A CHILDHOOD STORY FOR LAUGHTER

A Rare Evening at Bar Saqajaan

Back in my boarding school days at Banadir Secondary School in Mogadishu, three of my childhood friends and I often hung out together after study hours. The school compound housed many Soviet teachers—disciplined, reserved, and highly trained educators, sent on secondment from their institutions to practice their English.

Life at the boarding school had its share of hardships, and one of the worst was the food. The dining hall was notorious for serving bad, tasteless meals. Many students complained of heartburn from the nutritionless diet. Our rice dinners were so sticky and solid that we nicknamed them “cement”—if you overturned your plate, the contents wouldn’t fall off.

Given this dire situation, students needed extra pocket money for an occasional early-evening escape to town for tea with milk. But not all of us could afford it every day.

One evening, we scraped together enough pennies for four cups of tea and two Rothmans cigarettes. We made our way to a little teashop that our school principal, Saleman Gaal—now the Chairman of the Somaliland Senate (the Guurti)—mockingly called Bar Saqajaan. (“Saqajaan” is a derogatory Somali term for someone of bad behavior.)

Our tight-knit group of four was ready to savor every sip and puff. Anshur, the oldest among us, hailed from the village of Buhodle in Togdher, near the Ethiopian border (now part of Puntland’s Ayn region). As we shared a cigarette, he took noticeably longer drags than his co-owner. The other protested, “Hey, you’re taking more than your share!” Without missing a beat, Anshur replied, “Let me puff enough to reach all the way to Buhodle!” We erupted in laughter.

After our tea and meager dose of nicotine, everyone felt content—except for Sharif, who came from the coastal town of Brava. Back home, he loved eating bursalid, a rich, oily Somali baked dough. At Bar Saqajaan, he spotted some in the glass counter but couldn’t afford a piece. With mock longing, he began to sing:

> “Bursalid, nin aan meeso qabin balad haduu joogo,
kama baahi beelee ishu balac ku siihaaye.”

Roughly translated: A poor man in town can’t help but keep staring at bursalid.

The entire shop—customers and waiters alike—burst into laughter. The owner, perhaps fearing the “evil eye” of Sharif’s yearning, brought us four pieces of bursalid on the house.

With his craving satisfied, Sharif’s mind wandered again. Just then, a hen darted around the corner of the shop. He turned to Anshur and asked, “Anshur, how soon does a hen deliver her babies after conception?”

Without hesitation, Anshur quipped, “If you mate with it now, it’ll give you plenty of kittens right away!” Another wave of thunderous laughter shook the room.

That night, we all agreed—it had been a rare and wonderful evening, a perfect blend of friendship, humor, and small pleasures in the midst of boarding school hardship.