Zaak stares accusingly at her sandaled feet, which are now covered with fine brown sand.
"Or the Islamic courts that will step in to stop it going ahead, " says Zaak.
No matter, she won't engage Zaak in serious talk until she has been here for a while.
The last Zaak heard, Wardi is doing splendidly: He is finally a partner in the law firm.
Zaak was not a rebel by nature, was less inclined to act as wild as she would.
" Zaak replies, "They watch videocassettes of Hindi, Korean, Italian, or English movies.
Cambara has had the proclivity to keep a safe, polite distance, the better to avoid Zaak's bad breath, diagnosed as chronic gingivitis.
For his part, Zaak has steered a judicious course, ostensibly avoiding the obvious and the not-so-obvious pitfalls, and has refrained from pressing her.
Chuffed, Zaak is clearly pleased that he has for once impressed Cambara with his knowledge about something of which she hasn't an idea.
Herself, she looks in consternation from the dilapidated tarmac road to Zaak, as she releases her stiff grip around the handle of the knife.
Cambara will admit that she has made a faux pas arriving in Mogadiscio unprepared, with no addresses and no telephone numbers of anyone except Zaak and no personal contacts.
She tries to relax into a high state of alert, if that is at all possible, and then picks up Zaak's pungent body odor, the unwashed detritus of a qaat-chewer's unhealthy living.
Scarcely have they left the compound and walked a hundred meters when she slows down, covers her head more appropriately with a plain scarf as the Islamic tradition dictates, and stays ten or so meters behind Zaak.
She has no idea what Zaak will think of it, but she cannot help imagining him being more sarcastic than her mother, who reacted with unprecedented bafflement when Cambara informed her of her imminent trip to the country.
Then Zaak explains at length that in recent years, dumping of secondhand clothing on the world's poor has become de rigueur, as many citizens of these countries are in no position to pay the astronomical prices for new clothes.
Moreover, having once been Cambara's "husband" on paper and having "lived" with her in confined spaces, first as children growing up, then as a couple who entered into a contract of the marriage-of-convenience kind, Zaak has his partisan views.
At any rate, she must not allow Zaak to make her question the motives of her visit, what has prompted her to leave her peaceful life, husband, and job in Toronto, where she has been resident for three-quarters of her life, and come to the war-torn country.
After arguing for days and nights, Arda consented to Cambara's "ill-advised scheme" with a caveat: that they involve Raxma, who had wonderful contacts in Mogadiscio and, while waiting for things to be put in motion, that Cambara should either wait in Toronto or go ahead and stay with Zaak.
Then she tightens her lips and moistens them, her head sending two contradictory messages: the one advising that she remain wary, the other declining, as per her mother's suggestion, to put all her trust in Zaak, because he has firsthand knowledge of how things are likely to pan out.
Whatever else she might do, she must not afford Zaak free access to her affairs, at least not before she has consolidated her position and fortified it against its inherent weaknesses, which might come to light after she sets the confrontation with the minor warlord and his armed minions into motion.
应用推荐