Caano Geel
"Caano geel—camel milk—is a Somali delicacy. When he visits his family's rural village, the thick widow who tends the camels offers him a taste. But the milk isn't the only thing she's been saving for a special visitor."
The village is nothing like Minneapolis.
Dust and heat and the smell of livestock. Small aqals—the traditional Somali huts—clustered around a well. My mother's ancestral land, a three-hour drive from Mogadishu into the countryside.
"You've never seen this," my uncle says. "The real Somalia. The way we lived before the war."
He's right. I've never seen anything like this.
Including her.
"Soo dhawow—welcome!" The woman approaches, carrying a gourd. "You must be the American nephew. Kaalay—come, drink caano geel."
Camel milk. Fresh from the herd.
Her name is Habiba. Forty-five years old. A widow—her husband died in a clan conflict ten years ago. She tends the family's camels, sixty head in all, living alone in a hut on the edge of the village.
She's thick.
Two hundred and fifty pounds of traditional Somali woman. She wears a guntiino—the wraparound cloth of the countryside—that does nothing to hide her curves. Wide hips. Heavy breasts. A belly soft and round. Her skin is dark from the sun, her hands calloused from work.
I take the gourd.
Drink.
The milk is warm and rich and unlike anything I've tasted.
"Macaan?" she asks. Sweet?
"Aad iyo aad." Very.
She smiles. Her teeth are white against her dark face.
"Come back tomorrow," she says. "I'll show you the camels."
I come back.
And the day after.
And the day after that.
Habiba teaches me the Somali words for everything—geel for camel, caano for milk, xoolo for livestock. She shows me how to milk, how to guide the herd, how to live the way our ancestors lived.
"You're different," she says one evening, as we watch the sun set over the scrubland. "Not like the city men who come here. They look at us like we're animals."
"I look at you like you're a woman."
She stills.
"A woman." She laughs softly. "It's been ten years since anyone called me that."
"What do they call you?"
"Naag la dhintay ninkeeda." The woman whose husband died. "That's all I am now. A widow. A camel herder. An old woman no one wants."
"I want."
She looks at me.
"Wallahi, don't joke—"
"I'm not joking."
The air between us changes.
Her aqal is small and dark.
Just a bedroll, a cooking pot, a few belongings. The smell of smoke and milk and the desert.
"This is all I have," she says, gesturing around. "This is all I am."
"It's enough."
"You don't understand." She turns to face me. "In the city, you can hide. Here, everyone knows everything. If we—if I—"
"We won't tell anyone."
"They'll see. They'll know. They'll—"
I kiss her.
She freezes.
Then melts.
Her hands grip my shirt. Her mouth opens to mine. Ten years of loneliness pour through her lips.
"Xaaraan," she whispers against my mouth.
"Everything good is."
I reach for her guntiino.
The cloth falls away.
Underneath, she wears nothing. Her body is thick and dark and glorious—breasts hanging heavy, belly soft and round, hips wide as the horizon.
"I'm fat," she whispers. "Old. Used up—"
"You're beautiful."
I push her onto the bedroll.
I worship her.
My mouth traces down her body—throat, breasts, belly, thighs. She shakes beneath me, sounds escaping her that she probably hasn't made in a decade.
"No one has ever—" She gasps as my tongue finds her. "My husband never—"
"Your husband didn't know what he had."
I lick her slowly. Taste her. The taste of a woman who's been alone too long—musky and sweet and desperate.
"Haa—haa—Ilaahay—" She grabs my hair. "Don't stop—ha joogin—"
I slide two fingers inside her. She's tight—impossibly tight—and wet enough to soak my hand.
"Coming—" She's shaking. "Ten years—and now—ALLA—"
She screams.
The sound echoes across the village. I hope no one hears.
I don't stop.
I give her another one.
"Inside me—" She's pulling at my shoulders. "I need—ku soo gal—"
I strip.
Her eyes widen at my cock.
"Weyn." Big. She wraps her calloused hand around me. "My husband was nothing like this."
"Tonight, there is no husband. Only us."
I position myself between her thick thighs.
Push inside.
She screams.
Her walls grip me like a fist—ten years of nothing making her tighter than any woman I've had.
"Alla—you're filling me—dhammaan—completely—"
I start to move.
She wraps her legs around me. Pulls me deeper.
"Dhakhso—faster—" She's clawing at my back. "I've waited so long—don't be gentle—"
I fuck her in the aqal.
The bedroll shifts beneath us. Dust rises. She screams with abandon—there's no one to hear out here, no one to judge.
"Coming—" Her eyes roll back. "Coming again—ku shub—fill me—"
I let go.
I flood the camel herder.
Pump her full while she moans and shakes. When I'm empty, I collapse onto her soft body, both of us gasping.
"Wallahi," she breathes. "I thought I was dead. That part of me. Dead like my husband."
"You're not dead."
"Maya." She strokes my face. "I'm alive. Because of you."
We lie tangled together as the stars appear through the gaps in the aqal.
"How long do you stay?" she asks.
"Two more weeks."
"Two weeks." She shifts beneath me. "Two weeks of nights. Can you give me that?"
"Haa."
"Then give me everything." She pulls me on top of her. "Make up for ten years. Make me remember what it means to be a woman."
I give her everything.
Two Weeks Later
I leave the village at dawn.
Habiba stands by the well, watching. We don't embrace—too many eyes. But she presses a gourd into my hands.
"Caano geel," she says. "For the journey."
"Mahadsnid."
"Nabad gelyo." Safe journey. But her eyes say something else.
Come back.
I come back.
Every summer. Every chance I get.
The city men drive past the village. They see nothing worth stopping for.
I see Habiba.
And every night, in her small aqal on the edge of the world, she shows me what they're missing.
Caano geel is the sweetest milk on earth.
But she's sweeter.