As the guy left us with my mother's distant cousin's family who were just the wife and the kids they prepared making dinner, a plain white rice with nothing but salt and water that is eaten with milk but depending on the season sometimes its eaten with nothing at all. The day slowly turned into night and the family put their herd into the herd pens, they milked and fed the lambs and goat kids then it was time for us to eat dinner, they brought us the white rice with fresh milk that were just milked however the fresh milk is not my favorite I love the (ciir) milk after shaken and the white butter was smeared or milk that turned into yogurt when it was stored in a milk jug for a while but yuck I don't like the fresh goat and sheep milk I did drank fresh camel milk but it tastes different from the goats and sheep.
Ayaan ate fine but me I had few bites then I left Ayaan to finish the rest of the dinner and then everyone hit the mat to sleep. As the night slowly went Ayaan could not sleep, not even a blink. She would shake me, poke me or tap me every few minutes and when I ask half closed eyes. What is it? She would whisper. Let's go. I kept telling her its still in the middle of the night and we're not safe to leave now let's go back to sleep, we'll leave as soon as the morning appears on the horizon . She kept it until we left still dark but enough to see few feet so we had to sit behind a huge bush to wait for a little while and we started our journey again even before the morning horizon.
As we walked miles and miles on a small dusty road on the green lands where it rained pretty well that grew the best pasture we were hungry especially me for I have not eaten two mornings a day and a night but we were peacefully walking on that dusty road not expecting truckers since they left already until we came into a small hut made of sticks and branches that was located at the corner of the dusty road, there were few men in the hut and nearby there was a nomad hut that lived by a goat herder woman who had 50+ goats with no sheep most somali nomads own both sheep and goats and mix them together but this lady and few other other somali nomads don't own a sheep at all. And she sold the milk during the rain seasons she also owned the hut and used it as a cafe where she served tea and (sabayad) a somali flat bread from the local nomads who come to put their milk onto the trucks to sell it in the cities.
At the time we arrived it was still morning the sun just arose and the cafe was already crowded. But there was this young man around mid-teen who was serving the cafe, the men looked at us and talked but we couldn't hear and although we were afraid but we didn't stop or turn around we just kept our journey until one of the men in the cafe warned us to RUN. But he did not say what was coming to us. why would we run? and then all of sudden the service boy took out a rungu club that was inside the cafe and came toward us. At that moment we were frightened and I as usual took my sandals off, wrapped them in my shawl and crossed it on my chest and tied the ends of the shawl together like how we carry our babies in the back with our shawls because I run better without them, rolled my long skirt around my knees, held it with one hand and Ayaan did the same however as I run like a coward chased by bandits or a Gazelle chased by cheetah I run and never looked back because I thought Ayaan was a fast runner like I was I thought she was behind me or she run another direction (split up) however a while later I looked around and didn't see her anywhere so I ducked back to see what was happening when I was closer I saw Ayaan standing with the service boy few yards away from where we started our run.
I couldn't believe she didn't run at all. How can this be possible? we were same nomads we chased our herds everyday and everywhere and we run mile to catch up with them, we chased and we run miles to safe their lives from Hyenas, Foxes and other predators that attacked them, but about Ayaan's case I still can't figure out if she couldn't run any longer or if she didn't want to run I don't know I never asked her why she didn't run at all. But I'm glad one thing the men in the cafe didn't hurt her I knew there was no way I could safe her if they intend to hurt her and I knew there was no way I could go there and rescue her if the service boy wanted to take her to them or to his home I was just another frightened teen but I knew I could safe myself by running so I run again when I saw the guy coming toward me not sure if he saw me ducking around or just wanted to look around and. However for a little while he let her go.
I heard Ayaan calling me using all the strength she had left in her, after two days and a night of hunger, dehydration and fighting for our freedom over young men and yet we were few miles from our village. As she headed in the opposite direction while calling my name I couldn't respond for her calls by calling back because I thought this was another trick from the men in cafe who want to capture us and send us back home or if they have another plan for us who knows, I didn't use my voice it would alert them that Ayaan and I are about to reunite again in nomad the wind carries the voice in a great distance you can hear someone calling your name within miles that we can't hear in villages or in cities, I run silently as fast as I could following her voice until I tapped her shoulder although I scared her but I had to do that so nobody would know we reunited.
However we lost the dusty line the track we were supposed to take and reach other villages but now nobody know where we were or where we were heading to.We kept walking anyway until we came to herds of camels that were slowly munching so we decided to halt for a while until the herds pass because if the camel herders see us we would be fighting for our lives again which is much more dangerous so we hid behind a bush for about an hour the camels were great numbers and had to pass slowly but we didn't see anyone with the herds. Noon was approaching when we arrived couple huts and we went to the nearest to get some water as we came there was just one lady who told us that the hut is not hers but she could steal us a glass of water and we drunk our water then we went, I was afraid since we lost the tiny dusty road the sun would set before we found another village or nomads. So how escape from the Hyenas or the Lions out there hungry and want our tasty flesh?
I told Ayaan to climb up a tree to see if there are villages or huts ahead of us or even if there are herds not camels just sheep/goats because that means there are nomads around so we could follow them to their residence that was our plan Ayaan didn't see anything and we decided to stay and before the sunset we go to the other hut and see if they accept us as their guests. We just sat under that tree for hours but we didn't talk because either of us was talkative. However when it was the time to find a home somewhere to sleep and eat we went to the next hut and there was just this little girl who said she could not reach the water barrel because it was empty and then her mother came later and told us how terrible and tired we look and she apologized that she doesn't have any water in her home and she directed us to go to a three miles away forest that we could only see the tallest trees and she said there are nomadic inhabitants, as we walked hastily because we had to reach there before the evening twilight fades Ayaan didn't have the strength but she kept it together and when we arrived at the first hut we found no one in there and I wanted to go to the next however Ayaan didn't want to walk any farther so I had to beg her to stand up and walk for couple blocks to the next hut because what is the point of sitting in front of stranger's home and waiting them. It would be possible that they would kick our asses out without even asking us what we want fortunately we made it to the next hut, drunk water, got a little more energy to walk and we were directed to the next village that was not far.
