My Neighbourpoor

My house in Borama was located outside the centre at the edge of the village. My neighbours were the richest ones in the area, owning quite beautiful large villas in Arabic style, which are actually necessary to accommodate the usually large Somali families. Other people in Borama were living in these nomadic-type igloo-like constructs which are partly house, partly tent, built within half a day from wood and old fabrics. When I asked who was living there I was usually told it were Oromo refugees.

People are usually blind, and expatriates are usually blinder than normal people, and maybe I am the blindest of all, but I only realized that such an igloo was directly beside my house after I had been living in Borama for half a year. The fact why I had not discovered it before, was that it was hidden behind a fence in the front side, and that I never had walked at the backside of the house, because I hated to be followed by these SPU policemen who were “protecting” us, therefore I usually did not walk much.

Nevertheless one day after work we found an old man lying on the street. He was lying there because of weakness, unable to walk to his destination. We took him in our car to bring him home. He actually turned out to be my neighbour, living in that igloo-house directly beside my home. It was obvious that he was merely lacking food. I went home and brought him all the food I had. I am not sure if he even could eat it, because it was mostly tinned and factory-made food from

Dubai

he probably had never seen. Therefore I tried to give him additional money. He rejected. I found about 7 young children sitting opposite in a clay house, obviously his grandchildren, guarded by their grandmother. I tried to give the money to the grandmother. She rejected.

Then there was Eid. The Islamic habit at Eid is to slaughter a goat and to share the meat with poor neighbours. I thought my great hour had come. I would buy a goat – and since I myself am a vegetarian - share it among the watchmen of my house and the poor neighbouring family in that igloo. I told the idea to slaughter a goat and give the meat to my “POOR!!” neighbours to my driver, he was enthusiastic. We bought a goat from one of our SPU, who was running a small livestock husbandry and hired somewhere a man who did the slaughtering. Everything was accomplished within half an hour. Then it came to the point of dividing the meat. I asked my driver to help me with the distribution, especially transferring it to my “POOR!!” neighbour, since I could not speak Somali. “No problem,” he said, “ we will distribute to your neighbour poor!”. Swiftly he prepared various packages of meat for various stakeholders, distributing them to various villas around my house, one richer than the other, especially to his sister opposite. Before he took away the last package I stopped him, and I told him, the meat was mainly meant for my “POOR!!” neighbour, the old man, we once found on the street and his grandchildren. “Yes,” my driver said, “all your neighbourpoor will get a package.” Finally I understood. “Neighbourpoor” was a new word creation by combining the word “neighbourhood” with the word “poor”, allowing all neighbourhood to benefit from the blessings of distribution and redistribution according to the sayings of the Koran. Now I know better. When I want to bring some gift to a poor neighbour, I have to say: “I want to give it to my POOR NEIGHBOURPOOR!”