Twin Ambitions - My Autobiography (3 page)

In the mornings we went to the madrash. In the afternoons, we stayed at home. Djibouti has a hot, humid climate and for several months a year the temperature can hit over a hundred degrees. It was too hot to walk around the streets, let alone study. By around one or two o’clock the sun would be scalding the ground under your feet. It’s impossible to do anything in that sort of heat. Everyone disappears indoors to keep cool.

That’s the thing I remember most about living in Djibouti: the heat. It was relentless. On the really bad days the soles of our feet would get blistered from the baking earth. Even having a wee was hard. We’d drink loads of water, but because the heat was so dry, we’d still be badly dehydrated and unable to squeeze out so much as a drop. In the evenings the temperature would drop a bit, but it was still hot. There was no escaping it.

Hassan and me did everything together in Djibouti. We were twin brothers and best friends. We went through the same things at the same time. I was close to the rest of my family, especially Grandma and Mum. In Somali families everyone tends to sleep in the same room – it’s not unusual for eight people or more to sleep in a single room. Me, Hassan, Wahib, Ahmed, our aunts and uncles and grandparents: we’d all sleep next to each other in one big room in the house. You’re that close, you end up seeing your relatives more as friends. In Somali culture there’s no real concept of privacy. It took a bit of getting used to when I moved to Britain, where people tend to sleep in separate rooms. I never quite got used to it. I like having people around. It reminds me of my family in Somaliland. When I went to university at St Mary’s in Twickenham, I treated my bedroom as more of a place to hang out with all my friends. It wasn’t a bedroom for me. Any day of the week, you’d have to step over somebody sleeping on the floor in order to get from one end of the room to the other. To me, that was normal. I like it that way.

Among all my relatives, Hassan and I were definitely the closest, although he was the real troublemaker. Whenever I did something mischievous, he’d have to do something twice as bad. There was no limit to what Hassan was prepared to do for a laugh. He was daring and totally unafraid. He was like the extra-crazy version of me as a kid. Hassan was forever pushing it just that little bit further than me. And then sometimes he’d go and totally overstep the mark.

One sweltering hot afternoon we were throwing stones across this open field not far from our house. We often had a competition to see who could throw a stone the furthest. Hassan had a pretty good throw on him, and he wound up his arm and launched this stone a huge distance, clearing the field – and smacking against the head of a middle-aged woman who happened to be walking along the road on the other side of the field. The woman let out a shriek. It wasn’t a big rock, but it struck her in such a way that it opened up a cut on her head. From where we were standing I could see the blood. The woman clamped a hand to the side of her head and screamed at other passers-by to catch the person who’d thrown the rock. Hassan and me both froze on the spot.

‘Shit!’ Hassan cried. ‘I hit her,
walaal
[brother]! This isn’t good. Let’s go now, before anyone catches us. Hurry!’

Before I could answer, Hassan seized me by the arm and dragged me away from the field. People shouted after us. We sprinted through the streets, running as fast as we could, but I was convinced we were going to get caught. Hassan, being the quick-thinking one, hit upon an idea and tore off his T-shirt, telling me to do the same. He was wearing a distinctive red shirt that you could spot from a mile off. ‘So no one will recognize us,’ Hassan explained. It seemed to do the trick. We got home without anyone stopping us; everyone was out looking for a kid in a bright red shirt. We both thought Hassan had got away with it until a neighbour recognized him from the field and told Grandma. Uncle Mahamoud dished out the punishment that day.

That stone-throwing incident was typical Hassan. He’d do crazy stuff I wouldn’t even dream of doing. But we were always there for each other. Sometimes we’d get into fights with other kids in our neighbourhood. Nothing serious – just the usual scrapes that young boys get in from time to time. If someone tried it on with Hassan, I’d be right there at his side. Likewise, Hassan would stand up for me in a fight.

One of my best memories of childhood in Djibouti is the food. At dinner we’d usually eat a traditional meal of pasta (
baasto
) and chicken (
digaag
), usually with some spices mixed in for flavour. In between meals we’d snack on samosas, or have a treat such as black beans mixed with butter and sugar. For breakfast, Grandma cooked a type of thin, sweet pancake called
malawah
. Every morning I’d wake up to that smell. Grandma made the best pancakes. She liked to drench them in honey and serve them with cooked liver or heart. To this day, I’ll order pancakes for breakfast if they’re on the menu – although they never quite taste as good as Grandma’s.

