After days of rough seas that made me sick in the stomach, we reached Cabo Delgado. We had been given nothing to eat on the sea journey and, once my seasickness had gone, I began to feel weak with hunger. A tall, dark-skinned man called Fernando met us as we got off the boat and led us to an old Ford truck. He asked for payment before we boarded and began the overland journey to Johannesburg, the City of Gold, in South Africa. He must have seen that we were famished, because he stopped to let us buy food at a street stall in the town. It is here that I ate for the first time in three days.

As we approached the border the driver turned off the road onto a dirt track and, after we had driven for half an hour or so, he stopped and shone his headlights onto a stretch of broken fence. He told us to climb through and to wait for him. True to his word, he reappeared in an hour or so, and we boarded the truck and continued our journey to Johannesburg.

I was exhausted by the time we reached the City of Gold. My uncle had arranged for one of his friends to pick me up at the bus station and to buy my ticket to Cape Town. I stayed at his house and he took me to the Home Affairs to apply for my asylum papers so that I could come to Cape Town. The Home Affairs was very crowded and the queues seemed to take forever to finish, but after three days of going there early in the morning and finishing late into the afternoon, I was finally assisted. They told me that I would only have the papers for six months and I would have to go and apply for them again, I dreaded the thought, but knew that it was for my own good.

***

Cape Town was nothing like I had imagined: beautiful, but also very cold. The clothes from Grandmother’s neighbour were not nearly warm enough.

As I got off the bus I saw a man smiling a familiar smile: my mother’s smile. I knew then that he was my Uncle Hassan, my mother’s brother.

“Abdulrahman, we are so happy to have you here with us,” Uncle said, embracing me. He led me to his car and introduced me to his wife, Mana. She barely looked up and she said nothing to me throughout the journey. It was only once we got to their house in Retreat that she spoke to me, to show me where I would be sleeping. I was to share a room with my two cousins. Omar was eight years old and Imran was 11. There was a single mattress on the floor next to their bunk bed.

“You must keep the room tidy,” Aunt Mana said sharply.

I slept so soundly that night that I had to be woken up the following morning. For the first time since I had left my home country I had not had a nightmare and I felt calm and refreshed by sleep.

The following morning Uncle took me to his place of business and asked me to help him out. I thought that he was showing me out of pride, but when he took me back to the small grocery store the following day and the day after that, I realised that I would be working for him from now on. He did not tell me in so many words. All he said was, “This is not like Somalia. Life here is very difficult – you have to work to make a living,” as if Somalia was a land of milk and honey.

We would leave for work every morning at 5 am, right after morning prayers. Sometimes we would leave so early that we would say our morning prayers at the shop. We had a lot of customers, even on cold, rainy days – there was no time to sit down. We were especially busy during the times people were travelling to or returning from their jobs.

My father had taught me some English words he had picked up while dealing with white cattle farmers, so I could understand a little. In time I was able to reply “Yes” or “No” when customers asked if we had this or that. But I missed my native language and I was happy to meet other Somalis who owned shops in the area. Uncle Hassan had forbidden me from talking to them, but I would visit them when he wasn’t around.

“They are also from our country,” I said to him one day.

“These people might be from our country, Abdulrahman, but this is a different world we live in. They will only bring us trouble. Stay away from them,” he warned.

I did not understand what he meant. They were friendly people I could relate to. They made me feel at home.

Uncle tried to avoid them, but there were occasional meetings when they would have to discuss issues that affected them as shop owners. I went with him to one of these meetings. They talked about being threatened by the locals who didn’t like us very much because we had taken their jobs. To me Somalis had a right to open their shops. It wasn’t as if we were stealing anyone’s jobs – we were creating our own jobs. We were finding ways to make a living and we were serving the community.

At home things weren’t easy. Aunt Mana didn’t seem to like me very much. When I first came she would tell her friends that I was just a visitor passing through, but after a while people became suspicious of me always being at the shop and she changed the story to, “He was hired because Hassan needed a helping hand.” She could never admit that I was her nephew. I suppose she had every right to feel the way she felt – I was a stranger who had invaded her small family. But it made me want to leave and find a place of my own as soon as I had saved enough money. Perhaps in time I would also be able to save enough to get my dear grandmother out of Somalia.

*****

After months of working hard I managed to save some money to put down a deposit on my friend Ali’s old Isuzu bakkie, Ali had said that he will rent it out to me until I can manage to pay him fully. We agreed that I would pay him a fixed amount every month until I had paid off all the money I owed him. He also offered to rent me one of his shops. I knew that I was more than capable of running my own shop. I had learned a lot under Uncle Hassan’s supervision and recently I had been looking after his shop practically by myself.

I finally found the courage to tell my uncle. “Uncle Hassan,” I said one Saturday afternoon, as we were closing the shop, “I have decided to run my own business in Capricorn, near Muizenberg. My friend Ali has offered me one of his shops. I will be paying him monthly rent, but the profits will be mine.”

Uncle was not happy at all. I had not seen him so disappointed in me since I had come to live with them. “Abdul, I cannot believe this. After all I have done for you! Why are you doing this when you know how much I need your help?”

“I am sorry, Uncle Hassan, but I need to make my own way now.”

Uncle looked at me, then shook his head, locked the shop and walked home ahead of me.

Aunt Mana was even angrier. “So you want to leave?” she shouted. “Do you think you’re too clever for us?”

I had not seen this coming. The woman hated me, and now she seemed unhappy that I was leaving. I thought I would be doing her a favour by leaving.

A few weeks later I packed my things and loaded them into the bakkie. I knew that it would not be easy on my own, but I also knew that I did not want to remain in a house where I was treated as a second-class citizen. It was time for me to venture out on my own.

***

Tell us what you think: can you sympathise with Aunt Mana’s attitude to Abdul, or do you think she was unfair and nasty?