Somalia Through the Eyes of My Parents

[Deeq A.]

It was during those summer holiday nights that my mother would put a mattress in our balcony. She would tell us to all put on our PJs and come sit on the mattress, while she sat in front of us and started telling us stories. She was great at storytelling, some stories were based on true events while others were tales told to her when she was young and growing up in Jowhar. One of the stories I remember clearly was when she was told to take food to someone, you see this time she brought Farhan (her cousin) as back up. Previously while making the same journey a monkey attacked her and took the food, it attacked her as she was on her own. My father also used to tell us about his interactions with the local monkey who caused chaos in the streets of Beledweyne. Although my father did not like to tell us everything he got up to, he did tell us the odd story about his friends and how they all got their weird nicknames.

Source: Hiiraan Online