By Mohamud Yussuf
For Runta News-Seattle, Washington
“Goodbye Shingani, A Diary of a Doctor on the Run” is a beautifully written book by Dr. Saleh Al Amoudi who is one of the natives of that once a prosperous neighborhood which lies on the beach side of Mogadishu on the Indian Ocean.
Shingani before the civil war in 1991 was the Manhattan or Brooklyn of Somalia. It was a bustling city within a city where banks, office buildings, restaurants, shopping malls, cinemas, and the two best hotels (Juba and Al Uruba) were all located. In the daytime, People from all other 15 neighborhoods of Mogadishu gathered and interacted with one another in it peacefully as they conducted their business. In the evening, people enjoyed its cafes, restaurants, shopping malls, and cinemas.
Here is a short summary of the book in which Dr. Saleh Al Amoudi gives a glimpse about how life was like in Shingani in a truthful entertaining way. “In a corner of the world where the sky meets the sea, there was Shingani, a neighborhood that, like an old sage, had witnessed epochs, cultures, and stories pass by. It was a place where the voices of merchants blended with the laughter of children, where the scent of the sea mingled with that of spices, and where every stone and corner told a story of coexistence, diversity, and life. Life flowed through this neighborhood’s narrow alleys and white houses under the benevolent shadow of a glorious past. Dr. Saleh, a son of this land, had walked these streets, breathed the air of salt and hope, and dreamt young and bold dreams. He had seen Shingani not just with his eyes but with his heart, a witness to an era when the community was one big family, united despite its diversities, strong even in times of difficulty.”
Sadly, Shingani which had once hosted some of the beautiful landmarks such as the Old Sea Port, The Ancient Arch, Arba’a Rukun Mosque, the Museum of Saeed Barkhash and Uruba Hotel both on Secondo Lido Beach, Cinema Hamar, the City Hall, and lastly but not least the majestic ancient Catholic Cathedral at which its stairs people rested whenever they got tired walking around in the city center, now still lies in ruins after Somalia’s 1991 Civil War.
Khalid Shamo, a businessman and the author’s nephew has dim hope that Mogadishu or Hamar will be the same as it once was called “the pearl of Indian Ocean”. He believes the golden era is a thing of the past that at least his generation will never witness again anytime soon, let alone Shingani with its native civilized citizens.
The book which is now available in both Kindle Edition and Paperback and can be found @ Amazon
