I come from Hergeisa. I was twenty years old when I left. I went to Arabia first because I didn't know anyone here at the time, and then I came from Beirut in a ship through Marseille. I looked for work in Arabia, for work on shore, not at sea, but there was no work in Arabia so I came here.
I wanted to get money to buy camels. I have maybe a hundred camels now in Somaliland, and my brother looks after them and his children. They have a big family. That's different from some other people. Others wanted to get money to make a business, and some wanted to buy camels.
I worked on shore and never went to sea. I worked in a factory called Curran's on the Taff Embankment. I came to Cardiff straightaway because my uncle had lived here for a long time, though I hadn't seen him for some time. He had a boarding house. I went to live with him.
Cardiff was very different then, not much work. I got £2.50 from the dole and paid £2 to the boarding house. I came to Britain when I was twenty five. My uncle, Mahmood, came here in 1936, and he still lives here. He has only been away to go to Mogadishu once, and is married to a wife who lives here.
I married in Somaliland in 1987 and I go home to see my wife and children, and send money home. I am a farmer man really, with three children all grown up now, two boys and one grandchild. Most Somali people have some camels.
I have two brothers. One lives in Manchester and one still at home, and three sisters in Somaliland. I am the oldest and my parents were farmers too. They wanted me to stay to look after the farm but I wanted to go away. We did not get much schooling, except in the cities, because we had to look after the animals. Some got a basic schooling but I didn't. I did not learn to write, and though we did learn to read the Quran, our Somali script is not Arabic. So when I have to deal with the government or the local authority, to do with electricity or gas, we get help from Taffy (Taff Housing Association) to fill in forms.
English is not spoken outside cities in Somaliland, so I did not have much English before coming to this country. I came in a party of ten from Arabia. My uncle knew we were coming and waited for us. Some went to London, some to Manchester and we travelled by train which was cheap in those days, just five shillings from London to Cardiff.
I have a British passport and I have no trouble travelling to and from Somaliland. I will be going home sometime this year. I keep in touch with my family there by letter and by telephone, which is much cheaper now using cards - ten minutes for five pounds. Some people did go home and not come back, but now mostly they come back even after staying there two or three years.
This is Ramadan now with fasting during the day, and there is one week left. The last day is a big day, when we wear our nice clothes to go to the Mosque and then have a big meal.
This story was written as part of a
Taff Housing initiative which was funded by the
Arts Council of Wales.
