The Dhaqan Celis
"Dhaqan celis means 'cultural rehabilitation'—when diaspora kids are sent to Somalia to reconnect with tradition. He's twenty-two and forced to spend a summer with relatives. The thick widow who supervises his 'rehabilitation' has her own curriculum."
My parents called it dhaqan celis.
Cultural rehabilitation. A summer in Mogadishu to "reconnect with my roots" after I got caught partying too hard in Minneapolis.
The woman assigned to supervise me is named Faadumo.
Fifty years old. A widow. A distant relative who runs a household where wayward diaspora kids get straightened out.
She's thick.
Two hundred and forty pounds of traditional authority. Wide hips. Heavy breasts. A round face that can switch from kind to terrifying in an instant.
"Soo dhawow," she says when I arrive. "Your parents think you need discipline."
"My parents are overreacting."
"We'll see." She studies me. "The rules are simple. No phones after nine. No going out alone. No xaaraan."
"Xaaraan?"
"Anything forbidden." She smiles. "I'll be watching."
The first weeks are hell.
I clean. I pray. I learn Somali properly for the first time in my life. Faadumo is everywhere, monitoring everything.
"You're getting better," she says one evening. "Less American every day."
"Is that a compliment?"
"It's an observation." She sits beside me on the roof, where we watch Mogadishu sprawl beneath the stars. "You remind me of my son."
"You have a son?"
"Had. He died in the war. Twenty years ago." She's quiet for a moment. "He would have been your age now."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry. Be present." She looks at me. "Be the man he never got to be."
Something shifts in my chest.
The relationship changes.
I stop seeing her as a prison warden. Start seeing her as a person. A lonely widow in a broken city, trying to save kids like me.
"Why do you do this?" I ask one night.
"Because someone has to." She sighs. "The diaspora sends us their broken children, expecting us to fix them. Most families just take the money and ignore the kids. I actually try."
"You do more than try."
"Do I?" She looks at me with tired eyes. "Sometimes I feel like I'm failing. Like nothing I do matters."
"You matter to me."
She freezes.
"Warya—"
"You've shown me more about who I am in six weeks than twenty-two years in America." I take her hand. "That matters."
"This is inappropriate."
"So is most of my life."
I kiss her.
She pulls back.
"I'm your supervisor. This is—"
"Xaaraan. I know." I hold her gaze. "But you've been alone for twenty years. And I've been running from everything that matters. Maybe we both need something forbidden."
"Your parents—"
"Sent me here to change. This is change."
She stares at me.
Then she takes my hand.
Leads me to her room.
Her body is thick and warm.
Heavy breasts. Soft belly. The body of a woman who's survived war and loss and twenty years of solitude.
"I'm old," she says.
"You're perfect."
I push her onto her bed.
I worship the woman who was supposed to fix me.
My mouth traces her body—every scar, every line.
"No one has—" She gasps as I spread her thighs. "Since my husband—"
I bury my face between her thighs.
She screams.
"ILAAHAY!" Her hands grab my hair. "Twenty years—ALLA—"
I lick her slowly. Give her what she's been missing.
"Coming—" She's shaking. "I'm coming—ALLA—"
She explodes.
"Inside me—" She's pulling at me. "Ku soo gal—please—"
I strip.
Her eyes widen at my cock.
"Subhanallah." She touches me reverently. "My husband was never—"
"I'm not your husband."
I position myself.
I spread her thick thighs.
"Ready?"
"I've been ready for twenty years."
I thrust inside.
She screams.
Her walls grip me—tight, wet, twenty years tight.
"Alla—so big—you're filling me—dhammaan—"
I start to move.
I fuck my rehabilitation supervisor.
In Mogadishu. In the house where I was supposed to get straightened out. Her massive body bounces beneath me.
"Dhakhso—faster—" She wraps her legs around me. "Give me everything—"
I pound her.
The bed slams against the wall. She screams and screams.
"Coming—" Her eyes roll back. "Ku shub—fill me—"
I let go.
I flood Faadumo.
Fill her where twenty years of emptiness lived. She moans as she feels it.
We lie tangled together, gasping.
"Macaan," she breathes. "Best student I've ever had."
"Am I rehabilitated?"
"Maya." She laughs. "You're worse than when you arrived."
"What's the treatment?"
"More of this." She pulls me for a kiss. "Every night until you leave."
Three Months Later
I return to Minneapolis a changed man.
My parents think the dhaqan celis worked. I'm calmer. More focused. More Somali.
They don't know why.
"Macaan," Faadumo texts me. "Soo noqo." Come back.
I will.
Every summer.
My rehabilitation is ongoing.
And I never want it to end.