I remember hurrying home to eat dinner one evening while Hassan was still playing outside with some friends of his, kicking a ball around.

‘Save me some food,’ he called.

The fact that Hassan and me looked identical gave us plenty of opportunities to cause all kinds of trouble and confusion. One of our favourite games was to play tricks on people by pretending to be each other. I saw a golden opportunity to play a joke on Grandma.

‘Where’s your brother?’ Grandma asked as I arrived home. ‘Dinner’s ready.’

‘He’s out,
Ayeeyo
,’ I replied, licking my lips at the smell of the feast Grandma was serving up. ‘He says he’ll be in soon and to save him some.’

No sooner had we sat down than I’d finished off my plateful. I had a voracious appetite in those days. Still do. Once I was finished, I stood up, made my excuses and ducked out of the room. Hassan, meanwhile, was still busy playing outside. Making sure no one was looking, I snuck out of the back door, scurried around the side of the house and waited a couple of minutes. Then I sauntered through the front door again pretending to be Hassan. In those days we often wore each other’s clothes, had the same haircuts and the same tall-but-skinny build. Even for someone who knew us as well as our grandparents, it was almost impossible to tell us apart.

‘Hi,
Ayeeyo
, I’m home!’ I announced. ‘Where’s my dinner? I’m starving!’

Thinking I was Hassan, Grandma handed me my twin brother’s plate of food. I scoffed his portion down. Hassan returned home a while later, belly growling with hunger and asking Grandma for his dinner.

‘Don’t be so greedy,’ Grandma snapped at him. ‘You’ve already eaten!’

There is one way you can tell my brother and me apart. I have a large scar on my right arm around the elbow joint. I got it one day when I was mucking around in the kitchen during Ramadan. I must have been five or six years old at the time. Grandma was making samosas in preparation for the feast to celebrate the end of the fast. The air was filled with the smell of fried pastry and coriander. While my grandma was cooking, I started spinning around in a circle on the spot.

‘Stop it, Mo!’ Grandma warned. ‘You’re going to cause an accident!’

All of a sudden I lost my balance and stumbled backwards. There was this deafening clang as I crashed against the oven and a bunch of pots and pans went flying and clattered to the floor. Grandma shrieked. I shook my head, wondering what the fuss was about. Then I felt this searing pain on my right arm. I lifted up my arm to get a better look at it. The skin was all blistered and scalded. Suddenly I realized what had happened. My arm had slammed against the frying pan as I’d crashed into the stove, tipping the pan over and spilling the hot cooking oil down my arm. I don’t remember the pain, but I do remember having to stay in the nearby hospital for three months while the doctors treated my wounds. The burn marks ran along the back of my arm past my elbow and up towards the underside of my biceps. I was told that although I’d be scarred for life, I should consider myself extremely lucky. If the cooking oil had scalded me one or two centimetres further up my arm, the nerves would have been irreparably damaged and I wouldn’t have been able to move my arm properly for the rest of my life. I came within two centimetres of never being able to run at all.

Despite the occasional freak accident, Hassan and me couldn’t resist joking around. It almost became a competition to see who could draw the biggest laugh. When we weren’t hanging out at the local cinema, we’d be chucking stones at people’s doors or throwing balls around the streets. We never deliberately set out to hurt or upset anyone – we were just regular kids. And if we ever stepped out of line, we could be sure that word would get back to our grandparents or our mum. We lived in a close-knit neighbourhood where everyone knew each other. Being identical twins makes you instantly recognizable to passers-by. We were forever annoying the neighbours. ‘I know who you are!’ one of them would shout at us. ‘I’ve seen you two around. I’m going to tell your grandparents what you’ve been up to, mark my words!’

‘Please don’t!’ we’d beg. ‘We won’t do it again. Just please don’t tell on us.’

Usually our pleading did the trick. We’d be let off with a few stern words and a warning that if we dared step out of line again, they’d be straight round to our house to tell Grandma and Grandad. We’d agree to behave, of course. Then the next day we’d be out causing yet more mayhem.

