Sadness due to the wounds of 17 years of civil war to the city, to observe the city’s new symbols and symptoms of war, after a short tour of the city we arrived in Peace hotel where we met Awkuku, sitting on a shade with a number of Somalis who came from Europe and America, Somalis like us, who due to the peace brought by the Islamic courts jumped on a plane to visit the great Mogadishu. Awkuku entertained the people, his jokes where current and at the time directed to the Islamic Courts, one of the jokes he was saying was that yes there is peace, but no more theater and football and how he managed not be harmed by a flogging by means of wearing all his clothes on his back. And the man who ordered Awkuku and his band to be flogged for singing in public asked them a month later to sing at his sons wedding, that brought tears to our eyes with laughter.

After the jokes he came around to our table and had tea with us, us we told him what we observed and went on to drown ourselves with what changed in Mogadishu, we asked him when and how did these changes happened, Awkuku the comedian who was an old man now, stopped the jokes and told us event after event, his perspective with horrific facts and he turned to an open book about the real picture of the suffering and how people where hurt during the 17 years of civil war, specially to the minority clans, clans without militia, to see the man of comedy describe harsh times was painful and we talked once a week for a month he was getting old , but he was still interesting and funny.

Awkuku however gave us hopes, which as things where changing then, that he would be present for the possible turn around from conflict to peace. The late Awkuku will be remembered as one of the great actors and comedians of this nation, who rain or shine, war or peace, worked round the clock to have a positive impact and use the tools he had humor to unite and encourage peace at all times.

Awale Ali Kullane

SomaliSwiss@hotmail.com