The sun rose over the Somali nation, once the crown jewel of the Horn of Africa, bathing the dry, arid landscape in its eerie light. As was her custom, Hafiza Elmi rose with the dawn. After making her Fajr prayer, the first prayer of the day, Hafiza began to handle her duties. Even though she was not yet a mother, and her husband Rahman Elmi was traveling far away, Hafiza had much to do.
A six-foot-tall, statuesque Somali Muslim woman with caramel-hued skin, long black hair and golden brown eyes, clad in a traditional ankle-length Dirac dress, Hafiza Elmi cut an alluring figure as she grabbed a large camel-skin gourds, and got ready to make her way to the watering hole a few kilometers away. It was best to travel when the sky was still pink from the rays of dawn, before the scorching heat turned the desert into an approximation of Hell...
Hafiza's house, located on the eastern edge of the Village of Madhibe, not far from the ravines of Abu Yaqub, was modest. A wooden structure with a thatched rooftop, with a small garden outback, a fitting dwelling for a couple which had yet to produce offspring. A solitary ebony-furred goat grazed in the garden, unaware that its owner intended to slaughter it this very evening as a welcome home present for her husband. Just another day in the Horn of Africa.
"Hafiza, why are you in such a hurry?" came a voice, and Hafiza turned to look at her friend and neighbor Aisha Osman, and paused. Short, round, dark-skinned and lively, with piercing brown eyes and a round, sensual mouth, Aisha Osman was the biggest gossip in the Village of Madhibe, ruled by the fierce Warsangali clan, which drove off the Madhibans who once ruled the area over a century ago.
"I want to greet my beloved Rahman when he comes home, he's been gone for several days, and I want everything to be perfect for him," Hafiza replied haughtily, and Aisha scoffed almost derisively. When Hafiza shot the other woman a questioning look, Aisha smiled sheepishly and managed to keep silent for a full minute, a record according to anyone from their village.
Hafiza and Aisha had known each other their whole lives, and were more like sisters than anything else. Hafiza was there when Aisha Osman married Ismail Kader, a tall, handsome young man from the Darod clan. There had been some controversy when the two married because Ismail was a half-caste, born of a Darod clanswoman and of a Warsangali clansman.
In the Madhibe village, as in the rest of Somali society, the people were ruled by Somali tribal law which was interwoven with Islamic law. A man's tribe was his father's tribe, not his mother's. It took special convincing on the part of Hafiza's father, Imam Abdullahi Elmi, for the wedding of Aisha Osman and Ismail Kader to occur. A year later, Hafiza helped Aisha deliver the couple's son, Maher. To Hafiza, Aisha was like family...
"Hafiza, when a man comes home after days on the road, his woman should give him more than just a cooked meal and drink, if you know what I mean," Aisha said, laughing, and Hafiza rolled her eyes. Grinning, the two women continued on the dirt road, careful to evade the stones and branches strewn about, leftovers from the sand storm which blasted the valley the night before.
Sand storms were a common plight in the desert, and as desert people, Hafiza and Aisha had little fear of such things. In ages past, the clan was wealthy, and its herdsmen had scores of cattle, camels and horses to look after. Indeed, there was a time when the Warsangali clan horsemen were legendary, carrying out raids upon other clans and even venturing into the distant land of Yemen, a stronghold of the Arabs. Sadly, those days were over.
The Warsangali clan had barely survived a long and costly war against the descendants of the House of Galluweger, which ruled all of Somalia in the bygone days of the Geledi Sultanate. The Galluweger had many fighters, and many allies among neighboring clans such as the Marehan clan and the Jidwaq clan. They meant to exterminate the men of the Warsangali clan, and take their women as concubines.
Unfortunately for them, among the Warsangali, both males and females received warrior training early in life. The defense of the Warsangali territory was the preoccupation of every Warsangali, male and female. During the last raid of the Galluweger clan upon the Warsangali villages and townships, Warsangali women armed with swords, spears, and crossbows fought alongside their men and helped repel the Galluweger invasion.
For this reason, the defeated Galluweger clansmen went home in shame, having been beaten in battle by parties which included warrior women. They declared the Warsangali women to be nothing but a collective of Qumayos, the Somali word for witch. No Somali man from another clan would take a Warsangali clan woman as wife, even as a peace offering, and that suited the Warsangali men just fine. Hafiza participated in that glorious campaign, for it was where she met her beloved Rahman.
"Hafiza, quit daydreaming and fetch me the cord," Aisha said, snapping her fingers in front of her friend's face. Hafiza blinked, snatched out of her little trip down memory lane by Aisha's strident voice. Wallahi this woman can be so annoying, Hafiza thought, barely able to resist the urge to grab Aisha and shake the hell out of the little woman. Sighing, Hafiza handed Aisha the cord, which she then fixed to the gourd before throwing into the well.
