Somali Vampire Family Saga

The sun will rise soon, and since I'm yet to feed, this is decidedly bad news. Soon the unbearable light will bathe the desert sands, and like all my kind, I must hide or perish. Such is my lot in life as one of the undead. I walk through the streets of Mogadishu, a slender, brown-skinned young Somali woman, my head covered by a nice hijab, my dress blowing in the wind. Beautiful, sweet and innocent as can be, it's all part of my predatory lure. I seem like a pretty little flower, right until I sink my fangs into your neck.

Finally, I spot my prey, an old man who leans against a building wall, unsteady. Don't know what he's doing walking the streets in the wee hours of the morning, but his life is about to end. I approach him cautiously, shifting my predatory gait to that of a concerned citizen. I will myself to smile, and look at him. As Salam Alaikum older brother, I say respectfully. I bow gently for emphasis, and decide to indulge him with polite conversation before going for the jugular. Like a cat, I like to play for my food.

The old man looks up at me and smiles. For a long moment, neither of us says anything. He looks familiar, though for the life of me I couldn't tell where I met him. It is you my Fatoumata, he says, in a voice filled with emotion. Father, I say breathlessly, suddenly dumbstruck. And I stand there, frozen, as he warmly embraces me, his long lost daughter. As if the past decades years hadn't happened. I missed you so much my little one, he says, tears welling up in his eyes. I missed you too, I say, and then whisper into his ear that I must depart. My father stares at me blankly. Come home with me my daughter, he begs. I shake my head sadly, and vanish into the night.

My name is Fatoumatta Hanaffi, and I was born in the City of Mogadishu, Somalia, on November 7, 1965. My parents, Ali and Maryam Hanaffi are poor farmers who moved to metropolis Mogadishu to escape atrocious conditions in the desert. I lived a normal life as befitting any young woman from my clan. In the summer of 1984, I married a young man named Salim Wahid. In 1985, I bore my husband a daughter, our little Mona. This little bundle of joy was the light of my otherwise dreary existence. A woman's life in Somalia is set in stone due to the constraints of Islam. My whole destiny seemed mapped out before me due to my gender. Somali females grow up to be obedient daughters and later wives. That's it. Little did I know that horrors and wonders awaited me.

One night, in the summer of 1986, while walking through Mogadishu, I was attacked by a vampire. The fiend's bite infected me with vampirism, and I've been one of the undead ever since. Vampires are real, ladies and gentlemen, and we're nothing like you'd expect. We cannot turn into animals or read minds. Nope, we don't glitter. We are much stronger and faster than ordinary human beings, and we also heal quickly from injuries that would cripple or kill a normal person. Our senses are wickedly sharp. Just how sharp? Let me put it this way. I can smell a person coming across a distance of two kilometers. I can hear a pin drop on the carpeted floor of a ten-story building...all the way from the basement. I can see a tiny black dot on a lightly painted wall from a distance of sixty feet. Telescopic eyesight and night vision are keen assets among a vampire's sensory apparatus.

Becoming a vampire changes you. As a vampire, I have the power of total recall, an absolutely perfect memory. We simply cannot forget, but only those things we learn after becoming vampires. Our human memories fade away quickly. That's why I had trouble recognizing my own father. Even though I still live in the same body I inhabited while human, I've become so much more than that...and in a way, less. I walked away from him not because I hate him, but because a part of me still cares. Most fledgling vampires abandon their families because they know, deep down that the monster they've become will eventually come to see their mortal relatives as food.

I returned to my dwelling, a hole hidden underneath what once was a marketplace located near the largest Masjid in metropolitan Mogadishu. I have a whole apartment underground, with a bed and pillows, books, toiletries, weapons, everything I could ever need. I live alone, and that's how I like it. As I lay on my bed in the cool, comfortable darkness, far away from the sun's lethal rays, I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking about my father, and the old life I left behind. For decades I hadn't even thought of my family. Love and hatred are human emotions, and as a vampire, I am above that.

I found myself thinking of my husband Salim and our daughter Mona. I once went out to look for them, and found out they left Somalia for North America. My dear ones, as I call them in my mind, in my most private moments. A lot of Somalis have been leaving the homeland due to internecine wars between various clans. This era of political instability and hatred has led to us being considered one of the most dangerous countries on the planet. The Americans invaded in a bid to stabilize the region, but promptly left once they realized that we Somalis cannot be harnessed or controlled. For better or for worse, we're a ferocious people when our faith and culture are under attack by outside forces.

Odd, the fact that even after all this time, I still consider myself very much a Somali woman. For my culture and the Islamic faith very much influence everything that I am, even in this undead existence of mine. When the sun finally went down, I rose and went back to the streets. I fed on a brash young man who reeked of violence and mayhem, one of those Islamists who kill their fellow Muslims for being insufficiently religious or too 'westernized'. They're quite common in today's world, ranging from Somalia to Pakistan, from Afghanistan to Chechnya. After draining the anonymous killer, I disposed of his corpse, then went back to my father's house.

