A Man of Good Hope (Jonny Steinberg) (NF8) by Jonny Steinberg Page A
Authors: Jonny Steinberg
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and a boy. Asad was struck for the first time since Afmadow by how short she was; even the boy, who was no more than nine or ten years old, was taller than her. He wondered how such a stubby woman had survived so momentous a journey.
Asad remembers that the boy wanted to talk to him but that he felt tired and, in ways that confused him, a little upset. Yindy took his hand, and together they boarded another bus, this one to Lang’ata. She led him to her refugee tent and put him to bed.
“I was very dizzy,” he recalls. “Everything was upside down. The sun seemed to set where it should be rising. At night, lying down, it felt like the ground was moving. When I woke up, the door was not in the same place I remembered it. Maybe this was because of all the movement on the bus.”
“In English,” I say to him, “the word that describes what you were feeling is ‘disoriented.’ ”
“Disoriented,” he repeats slowly. He files it, along with the countless English, Swahili, and Amharic words he has learned this way, and I can see from the expression on his face that he will not forget; he is attaching the word to a mental image of this conversation, and, when the occasion arises, he will use it himself.
“The Somali word for that feeling,” he says, “is
salal.
”
Islii
On Asad’s second day at Lang’ata, Yindy told him of a neighborhood in Nairobi called Islii. It was not a refugee camp, she said, just a part of the city, but it was nonetheless full of Somalis who had escaped the war. They lived in houses and buildings like other people. The moment she had settled at Lang’ata, she told him, she went to Islii in search of family. There were many AliYusuf people there. She had made contact with one of them, a man by the name of Ahmad Noor Galal. He told her to bring the boy Asad to Nairobi; he was the one who had paid for Asad’s bus ticket and had given the conductor money to feed him along the journey.
In a matter-of-fact tone, Yindy told Asad that he would be staying with his new uncle, and she made sure to say in the same breath that it would be temporary. She did not know how long it would take until she could
responsa
Asad and bring him to America, but she promised that it would be soon.
He said nothing. Yindy’s words swirled around his head as if caught in a gust and then flew out and up into the sky above Nairobi.
Asad stayed in Lang’ata one more night. The next morning he and Yindy took a bus to this place called Islii and made their way through the streets. And then they were standing outside a house that belonged to the AliYusuf man called Ahmad Noor Galal, and they were speaking with him. Ahmad Noor Galal had a wide girth. He stood in front of his house with his hands on his hips. He also had two children, a boy and a girl, both about Asad’s age; Asad remembers them hovering with interest somewhere in the background.
“Yindy began speaking about me to my uncle right in front of me,” Asad recalls. “ ‘The boy is clever. The boy is polite. He is a wonderful boy who looked after me when I could not walk.’
“My new uncle cut her off. ‘Say no more. He is my son. That is the beginning and the end of the matter.’ Then he turned to me and said, ‘I invite you. Be a part of my family.’ ”
Asad and Yindy slept that night in the house of Ahmad Noor Galal. The family asked them many questions about the two years that had passed since they had left Mogadishu and, in return, offered stories of their own. The family’s route to Islii had not been easy; it had been lubricated, it seemed, by forms of inventiveness Asad strained to grasp. During the course of the evening, the conversation sketched a great map of what had happened to the AliYusuf since the outbreak of war. It seemed that they had exploded into countless shards, and that the task of gathering them all together again was hopeless. Asad’s father’s name did not come up until late in the evening.
“Alas,” Ahmad
Asad remembers that the boy wanted to talk to him but that he felt tired and, in ways that confused him, a little upset. Yindy took his hand, and together they boarded another bus, this one to Lang’ata. She led him to her refugee tent and put him to bed.
“I was very dizzy,” he recalls. “Everything was upside down. The sun seemed to set where it should be rising. At night, lying down, it felt like the ground was moving. When I woke up, the door was not in the same place I remembered it. Maybe this was because of all the movement on the bus.”
“In English,” I say to him, “the word that describes what you were feeling is ‘disoriented.’ ”
“Disoriented,” he repeats slowly. He files it, along with the countless English, Swahili, and Amharic words he has learned this way, and I can see from the expression on his face that he will not forget; he is attaching the word to a mental image of this conversation, and, when the occasion arises, he will use it himself.
“The Somali word for that feeling,” he says, “is
salal.
”
Islii
On Asad’s second day at Lang’ata, Yindy told him of a neighborhood in Nairobi called Islii. It was not a refugee camp, she said, just a part of the city, but it was nonetheless full of Somalis who had escaped the war. They lived in houses and buildings like other people. The moment she had settled at Lang’ata, she told him, she went to Islii in search of family. There were many AliYusuf people there. She had made contact with one of them, a man by the name of Ahmad Noor Galal. He told her to bring the boy Asad to Nairobi; he was the one who had paid for Asad’s bus ticket and had given the conductor money to feed him along the journey.
In a matter-of-fact tone, Yindy told Asad that he would be staying with his new uncle, and she made sure to say in the same breath that it would be temporary. She did not know how long it would take until she could
responsa
Asad and bring him to America, but she promised that it would be soon.
He said nothing. Yindy’s words swirled around his head as if caught in a gust and then flew out and up into the sky above Nairobi.
Asad stayed in Lang’ata one more night. The next morning he and Yindy took a bus to this place called Islii and made their way through the streets. And then they were standing outside a house that belonged to the AliYusuf man called Ahmad Noor Galal, and they were speaking with him. Ahmad Noor Galal had a wide girth. He stood in front of his house with his hands on his hips. He also had two children, a boy and a girl, both about Asad’s age; Asad remembers them hovering with interest somewhere in the background.
“Yindy began speaking about me to my uncle right in front of me,” Asad recalls. “ ‘The boy is clever. The boy is polite. He is a wonderful boy who looked after me when I could not walk.’
“My new uncle cut her off. ‘Say no more. He is my son. That is the beginning and the end of the matter.’ Then he turned to me and said, ‘I invite you. Be a part of my family.’ ”
Asad and Yindy slept that night in the house of Ahmad Noor Galal. The family asked them many questions about the two years that had passed since they had left Mogadishu and, in return, offered stories of their own. The family’s route to Islii had not been easy; it had been lubricated, it seemed, by forms of inventiveness Asad strained to grasp. During the course of the evening, the conversation sketched a great map of what had happened to the AliYusuf since the outbreak of war. It seemed that they had exploded into countless shards, and that the task of gathering them all together again was hopeless. Asad’s father’s name did not come up until late in the evening.
“Alas,” Ahmad
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