The Audacity of Tenacity

[Abtigiis]

PART I

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A worn-out picture of Mohamud Cadde, May 1985

 

In 1985, a poor father took his son to a photo studio. At 12, Mohamud Cadde, the young boy, was a little nervous. He was one month away from the moment of truth. He will be sitting for Grade Six National Examination.

 

By this time, the back-biting and sweeping dislike of the school peers was driving him mad.

 

At times, he wept with anger on his mother’s lap. At other times, he clinched fists and faced the detractors. Because the peers and their parents were angry with the tiny watches and “where there is no doctor” Book –which was the latest prize - he wins for outstanding performance during Parent days at the end of the school year, the talk was that the boy is favoured by the school teachers because his father was a diligent member of the School’s parent committee.

 

And, because the father spoke the languages of the teachers.

 

If the father had money, they would also have said he bribed the teachers, but everyone knew the old man was a poor man.

 

Truth be told, the father was a perfectionist and strict disciplinarian. Of the two grown-up boys, the younger, Mohamud Cadde, was the dad’s favourite; but he was also the one who continuously landed the old man in trouble with his antics at the school and on the way to the school. The young one had temper. The old one –according to the Mohamud Cade- was a sheep and a mat who allows people to walk over him. When it comes to the fighting the young one instigates, it was always the old brother who did most of the fighting though.

 

Twice, Mohamud insulted girls in the school and both the father and the school whipped him until he almost collapsed. And countless times, football matches between classes were disrupted and kick-boxing ensued because Mohamud would not accept that the goal scored against his team was legitimate and would mobilize and browbeat others to strike. He usually did that when he realizes that there was no enough time to equalize. He still carries a lasting scar on one of his testicles, a scar received through a whirling stone a fuming Amhara boy threw at him.

 

The young boy was living in a tiny semi-desert town where there were no libraries, and the teachers were very mediocre. The custom in the country’s education system was that dim-witted graduates of Teacher Training Colleges would be assigned to remote peripheral areas. Schools in big towns and around the center took the brightest graduates. Young Mohamud Cadde did not know this and thought his teachers were the best until he grew up and started to understand how the world works.

 

The old man – like the son – was also sick and tired of the allegations that he was doing a Lance Armstrong in the school and his son’s academic achievements were fake. The old man knew how many goats he sold to buy “special books” each time he travels to big towns on business trips. Along with the sugar sacks he buys in distant lands and sells for a marginal profit in the village, the father would always bring books – at times from as far lands as Kenya. And he will stick the boys mercilessly unless they read it and memorize it by heart. The problem with the old man was that he seemed not to appreciate the benefits of leisure, and the boys resented the round-the-clock drudgery of reciting and reading. The older boy always accepted and understood the father’s orders; the young one always resented and never comprehended what it was about.

 

The father asked – more like a threat than a request – the young boy to restore his own image and the father’s reputation.

 

Xaaji Godane, whose son always came second in the school, was the harshest critic of Mohamud’s father.

 

“The national exams are going to be marked 1000 Kms away from this village. By men whose face no one knows. It will expose the shame that was going on in this school.” The highly respected and richer Xaaji would tell to village elders and parents who by now formed a consensus that there was a fraud.

 

“ Aabo, the time has arrived. Either I will run out of this town with disgarce, or you will make me a proud man. It is your choice. But if the latter happens, know that I will never call you my son.”

 

The message and mission was clear: Be first in the village or else it is a failure.

 

In hindsight, that was very selfish and cruel of the old man. And the boy sometimes wonders whether it was concern for the future of the boy or fixation with own bragging rights that weighed heavily on the father's mind when he issued the self-seeking ultimatum.

[Abtigiis]

Part II

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In June 1985, millions of children across the country of 40 million sat for grade six national exams. Mohamud Cadde sat for 7 subjects, all mandatory: Mathematics, Social Science, Natural Science, English, Amharic, Geography, Political Science (basically introductory Marxism-Leninism).

 

For two months, the father was pregnant with expectation. The son was shuddering with trepidation.

 

By the last week of August, the results were out and were published on the "national cards". It took five days for the cards to reach Mohamud Cadde’s village.

 

The cards arrived. The pregnancy was delivered and the fear dissipated.

 

Not only did Mohamud Cadde annihilate the village boys by scoring 100% (the highest mark) in all subjects, he was in the top list nationally.

 

That week, the father killed goats after goats and feasted.

 

Two years later, everyone in the village said the old man went crazy for sending two boys to big cities without attaching them to any family. The father sent the young boy and the elder one alone to distant lands for better schooling – skipping nearby towns where they could have studied but the father deemed inferior – and paid a lot of money to keep them in a cheap hostel where they got food and accommodation for many years. At times, the father borrowed money to keep the boys in the school. Parenting henceforth would be through letters and fariin .

