Abdi Nor Iftin - Call Me American: A Memoir

I was born under a neem tree, probably in 1985. Neem trees grow everywhere in Somalia, with fragrant blossoms like lilacs and medicinal bitter sap that prevents sores. People everywhere in Somalia brush their teeth with those twigs. Their green fruit turns yellow and juicy, a great treat for the birds. The trees have small leaves, but the limbs spread wide and give shelter from the suna good place to have a baby. A good place to be born.

I was born into a culture where birthdays are not celebrated, or even recorded. This became a problem for me when I left Somalia and entered the world of documents and paperwork. My first birthday record was in Kenya at a refugee registration center. The officers there did not bother to ask me when I was born, because they know Somalis have no idea; the flood of Somali refugees coming into Kenya are always surprised by the question. The officers simply wrote down my birthday as January 1, 1985. To them, every Somali is born on New Years Day. Arriving in America was different. Here the officials didnt want to make up January 1. I had to come up with a birth date and stick with it for the rest of my life. Its a strange thing to choose your own birthday. Some people are born lucky, others born unlucky, but nobody gets to choose when he was born, or where. But there I was. I decided I should choose a date around the middle of the year, which would be equally close to whatever was my real birthday. And I wanted a number that was easy to remember. So I chose June 20, 1985.

My parents dont know the day of my birth, but my mom remembers it was very hot. The blazing sun had turned the streets of Mogadishu ash white and the rooms of our small block house into bread ovens. Mom was on her back under the shade of the neem tree, resting on a jiimbaar, a bed made of cow leather stretched over sticks. Our neighbor Maryan cooled Moms head with a fan woven from straw, and cleaned the blood. The women of the neighborhood filled the house, curious to see if the baby would be a boy or a girl. They brought fragrant resins and incense like myrrh and uunsi. For me they brought xildiid, the root of a plant that is mixed with water to bathe and protect the baby. Xildiid is one of hundreds of therapeutic plants that grow in Somalia. You can smell the sweet flowers and pungent leaves on the trees and the low bushes that grow everywhere.

Somalia was once called the Land of the Perfumes; before the wars began, my country exported fragrant and medicinal plants all over the world. My mom remembers somagale, a seasonal plant that sprouts from the ground in the rainy season. She would uproot the plants, crush them, and apply the paste to any bleeding wounds. Awrodhaye was another plant she used to stop bleeding and prevent infections. Mom still believes in those traditional plants that cure everything. She believes knowledge of them has helped her survive anywhere. My mom worried I would not be as strong as her because people in the city dont know much about the plants and how to survive off the land. Today she asks me on her phone if any of those plants can be found in America. I have not seen them here, but I tell her I have learned other ways to survive.

While my mom was giving birth, the neighborhood women sat on the edges of the jiimbaar talking and laughing, happy to welcome a new baby. Somali culture dictated that my dad had to stay away from the house; he would stay at his friend Siciids place for forty days, the amount of time a woman is supposed to remain chaste after labor. During that time she is called not by her name but rather Umul, which means maternal.

The moment I appeared, Maryan ran down the street to break the good news to my dad that a boy was born (boys are much more appreciated than girls in Somalia). As the women who surrounded Mom ululated in joy, other female neighbors joined the party. My dad took a day off from work and partied with his friends, buying them qat leaves, a stimulant like strong coffee chewed by men in Arabia and the Horn of Africa. Qat is illegal in the U.S. and in much of Europe. He visited us, as a guest in his own house, at least twice during the day. Mom was still sleeping under the neem tree, near clay bowls and glass jars full of porridge and orange juice and the bottled soft drink Vimto, her favorite. Out of respect to my dad she covered her hair while he was there, looking down as she answered his questions. They would never kiss or hug in public. He stood tall and aloof from her bed, examining me, his second son, lying next to Mom.

The women perfumed the rooms of the house and swept the yard bent over, using a short broom. They came in and out. That same evening, Maryan walked in with ten men, all of them respected local sheikhs. They wore beaded necklaces, the longest string on the leader, and each sheikh kept, in his front pocket, a neem twig for brushing his teeth and a comb and small mirror for grooming his beard after meals. They circled the jiimbaar in the yard where I was lying next to Mom. Some women were cooking a big pot of camel meat; others were mixing a jar of camel milk with sugar and ice cubes from the store. Camel meat and sweet milk together are called duco, a blessing for the newborn. For an hour the sheikhs blessed me, verse after verse, very loud, which makes the blessing greater. Afterward, they all sat on a mat on the ground, washed their hands in a dish of water, and feasted on the camel meat and milk. They must have been very hungry because my mom says by the time they were gone, the serving plate was nothing but bones. This blessing and feast meant I would grow better, be healthy and obedient to my parents. For my mom they left a bowlful of the blessed water called