Earlier in the morning a young Somali was complaining about the parking meters.
— What do they think this is? In Footscray….
— Rich people. Sudanese, Somali…
At the coffee machine Abdou Razzak stirring the pot from the side as usual. Cheeky boyishness is clearly etched on his face. Usually his delivery is deadpan.
…—In Chapel Street they don’t have meters on the street. They should have them there. Not Footscray.
…— Sunshine, Braybrook. Too much money. Government knows. Somalis pay…
Abdou Razzak favours irony in all his jesting.
— They think we’re pirates. That’s why….
Which got the biggest laugh from the tables, regardless of nationality.
The local Liberal candidate, a regular at the shop, highlighted the parking meters on his advertising material.
The older men here don’t drive. Some of the younger able-bodied walk from Flemington and Maribyrnong to join their brothers at the café. It is a broad church. Christians from the Horn are intermingled with the predominating Muslims. Somalis, Sudanese, Eritrean, Ethiopian, Lebanese and Egyptians gather at adjacent tables. Some Vietnamese Buddhists and Koreans too patronise the cafe. One of the latter was killed a few years ago at an outdoor table by a Sudanese hitting the wrong pedal backing out of a parking spot across the road.
Today Mr. Mohammed No. 3 was encountered at the front window table, the best viewing perch in the house. After being shut away in hospital a couple of months following a fall, Mr. M. enjoys the show out on the street.
Mohammed is the most popular and common name in Somalia, Mr. M. No. 3 informs.
Unlike many of his generation at the café, Mr. Mohammed No.3’s English is good. Almost certainly he has not been sighted before. An earlier sighting would have been remembered because of Mr. M’s disability. In childhood he contracted polio. Since diabetes has added to his afflictions, and then the fall in the shower resulted in a break in his good, straight leg.
Because his father was a rich cattle and livestock trader, Mr. Mohammed completed primary, intermediate and high school in Mogadishu.
Hearing that his countryman Mr. Mohammed No. 1, the shopkeeper around the corner (three shops now, selling cheap China products), had said that Somalis who declared they came from Mogadishu usually hail from a goat track 40kms off, Mr. M. No. 3 barely raises a smile. In Mogadishu city, he confirms, he lived, was schooled and treated for his affliction.
Six languages Mr. Mohammed No. 3 speaks. In order of accomplishment: Somali, English, Arabic, Italian, Russian… and one other, possibly not a colonial language.
In an exchange of mobile numbers with Allen, a fellow Somali who hadn’t seen Mr. M. No. 3 for a long while, the usual English was used for the purpose. Asked why the Africans used English instead of Somali or Arabic for serial numbers, Allen replies with a little pique.
— Because we are not Arabs.
In a recent news report, one of the Somali pirates when he was ridiculed for accepting a ransom of only a few thousand for some particularly rich booty, replied that he hadn’t known there was a number greater than ten thousand…. (or another large round number.)
Ten years the Italians were in Somalia. The first and best buccaneers, the English, before and after them. (Mr. M. No. 3 not alone at this café in his command of relevant history.) For a time the Russians supplanted the English. Many of the men here speak a smattering of the various European languages.
Mr. Mohammed No. 3’s good English is explained by the fifteen year term in Christchurch, NZ, before settlement here at the turn of the century. As an African the weather here he finds more congenial, he explains.
A sunny, good-natured, gap-toothed face. Late fifties or early sixties. (Too young for Mussolini. Italian was continued in the schools for some while after the failure of the new Roman dawn.) Club and broken foot carefully co-ordinated with the walking frame getting out the door and onto the pavement.
Before leaving Faisal tells of Julian Assange’s interview on al Jazeera, where he spoke with an insight Faisal found unexpected. A strikingly white white man no doubt.
— They kill him? Faisal can’t help wondering.
December 2010
No comments:
Post a Comment