As Salaam Alaikum, people. Eid Mubarak to my fellow Muslims. My name is Shukri Abdi Aden, and I'm a young Somali Canadian Muslim woman living in the City of Edmonton, Alberta. I graduated from the University of Calgary with a degree in business management, and work at CIBC. I'm that pretty gal in the Hijab who greets you with a smile when you enter the downtown Edmonton branch of CIBC.
I smile a lot and it's as much customer service as it is an attempt to pacify my clients. My day to day life is fairly boring, and that's how I like it. I'm an account manager with the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, and I have lots of fun dealing with subtly racist Albertans who aren't used to dealing with attractive, well-dressed, educated Black Muslim women in the worlds of business and banking.
The world is changing but you can't tell that to Canadian rednecks. They're deeply in denial about the whole thing, I swear. In the past few years, the City of Edmonton and the City of Calgary, the crown jewels of provincial Alberta, have changed drastically from a demographic and social standpoint. This is the way that Canada is going and there's no going back. Of course, some people can't face that fact...
The province of Alberta is changing. Scores of immigrants from places like Somalia, Ethiopia, Jamaica, India and China moved here, and we've changed the world as these uptight Albertans knew it. They're passive aggressively resisting the racial diversity and progress that we bring. I don't let the daily bullshit get to me, though. In this life, I learned to adapt and get things gone without letting the small stuff get to me.
As a Black Muslim woman, I have to be stronger than that. No other choice, ladies and gentlemen. I work, go to the mosque, do volunteer work, and hang out with family and friends. I rent a nice one-bedroom apartment, and I'm single. My existence seems mundane, but only until you scratch the surface. I recently discovered the amazing world of BDSM and after much soul searching, I decided to explore it. That's how I ended up...here.
I have another life, and another identity lurking beneath my more mundane one. In certain circles, I am known as Mistress Hargeisa, First Lady of Torment, and the reasoning behind this moniker holds special meaning for me. I was born in the City of Hargeisa, Somalia, and raised in the province of Alberta, Canada. I don't remember Hargeisa but it shall forever be the city of my birth.