The Mystical Land of Myrrh

By Mary Ann Shank

Listen to the stars dancing over Somalia and hear tales of warriors and camel herders, songs at the wells and melodies in every footstep. Moira, a young Peace Corps Volunteer, stretched her senses to soak in every story, every song that was around her.  Her missteps tossed a beautiful young woman into a whipping circle, and denied her students the futures they had worked so hard to obtain. Moira's successes were few.  Even her search for a lesbian lover in the labyrinth that was Mogadishu seemed hopeless. Moira was shaken to her very core when she stumbled on The Ritual, female circumcision, carried out in a hidden hut in the bush country, the Ritual that rips all feelings of sexual pleasure from between a young girl's legs.

Through it all the Somali Goddess Arawello spreads her protective arms, reaching through wars and famines to reach her people.  Once Arawello brought Peace by turning men into eunuchs, and may do so again.

This is a journey of a young woman ready to meet the challenges of the world on her own terms, one who faces the terrors of bush country alongside the embrace of a lover in unlikely places.  Moira faces challenges she never knew existed, and a love that envelopes her like an unfolding bird of paradise.Through the turmoil and ecstasy, Moira's love for the Somali people deepens as she reluctantly realizes that there is nothing -- nothing -- she can do to change their world to avert disaster.  On the contrary, it is Somalia that changes her.  She will never be the same again..

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dippity Press
• Release date: Jun 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781733581905

Book preview

The

Mystical

Land of

Myrrh

The

Mystical

Land of

Myrrh

––––––––

by MaryAnn Shank

Dippity Press

Ashland, Oregon

Dippity Press

321 Clay Street, Suite 24

Ashland, Oregon 97520

––––––––

ISBN 978-1-7335819-0-5

LCCN: 2019900983

© 2019 MaryAnn Shank

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except for brief excerpts used in a review of the book.

Cover design by Kozakura

The stories in this collection are inspired by my experience, but my memory speaks to me through a fuzzy lens from fifty years ago. Please view all characters in these stories as fiction. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental. All stories, customs, rituals and ceremonies are ultimately the inventions of the author.

Also note that these stories are not told in a Somali voice. Were a Somali to tell these tales, they would be very different. Even were another Peace Corps Volunteer to tell these stories, even then they would be quite different.

I can only speak from the perspective of a Peace Corps Volunteer like myself, for that is all that I know to be true.

Thank you ...

These stories were written in deep love for the people I met when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Somalia from July 1967 to April 1969, and for those Somalis I have been blessed to meet since.

A special thank you to my dear friends Abdiazziz Gulad and Miriam Foster. Abdiazziz attended one of the schools that I taught at in Baidoa, and his memories have prompted so many splendid images and conversations.

And how do I thank Heather Cumming? When I needed someone who was familiar with African customs, she was there, and was so encouraging. Thank you so much, Heather.

Few writers are fortunate enough to have a coterie of colleagues like the Southern Oregon Women’s Writers Group, Gourmet Eating Society and Chorus, but I have been. Special thanks to Bethroot, Madrone, Ní Aódagaín, Cyndi, Mary Beth, Tangren, Mara, Raynie and the dozen or so amazing early draft critics.

I was always so delighted when a friend appeared and asked Please, may I read the Somali stories too? Please? These inspired readers gave so much inspiration and encouragement, and so I thank Mari and Nancy and Mary and all the other wonderful women who gave so generously of their time and knowledge.

Table of Contents

Map of Somalia

Baidoa, Somalia – The Last Night

The Legend Of Arawello, The Somali Goddess

His Name Was Omar Chicago

Maya! Maya!

The Never Ending Tale

Shiamsa in Shadows

Mohammed and His Donkey

Ali Ahmed in Sharp Shooter Alley

Another Glass of Wine

Full Circle Mosaic

The Never Ending Tale – Part 2

O Holy Night

Hip Hip Hooray for Bollywood!

Warriors, Wanderers and Very Wicked Women

The Gift of Wisdom, Re-telling a Somali Fable

The Preying Mantis

My Mother, Her Sister

His Crazy Wife

A Crack in the Bamboo Curtain

Draft Boards and Bullets

Bikini Flambé

Elegy for Eddie

Ritual

Baidoa, Somalia – The Last Night

LAX

Map of Somalia

Somalia sits on the horn of Africa, resembling the number 7. It is about the size of California.

Chapter 1 

Baidoa, Somalia – The Last Night

March 22, 1969

The grand Goddesses played a fiery game of jacks, each tossing an apron full of iridescent jacks, bluewhiteyelloworange jacks, across the pathway of the sky. The Milky Way sometimes glowed so brightly that I could read by its light, mesmerized by the miracle dancing overhead. Tonight the stars skipped between the clouds.

So what was I doing kneeling there in a muddy puddle, the rain obliterating any trace of the tears that tumbled down my face?

