I have rehearsed and organised theatre and musical events and rehearsals all my life in the UK. But I only need to run rehearsals for two weeks in Somaliland before I am accused of running a brothel.
We have hired a detached house surrounded by a wall and the obligatory guard with AK47 in which to rehearse our Somali cultural company Geediga Nabada (“Peace Caravan”).
The neighbours (I’m not sure where – we are quite detached) complained to the landlord that the new lodgers had opened a brothel and were chewing khat (the ubiquitous Middle-East narcotic plant). Understandably the landlord came round to investigate. But just as the idiotic neighbours displayed manifest stupidity by accusing a music rehearsal – singing pro-peace songs set to traditional instruments – of being a sex-fest; the landlord behaved like a complete plonker. He barged in on the rehearsal and, inspite of finding 16 middle-aged people sitting around singing songs to the traditional Arab lute, the ud, chose not to believe his ears or his eyes, trusting instead to believe his prejudice and attempted to bust up the "whore-house".
His vacuous morality was revealed when he realised he would not get his rent. Hypocrite. He was happy to throw “prostitutes” out but was happy for them to no longer be sex-workers and remain if his income was threatened.
It has worked out quite well for us. We are moving out anyway in high dudgeon to a better location: a proper stage and amphitheatre down the road.
Geediga Nabada is spreading a message to Somalis to try to not be foolish, violent, bigoted or idiotic with each other whenever they have a disagreement. Judging by our neighbours’ and landlord’s attitudes, we have our work cut out.
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