Life is slowly returning to normal for South Africa's beleaguered Somali community after tides of looting and violence by the locals

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Aydruz Ilmi, assistant coach, manager and one of the founding members of the Mayfair Young Stars, prays while his players practice. (Madelene Cronjé, M&G)

Life is slowly returning to normal for Mayfair’s beleaguered Somali community. After the tides of looting and fleeing, traders and spaza shop owners who live in the townships are returning there, bakkies crammed with stock, after seeking the sanctuary of the suburb.In the Mayfair area known as Little Mogadishu, along Eighth Avenue and abutted by Bird and Hanover streets, all is orderly bustle. Taxi drivers listen to Arabic disco as they wait for fares; the religious slide sleepily into sandals as they finish their prayers. Some have their hair cut in the mirror-crammed Bulsho Barbershop. Cobblers repair shoes, hammering on heels and replacing soles. Some sip milkless tea out of glass thimbles at a nearby street corner restaurant, slouching. All seems peaceful, throbbing gently with the pulse of everyday life.Look more closely at the passing afternoon parade and one notices the upward heave of aspiration. The Taleh Internet Café and Communications Centre, for example, is less a centre than a shop; the Rasmi Call Centre is less a shop than it is a nook. Nooks are more like cupboards, cupboards more like boxes. According to this logic, even the lowest of street vendors, the man selling peanuts and gum, should be able to put a spin on the glories of entrepreneurship. He is not a walking panhandler, a smous, but rather the owner of a bazaar, an emporium, a trade centre.Somalis are besotted with the beautiful game. (Photos: Madelene Cronjé, M&G)Although Somali commerce and trade is located predominantly on Eighth Avenue, there are Somali-owned shops further afield. Nimco Abdullah has a clothes shop on Central Street, opposite the Mayfair Metrorail station. She has lived in South Africa for 12 years, putting her five sons and two daughters through school.One of her sons, Musa (18), was born in Mogadishu but considers himself a South African. He was one of two Somalis who matriculated from the Johannesburg Secondary School in Mayfair West at the end of 2014 with a commercial qualification rooted in economics, accountancy and business studies. Being part of such a minority didn’t bother him in the slightest. “In 2015 I’m taking a gap year,” he says cheerily.Musa is captain of Mayfair Young Stars’ under-18 team, so taking a gap year might be shorthand for saying that he’s concentrating on his football. His favourite player is Real Madrid’s Luka Modric and he tells me that he’s always off to Soccer City with a bunch of mates to support Kaizer Chiefs, his favourite local club. The slight central midfielder is less happy to admit that he backed Italy in the 2010 World Cup. “I thought they would do well because of [what happened] in 2006,” he says of the side who promised much but who were bumped out in the first round.The beautiful gameJust like Musa, young Somali men – and Somali men in general – are besotted with the beautiful game. Last Saturday night, Eighth Avenue in effect closed down so fans could watch the Chelsea vs Manchester City game live on SuperSport. City are much-loved because they recently gave a trial to a young Somali hopeful, Abdisalam Ibrahim.Although Ibrahim didn’t make it, and now finds himself at Olympiacos in Greece, his tale is a salutary one. If you are dedicated and luck runs your way, anything is possible. It might even happen that you can replace your replica jersey – there are many in Little Mogadishu, ranging from old versions of the German national team to the blue and white of Ellman FC in Somalia – with the thing itself. You could, as the football mythology goes, be living your dream rather than simply dreaming it.Mayfair, a suburb near the Jo’burg city centre, now has three teams – under-15s, under-18s and seniors – and they’re on a roll.There are success stories closer to home. Musa’s mate, Abdullah “Madala” Mohammed, is goalkeeper for the Mayfair Young Stars first XI. He’s been spotted by Wits’s amateur sides and is highly regarded, even having to fend off inquiries from some larger clubs. An effervescent individual, his personality is as impressive as his goalkeeping.“We call him Madala because he’s so good at languages,” says Aydruz Ilmi, one of the founding members of Mayfair Young Stars back in 2008. “He speaks English, Zulu, Afrikaans as well as Somali and Arabic. He’s one of our best players and we want to hold on to him.”Ilmi was driving past a local park six years ago when he spotted a group of youngsters kicking a ball around. With other elders he formed a club and registered the players. They now have three teams (under-15s, under-18s and seniors) with just under 50 members. All three teams play in the Greater Mayfair local Football Association leagues, a subdivision of Safa Southern Gauteng.Possibly because they have a well-developed sense of unity and understanding, all three sides have done well. Then again, their existence is in other ways precarious, despite Ilmi’s dreams of starting an academy and possibly, one day, a professional Somali side based in Johannesburg.Bowling green turned football fieldOn the day I watch them, practice takes place on what were the once-lush greens of the Mayfair Bowling Club, the little field now showing bare patches and signs of over-use. The ground is surrounded by plane, privet and mulberry trees and you enter it through an old-fashioned wrought-iron gate painted red. The practice is watched by big-eyed members of the community, sitting silently on the side of the field. No one texts or plays with their cellphone, as players like Musa and Madala struggle to keep the devilish bounce of the ball under control.As evening arrives, so the light softens and the heat ebbs, and the players revel in the pure joy of playing. There is the unmistakable feeling of being elsewhere. This is not Mayfair at all but Mogadishu, Addis Ababa, Kampala, the scene eternal rather than local, the horrors of the last few weeks far, far away.The Mayfair Young Stars in action.Other than struggling to find practice facilities in the area, Ilmi has some unique problems as manager and assistant coach. He tells me that the Somali community in South Africa numbers about 25?000 but this is a population in transition.The state of flux means that he isn’t always able to field the same side twice. People are often moving off elsewhere, having used South Africa as a temporary stepping stone to Europe and North America. On the other hand, there is a steady stream of new recruits. Players arrive from all over Gauteng for an impromptu trial, and Young Stars are always happy to accommodate them.“With the shop owners [from the townships] staying in Mayfair because they were safe, often they would come for a trial with us,” he says. “We could give them a chance and see what they could do. We are always looking for a way to bring the community closer together and football is a way of doing that. Everywhere you go Somalis are playing football. When they close the shops in the townships they just play in the street if they have some light. Find Somalis and you will find football.”Source: http://mg.co.za/

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