Damn it, stop it! I shouted to no one. I wanted to taste the salt. I wanted someone to know these tears.

I was so weary of that Howdy Doody smile that all the Peace Corps volunteers wore. I couldn't remember the last time I saw a genuine grin, or heard a giggle. Did the world still giggle? I wondered.

So there I was, my last night in Baidoa, my gut twisted in a tourniquet, crying in a mud puddle.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. All the brochures showed angelic young Americans with laughing children at their feet. The Somali children I knew didn't laugh. Maybe they were too hungry to laugh.

I couldn't laugh either.

They took her away. Shiamsa. Shiamsa, the dedicated, courageous, beautiful young woman who saved my life one starry night. I saw the welts on her shins as they dragged her off. Only her eyes told me good bye.

And Jani is gone too, several months now. She flew out of Djibouti before I could reach her – the interminable rains had washed out the roads, and I couldn't even get out of Baidoa. No roads... No phones... No running water... No electricity... Girls sold for a few stinking camels... Malaria killing over half of all newborns, and most of the rest dying from dysentery... Every single young girl routinely mutilated with a clitorectomy.

Vile spirits, or whoever you are, what in the name of all the spirits above am I doing here? My fingernails dug into my palms, crimson spots mingling in the mud.

I rocked back and forth, hoping one of the angels would wrap her arms around me. My fists had been pounding the mud puddle, splashing filth five feet around.

Only a dark silence answered.

Chapter 2 

The Legend Of Arawello, The Somali Goddess

The women I gravitate to are the ones who defy convention and reinvent themselves - hence, they reinvent the world around them.

Iman, Supermodel, Businesswoman, Good Will Ambassador to the World

The rumors were true. She did castrate men.

Arawello, the Somali Goddess, was born of Her people. In the first century of the common era Somalia was drowning in a brutal civil war. Bloody decapitations and rotting corpses fed the vermin and the hatred that festered like a vile plague, casting Somalia under a dark death watch. The longer the civil war dragged on, the more pungent the anger and hatred became. Arawello felt the brunt of that anger with fists and whips from the hands of her own father, as had most of the women of the land.

Finally one day Arawello’s soul screamed, ENOUGH! Enough!

The killing, the butchery, the brutality had to stop. She needed a way to protect her family, protect the women in her village.

First Arawello had to survive.

So in the dark of night Arawello stole away to the mountains of northern Somalia where the aromatic trees grew in what is now the Bari region. The sap of the scraggy Boswellia sacra was bled for frankincense, used throughout the Arabic world for medicinal purposes and as a testosterone booster. The thorny Commiphora myrra tree was bled for its sap too, a sap called myrrh that was used for healing, for purifying Arab women, and for Egyptian embalming. The sap from both scrub trees was used in sacred ceremonies throughout the Asian region, in all religious sects. These harvested saps brought high prices in the trading ports along the Somali coast, and for those who could tolerate the bitterly cold, dry, windy conditions of the mountains, it provided a rich income.

That is where Arawello went, to the aromatic mountains, where she worked harvesting myrrh from Commiphora trees. The thorns of the Commiphora pierced her arms by day, but by night she listened to the tales of faraway lands – Sumer, Greece, Constantinople, China, Egypt, Babylonia and Persia. Traders from around the world brought their stories to Somali shores, and the Somalis who traded directly with the sailor merchants brought these magnificent tales up the mountain, captivating the gatherers on icy cold nights around the fire with hot tea and warm sheep skin blankets.

Arawello met other women, lots of other women, women like herself, women who had escaped the brutality of their villages, and she began forming her plan. Arawello knew that the women who worked the aromatic fields were strong, and determined. She called them together one night and they met by their own fire while Arawello spoke of her plan.

We will band together. We will train together. We will create an army of women that will bring justice to our villages, Arawello called out to the women.

When the women asked, How?Arawello shouted, We will KILL the men who abuse us!

A boisterous cheer rose from the circle of women. But one woman stood silent, a bit apart from the others. Arawello saw her.

My sister, said Arawello, what troubles you?

I watched my daughter being raped by a dozen men. And I could do nothing to stop it, the woman said softly. My beautiful daughter died. Death is too easy for these men. I want them to suffer as my daughter suffered.

Arawello nodded. She understood.

Arawello thought back to the stories she heard around the fires at night, the stories from China, from Egypt, from Persia and Greece. Some of these stories spoke of eunuchs, of men castrated. The castrated men became obedient servants, for they had nothing left to fight for; their manhood was gone. Arawello could only imagine how intensely they suffered.

Arawello shared her thoughts with the women gathered there that night. Let us take this night, she said, and pray. Pray to all the Spirits, to all our grandmothers from generations past. Ask if what we want to do will have their blessing.

So all the women joined hands around the fire and prayed. They shared their sheep skin blankets and passed around cups of boiling hot tea, each taking a turn at refilling all the cups.