We were restless. We needed an outlet for all the energy we had. Playing football was pretty much the only thing that kept us out of trouble. When we weren’t at the madrash or escaping the heat, Hassan and me would join the other kids playing in the streets. (Wahib and Ahmed were too young to join in.)
Football was my passion. I fell in love with the game as a young kid when I saw my first-ever football match on TV. It was the World Cup in Italy in 1990. Brazil were playing Argentina, wearing their famous yellow shirts. I knew next to nothing about the game or the players. But there was something about the way the Brazil players moved, playing with incredible skill despite the fact they were running at such a fast pace, the huge crowd inside the stadium, the immaculate green pitch – the sheer scale of it all. I was hooked. Hassan too. From that moment on, we both played football whenever the unforgiving Djibouti weather allowed. Street football was our thing. There were no pitches. We lived for those street games. We didn’t have a proper football, so we’d make our own by gathering up a load of old socks and tying them together, just like the kids do in Brazil.

I never had much skill with the ball at my feet. My ability was in my ‘engine’: I was full of energy, and I’d chase that ball around all day if I had to. I had a bit of pace on the turn too. But I was football mad. I wasn’t interested in anything else. We’d play for hours on end: me, Hassan and the other kids from our neighbourhood. We’d arrive home covered in cuts and bruises from diving and sliding around the streets. Grandma would inevitably get angry with us both for getting our clothes dirty.

Life wasn’t easy in Djibouti, but it wasn’t desperately hard either. We experienced the same ups and downs as anyone else. Perhaps we didn’t have some of the things that children in other countries take for granted, but for us this was never a big deal. In some ways, it was an advantage. In Djibouti everybody had to work hard for what they had. No one got given anything on a plate, but you wouldn’t find people sitting around feeling sorry for themselves. Everyone rolled up their sleeves and got on with it. We learnt to appreciate what we had. We learnt that you didn’t get anywhere in life without putting in the work. In that sense, Djibouti made me tough. I saw a lot while growing up there. Had to deal with a lot too: moving from country to country, being separated from my dad, having to adapt to a different culture. My mum used to repeatedly tell me, ‘In life, make sure that you adapt to whatever you do.’

I managed to adapt. Some people aren’t so lucky. They grow up with too much, too soon, so when they really need to work hard towards a goal, the motivation isn’t there. They can’t live without certain comforts. They can’t adapt. Me, I never had that problem.

Some time after our arrival in Djibouti, Grandma Amina’s daughter, our aunt Nimco (pronounced ‘nee-mo’ – the ‘c’ is silent) won a scholarship to study at university in Almelo, a city in the Netherlands. She used to send Grandma letters and pictures of her new life in Europe. I couldn’t believe how different everything looked – the neatly paved streets and grey skies and old church buildings. I started thinking to myself, ‘Wow! There’s this whole other world out there.’

After our grandfather passed away, Grandma decided that she wanted to move to the Netherlands to live with Aunt Nimco and build a new life for herself. I suppose she felt there was nothing left for her in Djibouti after Grandad died. There was Hassan and me, of course, and her other relatives, but Aunt Nimco was her daughter. I was upset.
I loved my mum, but Grandma had been the one who’d looked after Hassan and me for most of the time we’d been in Djibouti. I was closer to her than anybody except Hassan. After she left I told myself, ‘I have to find a way of getting to Holland to live with
Ayeeyo
.’ I just couldn’t imagine a life without Grandma. My mind was made up: I wanted to move to Almelo. I would build a new life there. And Hassan would come with me.

My wish seemed to come true when Mum took me aside one evening after Grandma had moved to Almelo, looked me hard in the eye and explained that we would soon be leaving Djibouti as well. Like Grandma, we were moving to Europe to begin a new life. I wasn’t upset to leave Djibouti. I was just excited. As I understood it, we’d all be going to live with Grandma in the Netherlands. Mum added that first we had to go and visit my dad in London. I thought she meant we’d be staying with our dad for just a few days. I didn’t really give any thought to the implications of moving to Europe – having to learn a new language, making new friends. I was too young to understand all that. I simply wanted to be close to Grandma. Whatever it took to be by her side again, I was willing to do it. I couldn’t wait.