.” It had an arrow pointing to a house close by. We heard about the Saraar organization the night before as one of the services for the mentally ill in Burco. We decided to investigate.

9:50 Of Saraar and Rehabilitation.

We knocked and we were invited to a relatively small house with a fairly big yard. Few men were sitting under the shade of an Acacia tree, their attire and demeanor spelling mental illness. Their presence here filled the context of the poster outside the house. The staff invited us to join them.

I decided to pay my respects to the clients before I met the staff. I greeted them with the traditional Somali greeting “Is there peace?” I expected the traditional response “There is peace and there is milk.” I heard none. They paid no attention with the exception of one man. He was slightly overweight. He looked up; there was warmth about him. He had thick features, widely spaced eyes, a protruding tongue, a depressed nasal bridge, up slanting eyes and just a good-natured visual gaze. I recognized Trisomy 21 (AKA Down Syndrome or Mongolism), he had the universal appearance of those who had the misfortune of inheriting 3 copies of chromosome 21. I have seen many patients with this illness in other parts of the world. The syndrome is highly prevalent but this was the first time I have seen one in Somalia. We exchanged smiles.

Of Faadumo Duale Ali and Geesi ( Geesi is a pseudonym that circumstances dictated )

I turned back to the staff and I met Her, Faadumo. A middle aged women, dressed in a traditional Somali garb. She announced her presence by repeating a unique and personal prayer “ Hagaajiyaa Hagaajin (The Fixer will fix it)”. She had a deep powerful voice. She told me that she heard about my arrival in Burco and she was trying to reach me the last couple of days. She prayed for my visit in the early hours of this morning “And here you come knocking on my door”. She added with a meaningful look. There sure was something mystical about her. Faadumo proceeded to tell me about the story of Saraar.

10:00 Of Saraar

It all started in the very last days of the civil war in Burco, towards the end of the 2 nd millennium. The city of Burco lay desolate and wasted. It has been strangled by the deadly clutches of a ruthless tribal warfare. Death, murder and mayham visited every doorstep. Birds of vulture ruled the skies and terror haunted the hearts of men and women. As peace settled down Burco citizens prayed on their knees to Allah (SWT) whose merciful hands guided the good spirits that brokered the peace. People trickled back into the streets and began to salvage what could be salvaged of the roofless homes and the pock marked bullet-ridden walls.

In the debris of the civil war lay not only dead and broken bodies and homes but also broken minds. The violence and the horror that ended took its toll among the vulnerable. The massive traumatic experience multiplied the ranks of the mentally ill. Those who were afflicted roamed around the rubble of the streets of Burco, unfed, unkempt and uncared for. Many more of them, perhaps the vast majority, were kept in the homes of family members chained to cold cement floors, kept under lock and key to save them from the harsh and unforgiving streets. They were the most forgotten in a forgotten city. Their remarkable inflation in their numbers was a living testimony to the terror that have visited this city that has almost caused the loss of its soul, spirit and reason for existence.

ALLAH (SWT) tests us all the time. I mean this suffering and pain that surrounds us is not but a challenge for men and women to stand up and prove their mettle. And always some of us find the strength, forbearance, kindness, gentleness and inner steel that allows mankind to stand up to the test. Such brave souls face and conquer seemingly insurmountable obstacles and in the process leave a legacy that renders the lives of the rest of us meaningful and agreeable to ALLAH (SWT). Burco met the challenge through the actions of two of its ordinary citizens, Faadumo and Geesi.

Faadumo related that she could not stand watching the suffering and starvation of the mentally ill that she saw every morning without doing something about it. The thought haunted her days and nights. She could sleep not and eat not. She was barely surviving herself. She has nothing to give. She was as powerless as those who roamed the streets. Yet she found herself driven to so something, anything for those who needed her help.

As providence would have it, her path crossed that of a young man who stood head and shoulders above his peers in his love and sympathy for others. He surely was an enigma in this land that values and glorifies the tribal killer/warrior. And he stood out even more in these troubled times when the merchants of death and destruction had almost complete supremacy. The Almighty brought together a man and women of two different generations who both chose life over death, love over hate and valuing the sanctity of human life over spilling blood to earn the respect of the clan. Faadumo is that women and will call him Geesi; a pseudonym for reason that will soon become clear.

The two quickly identified the source of the starvation that decimated the ranks of the mentally ill. They intuitively realized that the mind of these men and women has lost the capacity to organize itself sufficiently and is incapable of leading them to act in a manner that would allow them to engage in the intense activity that is necessary for acquiring food in their unforgiving environment. They could eat only what they could scavenge for. But theirs is an environment marked primarily by the scarcity of food and there is really nothing eatable to scavenge for. A hungry and homeless man with an intact mind would beg to be fed in the streets of the city. At the end of the day he would retire with a full tummy. And there were many in Burco who survived in this manner and in Burco mental illness was fatal because it robbed its victims this survival capacity.

And that is precisely what Faadumo and Geesi decided to do for Burco’s least fortunate. They will go house to house and ask for food on behalf of those who can no longer ask for it. They will knock on every door. They will proudly be substitute beggars. They will lend their bodies and minds, to become substitute survival agents for the mentally ill. Sure they were poor themselves but they could offer of their mind and their body. And every day they will safe lives doing this.

Faadumo and Geesi having received their enlightenment from Allah (SWT), commenced upon it with gusto and enthusiasm . They knocked on doors and stood on street corners with extended hands. They collected food items and sorted it out into eatable packages and they started to feed the mentally ill in the streets, under trees and among the rubble. . In the beginning they have to search them out but very soon the feeding trees they established became the hub of this most needy of a needy society. The people of Burco opened their hearts and pockets to them and extraordinary things started to happen all over the struggling city. Kindness and compassion started to grow among the populace. The begging transformed itself into giving and the giving opened not only the doors and pockets but also the hearts of men and women. Faadumo and Geesi fed the physical body of the mentally ill but they also quenched the spiritual thirst of Burco citizens. Humanity was unstoppable in its march in the city to a higher glory. The revival was back on.

And so Allah (SWT) working through his servants (Faadumo and Geesi) allowed life that has returned to the city to percolate down to those who were almost dead. Flesh covered the bare bones. The dry, sunken and vacant look of Burco’s mentally ill may have remained just as vacant but it was now moist and warm and less sunken.

I listened with rapt attention as Faadumo related her story. Every now and them she invoked her mantra “ Hagaajiyaa Hagaagin: The great Fixer will fix it”, probably to remain in touch with the spirit that guided her. I myself started to have an out of body experience. I was transported back in space and time. I could survey the mayhem that was then. At the same time I could see the rebirth of a people unfold. I could see in my minds eye the cycles of life and death through endless turns.

In the meantime Faadumo was growing up in size right next to me. She was now a towering giant, a Servant of Allah. Her voice was booming as if she had megaphone to my ear. There was a hallo around her. Through her I could see all the great humanists of times past and present. glimpses of the prophets; I Tonnelli of Borama and Mahatma of India presented through her. I could see just as one would see images of a movie on a screen.

Geesi’s spirit roamed around us, I wondered about this hero. And his story broke my heart as Faadumo related it to me. Stay tuned for Part II. Please contact if you decide to support Saraar.

Dr. Abdishakur Jowhar
E-mail: [email protected]