Ubah Dhiblawe Narrator Ahmed Ismail Yusuf Interviewer January 20, 2014 Minneapolis, Minnesota Ubah Dhiblawe -UD Ahmed Ismail Yusuf -AY AY: This is Ahmed Ismail Yusuf. I am here with Ubah Dhiblawe, whom I am going to interview for the Minnesota Historical Society Somali Oral History Project. Today is January 20, 2014. We are in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Ubah, welcome to the interview, please, and thanks for agreeing to it. UD: Thanks for having me. AY: Could you spell your name? Just tell me your full name and spell it for me, please. UD: Ubah, U-b-a-h. Last name Dhiblawe, D-h-i-b-l-a-w-e. AY: And, Ubah Dhiblawe, where you were born? UD: I was born in Mogadishu, Somalia. AY: Could you tell me the year, too? UD: Nineteen seventy-five. I’m sorry, October 8, 1975. AY: So you are not 01-01? UD: No, I’m not, thank God. [both chuckle] AY: Okay. So tell me about your past in Mogadishu or wherever else that you grew up. What was life like for you? UD: Growing up, life was beautiful, now that I’m looking back. I grew up in a small town named Afgoye [Afgooye]. AY: Wow. How do you spell that place? I am just saying wow because I know it’s one of the most—was—I think, one of the most beautiful places in Somalia. So how do you spell that city? 1 UD: Yes. Afgoye is spelled A-f-g-o-y-e. Afgoye. AY: Sure. UD: Afgoye is a small town. Not necessarily small, but small compared to other big cities. It’s close to the capital city, about thirty kilometers south of Mogadishu. AY: South of Mogadishu. No, it was west of Mogadishu. UD: No, south of Mogadishu. AY: Well, we can debate… UD: Sort of west. Okay. AY: Southwest. UD: I don’t know. Southwest. AY: Yes, go ahead. Of Mogadishu. UD: Yeah, of Mogadishu. Afgoye is a very beautiful town. There’s two rivers in Somalia. One of them passes through—the River Shabelle [Shabeelle]—and it’s the agricultural site. Most of the bananas and papaya and fruits are grown in Afgoye, so it is always green and nice and beautiful town. AY: So were you farmers or were you raising cattle? Or what was your profession or what was your life? UD: Well, to begin with, I was young, so I didn’t have any profession at that time. AY: Well, I’m talking about the family possibly. UD: The family, yes. My mom was a shop owner, so she had a wholesale shop in Afgoye. My father—my stepfather, but almost my father—was in the military. So military family slash business-owning family. So my mom was the main— AY: How large was your family and how many siblings? UD: At that time we were five siblings. Four girls, one boy, and mom and dad. So, including me, we were five kids. AY: “That time,” you said. Were there others that were born outside of Somalia later on? UD: Yeah. It was the one girl who was born in Kenya. 2 AY: Oh, in the refugee camp. UD: Yeah. So we had a total of six siblings. AY: So what is it that you most remember about growing up? You said it was happy. It was a happy life? UD: Besides eating fresh fruits, banana every day, the most memorable for me, looking back, was when I was going to school. My school used to locate—and I hope it still is, I don’t know— near the river, just next to the river. And sometimes, depending on which class I’m in, some of the classes were actually aligned by the river, so you can see anything that’s happening in the river. Some of the days, especially during the summertime or the hot season, if I get lucky enough to sit to the next window—of course there wasn’t any assigned seats in our school, you can just sit wherever—and if I get there early, if I get lucky enough to sit the window side, I used to see the alligators. Is it alligators or the… AY: Yes, yes, alligators. UD: I can never tell which is which. It’s not a crocodile— AY: Yeah, crocodiles as well. Well, I’m not able to tell either. You were living next to them, so you should have known! UD: I don’t know the difference. I mean, I know the difference, but I don’t know which is which. I have to look at it. But let’s just say crocodile. I will see the crocodile getting in and out of the water, just laying outside. AY: Basking in the sun. UD: Basking in the sun, getting in the water. And to me, at that time it was, you know, not a really big deal. But now that I’m old and looking back, and the life that my kids are living now and my childhood, I just think that was a really cool experience. I mean, going to school and living next to alligators. AY: Were there wild animals? For example, in that area, even though it was actually close to Mogadishu, there could have been lions, there could have been… No? UD: No. I mean, since it was next to the river and it’s an agricultural site, the only wild animal that you can see is the wild pigs. The African wild pigs, the black ones, big ones. AY: African boar. UD: Yeah, alligators and stuff like that. But there’s no lions or cheetahs or elephants. They don’t live in that sort of climate. They live the other side, where it’s hot and wild. AY: Excuse me. 3 UD: I mean, my school was in the city, but these alligators were sort of a part of the pretty much people who lived. AY: Well, it is still mesmerizing to know that you were living next to the river and the alligators were just exactly right at your backyard and you could see that what— UD: No, I didn’t live next to the river. The school was located next to the river. So was the shops and the markets—everything. People do live the other side of the town, and the alligators were just part of the community, per se. AY: Are you kidding? UD: Seriously. They never harmed anybody. You can go and shush them, and then they will run into the water and that was it. They got used to human beings living next to them, so they were not wild alligators who will cut you or anything like that. There were kids who swum in the river. People washed their clothing in the river. AY: With the alligators? UD: Alligators just on the sides! AY: Are you kidding me? UD: See, you’re from the north, so you don’t know this experience. AY: Yeah, I am from the north. I am from another planet! UD: Actually, there’s a little boat that will cross back and forth, and there’s a lot of especially lower income people living the other side of the river, and they’ll come this side—you know, shop, do business, whatever. Poor people will wash their clothings by the riverside, and the alligators are just actually laying out there, laying in the sun, playing around, and they never harmed anybody. AY: Now we decided, actually, it’s alligators. UD: Yeah, we decided alligators. Let’s just say that. AY: Yeah. So you’re just telling me that they were friends with the entire community? UD: They were part of the community. They never harmed anybody. AY: That you know of, possibly. UD: I would have heard of it. It’s a very small town. [chuckles] 4 AY: So in your entire life— UD: The ones that lived right in that area where the town is, they got used to the humans. If you go down the stream or if you go up in the stream, the river, where it is just—how do you call this—no building around that area, it’s just the alligator and the water and the bushes—maybe if they see someone down there, those, they might eat that person. But this particular side of the town, the market, the everyday life things happening—they were part of the community. AY: And you think that— UD: Nobody ever killed them. They never killed us. We were just, you know? AY: Ah, you made it… UD: We made a peace. How about that? AY: [chuckles] It was a truce. UD: We were very peaceful people. We never harmed anybody and they don’t harm us. AY: Oh, you don’t harm the alligators and the alligators do not harm you, except we harmed other human beings. [chuckles] UD: No, no. Afgoye people are very calm and peaceful people. They are not the crazy, the other part of Somalia. AY: Wow. Were there birds also? UD: Oh, gazillion of birds. You’ll see the bird houses. Every season is a different group of birds and just the sound—like I said, that time it wasn’t a big deal, but looking back now, it was really… AY: Singing and calling… UD: Singing, the sound, early morning. AY: Meeting calls or celebrating, possibly. UD: Yeah. When it rains, when it’s not. When it’s rainy season, you will see all the birds, the father and the mother.