In the early grey dawn as the fire began to dim, Arawello asked that every woman who felt in her heart that this was the right path, every such woman should step forward. Every single woman stepped forward without hesitation.

The next few months were rushed with activity. The women pooled their earnings from working the aromatic forests and bought whatever they needed. Arawello hired an Arabic seaman to teach them how to fight, and he purchased precious Arabic swords, enough for each woman to have one. They made their own armor from the hides of the cattle, and carved bows and arrows out of the aromatic tree trunks. They built a fortress for safety and grew their own crops – sorghum, corn, wheat, papaya, mangos.

Queen Arawello stood on a hill one clear morning, overlooking the northern Somali plains, made emerald green from the recent rains. Off to the east were the aromatic forests where the women had first met. All around her was the world that the women had created.

The previous night the women warriors she had trained gathered around a sacred fire, calling upon women from generations past to grant them strength and wisdom. This circle came together every night after each day of training, a day of building new weapons. Rain or sun, they trained with their spears and swords, their knives and bows and arrows, the more advanced warriors training the newer ones. After the sacred circle, the women joined in a communal feast – all taken from their own fields and flocks. Women came and went from Queen Arawello’s fortress as they physically and spiritually felt the need. New members typically lived there for several months before going out on a mission, training in military arts, justice and mediation.

On this particular morning Queen Arawello watched as the first groups of women, platoons of three and four warriors, women that she and her lieutenants had trained, fanned out over the entire country.

And, yes, the Queen’s warriors did castrate men when they were called upon to do so. The men so emasculated were only those who persisted in lashing out at women and children, a vile habit that had grown out of three generations of brutal civil war in Somalia.

Little by little, village by village, Arawello’s army combed the countryside. In the beginning many men were castrated, for they couldn’t believe that these simple country women could ever defeat them, and so refused to change their ways. This army of strong women did defeat those arrogant men, handing the reins of power in each village to the women.

The story of Queen Arawello’s army spread rapidly, and soon the squadrons of women warriors no longer needed to create peace; they simply needed to maintain the peace with mediation and prayer.

Under Queen Arawello’s peace, the whole country flourished. The compassion of the village women became the law of the land, promoting an era of kindness and generosity. Instead of warring, men’s energies went into agriculture, husbandry and crafts, leading to a prosperity and abundance that Somalia hadn’t seen in many generations. Men and women worked side by side to create a land they had dreamed of for centuries.

Arawello didn’t know where the title Queen came from. It was just there, and she wore it with dignity. She wore no trappings of royalty, save a golden arm bracelet wrapped around her right arm like a sacred spirit serpent. Her dress, like those of her warriors, was a simple cotton wraparound tied at the left shoulder, with armor made from the hides of their livestock. Some speak of Arawello as the Queen, and some call her Goddess. In truth, she may have been both.

Some tales say that Queen Arawello was once married and that both her husband and her son were killed in the civil wars. Some tales say she never married. No matter whether she was married or not, no matter whether she was Queen or Goddess, ultimately she was there when Somalia needed her the most.

When Queen Arawello died, a small tomb was built around her grave on the hills of northern Somalia, near where her fortress had been. Only her simple grave remains now. Should you visit it, you may see men angrily throwing rocks at the gravesite, shouting that Queen Arawello never existed. Many men insist on calling Queen Arawello a fantasy. Yet still they throw stones, as if to frighten her away.

Women don’t throw stones at the Queen’s grave. No, women take small bunches of hand-picked flowers or bits of gay cloth and set them tenderly at the site.

And whenever Somalia is in crisis, Somali women call to the Goddess Arawello, beseeching her to return and restore peace throughout the land.

Chapter 3  

His Name Was Omar Chicago

You will be cooled

Walk forward slowly.

Drink it with blessing,

It has no evil.

Your shriveled bones

Are now moist and full again.

(Camel Watering Chant—A traditional Somali song)

Ischia Baidoa. The Wells of the People. Most everyone calls the town Baidoa, but you can still see Ischia Baidoa on some old maps. Baidoa is plunked down in the middle of the southern part of Somalia, in the former Italian territory, midway between the Juba and Shebelle Rivers. These two rivers flow year round, pouring across the terrain with a current strong enough to topple a six ton truck, reaching from Ethiopia through southern Somalia. The southern river, the Shebelle, sprints straight to the Indian Ocean. The Juba, the northern river, heads toward Mogadishu, then like a fickle lover it sometimes merges with the Shebelle, and sometimes dissipates into nothingness below Mogadishu, sometimes causing massive flooding. All along their paths both rivers provide water for camels, people and sorghum. They both carry life ... and death. The schistosomiasis parasitic worm that flourishes in the Juba and Shebelle rivers destroys kidneys and causes infertility, and sometimes drives unsuspecting animals and people totally insane, even the hippos, crocs and snakes that live there.

At Baidoa the water table bursts through the earth’s crust creating natural springs for the year round