 

The older boy took the role of a parent, and luckily to this day, he is the pious man he always was. He put up with the naughtiness and hedonisms of Mohamud Cadde. He spoke softly, interspersing verses from the Quran with the latest fariin from mom and dad, to talk sense into the head of the restrained but temptations-prone younger brother. He wrote a study timetable, put it on the wall of their tiny room and enforced it unfailingly.

 

The younger one never fully obliged the strict guidance of the older boy. That made the latter sad and angry. But he always, always forgave his junior. Even at times displaying silent but palpable pride in the young one’s popularity among school boys for being a comic.

 

Mohamud Cadde’s brother learned the rigorous art of parenting as a teen. That may explain why he also become a better family man, with a better marriage life, in later years.

 

The teen parenting and the old man’s unbearable burden continued for four years. The father was exhausted too. Luckily, by then, the young boy no longer needed family hand-holding. He passed the secondary school leaving examination (Matric) with resounding marks and became one of the 3000 students that the national public university accepted for free Tertiary education, out of half-a-million students who sat (nationally) for the School Leaving exams, that year.

 

27 years later, on 10 December 2012, the son – now a grumpy aging man cursing God and man for his mediocrity in everything he does – got a tiny picture as a present from his father. The picture was sent through people who came from the village. It was the picture he sat for when he was preparing for Grade Six Examinations.

 

Contrary to the old man’s expectations, the son would never reach greatness in anything. He never became a good footballer despite practicing hard from dawn to dusk. He never became a great scholar despite reading thousands of books. He never became a good singer despite titillating young girls with coarse but melodic voice when he does renditions of wedding songs in the weddings of relatives.

 

The son still does not know whether his reaches were constrained by his failure to specialize on any field or because of limitations of talent. Sometimes he blames fate and says he had so much catch-up to do to compete with the kids who were raised by fathers with Bank accounts and Telephones . Other times, he blames the choices and decisions he made as a man. He has never accepted that where he is, is where his abilities landed him. He thinks he could have done better.

 

For the father, it seems, the joy of August 1985 was so enduring that the son’s profound failures and mediocrities in later life are forgiven. Otherwise, why would the old man, who is in the twilight of his days, keep a photo for nearly 30 years when he has never kept one single other picture! Not even those we took during Holy holidays, or when we came back to the family during school vacations.

 

As he sent the photo, he also said he blesses the son every day, despite…

 

It was a moving call. The son knows by “despite”, the father doesn’t mean “despite your failings to reach where I wished you will reach”. He probably means “despite your foolhardiness in your political convictions that keep you out of my sight. Despite I may never see you again because you refused to listen”.

 

That doesn’t mean he accepts where the son is today. No. He says the son could have done better. Poor dad. So demanding and believing, even at old age! The fact that his son was the best in a tiny village school misleads the adoring father about the son’s real capabilities, even today.

 

Looking back at the picture of 1985, of all the visible body parts, the eyes give away the thought in the head of the tender head . The eyes exuded tenacity. And slight apprehension, apprehension about the flashlights of the camera, never about the tasks ahead. Or… the world out there to be discovered!

 

It was a tenacity that propelled the son to become somebody –not quite great; not quite famous; not quite rich; not quite efficacious – but somebody who could fend for himself.

 

…And for a dignified retirement for the poor father.

[oba hiloowlow]

abtigiis your father was a rageedi

[Abtigiis]

Who says it was my father. It is my first cousins father.

[oba hiloowlow]

im joking ninyahow anyway good story i enjoyed reading it.

[Alpha Blondy]

seems like you haven't changed much AT! even at 10 years you had the mahatma gandhi about you!

[Abtigiis]

Warya, of all people I was hoping you would recognize that picture doesn't resemble me in any way or shape. Yet, here you are giving the impression that is me.

[Alpha Blondy]

of course its you! naga daa dee ninyahow!

 

i'm sure you'd agree when i say you're no longer as handsome as you were back then! the picture is truly striking....it really does represent 'the audacity of tenacity, as' it were. its shame you're 45 now and the only thing looming over the horizon is retirement LOL.

 

our childhood pictures were lost in the war....laakin i'm sure to find many pictures as a 10 year old in the mid 1990s!

[Abtigiis]

I am interested in your views about the story than the picture though. Men don't worry about the looks as long as the wives say he is ok. Markaa jooji dacaayada. ....And...And...let us see how you look at 45. :D

[Alpha Blondy]

at 45 i'll either look like jabba the hutt or look like you LOL!

 

the story is a poignant reflection of a life lived! its shows a yearning of sorts to receive validation! let me be the first to give your cousin that seal of approval sxb!

[STOIC]

He seems like he was the sparked that ignited the love of learning in you...good job to the old man.

[Abtigiis]

million thanks Stoic. Five other boys in the family got degrees. He remained poor to this moment -although better off - but did the unthinkable in ensuring all the children excel in schools. He hasn't changed even today.

 

He himself run away from the rural area at very young age, and studied upto grade 6 in a nearby village. When Grade 7 came, and he was required to go to the next village 100 Kms away, his father - who had lots of camels in the rural areas but never understood why the son had to stay with poor relatives in the town during the dry seasons, and treks from the town to the village when the nomads came closer to the village duing the rainy seasons - refused to sponser him.

 

Vowing never to return back to the rural areas, he laboured in the town and finallly got us, serviving somehow.

 

Always lamenting his luck, he finally managed to go to school with the younger kids as we started sending back to him. He finished grade 12 and passed the national exams in 2004 and got the certificates. He is now fluent in Arabic and Amharic. His English is good.

 

Alpha - not at all.

 

You and the rest of the cynics think about validation and whatnot. And anyway validation for what? For becoming a circus chef de band in a virtual world?....No. Please do not belittle the enormous character of the real hero of this story. The objective is to honour and recognize a man who has gone to unspeakable harship to shape the future of his children. The extremes he has gone to pay for our studies are tear-enducing, even at this moment I am typing. It is an emotional reaction to the excrutiating ordeal that the photo revived.

 

The objective is to inspire would-be fathers, and fathers - who unlike my father - have the means to help their children but neglect that responsibility.

[STOIC]

He did have the drive and seems all he wanted was the best for his kids.In my case my father did attend the British schooling system in Meru Kenya back during the colonial period until his father pulled him out of teachers training college to run the family business.His English was perfect and always was elected the Chairman of Parent and Teachers Association board.He was the voice of the few parents that couldn't read or write in that vast bureaucratic institution that shifts only slowly to the demands of the parents.He was not a man of many regrets, but he was deeply disappointed in a few of my older brothers who refusal to work hard in school.He always told them that there comes a time when I'll be gone and the uneducated ones will be fighting over the few family assets (commercial buildings) while the educated ones will be finding a place in this world...He inspired few of my extended cousins also to attend Nairobi University! He saw education as the key to many things.He always said money is easy to make, but hard to maintain;today you have, but tomorrow it may be gone.

 

A very close family member brought his kids to the state back in the late 80's and today if you spend few minutes with him the first thing he will tell you is how he raised a bunch school drop-outs good-for-nothing kids that up to today depend on him.They refused to take advantage of all the West could offer.I never understood why he kept talking about them if they are grown people.My naive thinking was why doesn't he just shut his mind off of them.Since I got a son of my own I came to realize that the father's bond is a strong one.Even though they disapoint him they are still his kids and all he could do is just vent to the next person who will lend him an ear..Walle Nimaat dasshaay kumaadaalin (sp?)

[Abtigiis]

STOIC;899383 wrote:

He did have the drive and seems all he wanted was the best for his kids.In my case my father did attend the British schooling system in Meru Kenya back during the colonial period until his father pulled him out of teachers training college to run the family business.His English was perfect and always was elected the Chairman of Parent and Teachers Association board.He was the voice of the few parents that couldn't read or write in that vast bureaucratic institution that shifts only slowly to the demands of the parents.He was not a man of many regrets, but he was deeply disappointed in a few of my older brothers who refusal to work hard in school.He always told them that there comes a time when I'll be gone and the uneducated ones will be fighting over the few family assets (commercial buildings) while the educated ones will be finding a place in this world...He inspired few of my extended cousins also to attend Nairobi University! He saw education as the key to many things.He always said money is easy to make, but hard to maintain;today you have, but tomorrow it may be gone.

 

A very close family member brought his kids to the state back in the late 80's and today if you spend few minutes with him the first thing he will tell you is how he raised a bunch school drop-outs good-for-nothing kids that up to today depend on him.They refused to take advantage of all the West could offer.I never understood why he kept talking about them if they are grown people.My naive thinking was why doesn't he just shut his mind off of them.Since I got a son of my own I came to realize that the father's bond is a strong one.Even though they disapoint him they are still his kids and all he could do is just vent to the next person who will lend him an ear..Walle Nimaat dasshaay kumaadaalin (sp?)

Far-sighted father. You will only appreciate the pain of parents ONLY when you become a parent yourself. I have one boy who is too playful and doesn't like to study and I know how depressed I am when the school tells me bad things about him. I literally could o't eat food for days. The thought of how I grew up and what my parents did - the most memorable being walking from one town to another for 80 KMs for days with mom to register in school because dad could not raise enough money for transport and I have to go to meet the deadline - and the priviledges the kids have now and how they abuse it irritates me. SO, I understand the pain of your dad.

 

It would be good if we hear stories from one another because every person's story is unique and a lesson to the other.

[Alpha Blondy]

AT and Stoic,

 

for many people including yourselves and me, our parents made sacrifices and against all odds too.

 

do you think your children will make full use of the social mobility achieved by their parents? in the West, legacies or in other words - i'm my father's son continue to produce carbon copies of different generations.