I entered the modest dwelling, and searched for him, but in vain. When I asked one of the neighbors, they told me that the old man left for the deep desert in the morning. Anger and disappointment filled my heart. I was too late. I returned to my lair just before dawn, simmering with conflicting emotions. Why had I gone to my father's house? To make him one of us, the undead? To kill him? To reveal the secrets of my unnatural existence to him and expose my kind? I don't know. I don't have the answers. In that regard, I am just like you. I have questions, I have doubts, and sometimes I lie awake thinking about it all.

Sometimes I wonder about what my life would have been like if I hadn't been forcibly changed from a normal woman, a loving wife and mother, a proud Somali sister and pious Muslim into what I am now. A creature that hides from the sun and drinks the blood of the living. A dead thing that somehow lives. Where would I be if the monster which made me, a creature I hadn't seen since that first night, hadn't changed me? I would be a middle-aged woman with a grown daughter. I'd be seeking a proper husband for my little angel Mona while her father Salim doted on her. I'd be counting the days until my daughter made me a grandmother, as is the custom among Somali women. I'd be alive, out in the sun, with my husband and daughter, with my family.

Instead, I'm here. The life of a vampire is a lonely one. In the movies and television programs, vampires seem at ease in the world of the living. If only that were true. Even the least astute human will sense that I am somehow unnatural, if he is around me long enough. I don't age. I don't get sick. As long as the sun's rays don't burn me to ash or I don't get decapitated, I will continue to live. I've traveled a great deal, from Somalia to Ethiopia, and even to Yemen. I've lived in the dunes of Saudi Arabia, the land I always dreamed of visiting as a young Muslim woman, yearning for the sacred Haj. Yet I have not ventured too far from the land where I was born, for being a vampire limits my travel options.

I cannot obtain a visa, and travel to the United States, Canada or Europe. I don't blend easily into the human world, especially in a country with close-knit communities like Somalia. I never stay too long in Mogadishu, for when my kind stay long in one place, we get discovered and hunted. Soon I will leave, destination unknown. I've heard terrible things about Nigeria. The conflict between Christians and Muslims has resulted in thousands of deaths and terrorism has put a chokehold on the country's politics, economy and social life. Sounds like the perfect place for me. With so many people turning up dead, my predations ought to go unnoticed for a while.

At least that's what I planned. Even for one such as myself, life can have unexpected results. I was in my lair, sleeping when a general sense of unease caused me to bolt awake. I found myself staring at a very familiar face. The face of my father. Hello Fatou, he said somberly. Father, I said, staring at him. In his right hand he held a wooden stake. Don't do this, I pleaded. Shaking his head, my father pressed his foot against my chest, and raised his stake. I squirmed, unable to believe that after living so long as a vampire, it was going to end like this. I am here to bring you peace my daughter, my father said as he raised the stake.

At the last moment my father hesitated, and that was ten times what I needed. With supernatural strength and speed I grabbed his foot and hurled him away from me. Before my father crashed to the ground, I leapt on top of him and sank my fangs into his neck. Three nights later, with my father by my side, just like a proper Muslim daughter, I walked through the streets of Mogadishu. I caught a thief, and fed on him while my father fed on his acolyte. I can't tell you how proud I was when my father killed and fed. This is a wonderful existence my daughter, he said, with his arm around my shoulder. Thank you papa, I said happily.

My father told me how, as the only member of the family still in Somalia after my mother's death, he'd begun to despair. My death and disappearance had driven my mother into a fatal depression. I was deeply saddened to hear this. Rejoice my daughter for I do have good news, Papa said. I looked at him, wondering what else he had to reveal to me. Smiling, my father showed me the visa he'd recently gotten from the Canadian Embassy in Mogadishu. Apparently, my husband Salim and my daughter Mona lived in the City of Toronto, Ontario, somewhere in Canada, and had sent for him. Your daughter Mona s getting married and sent for her dear old grandpa, my dad said. Smiling, I looked at the sky and thanked the fates for this.

In spite of the difficulties awaiting us, my Papa and I made our way from Mogadishu, Somalia, to Toronto, Ontario. It took us three months to get there, traveling inside a cargo hold. We'd bribed a high-ranking official from an international shipping company. At last, we were in Toronto, where our dear ones awaited. At first glance the Canadian metropolis dwarfed anything I could have imagined. The place was so big and bright, and filled with so many people! I vowed to myself that I would explore every nook and cranny in this place. First, though, I had family business to attend to.

Dad and I made our way to the fancy Mississauga townhouse my erstwhile husband Salim shared with our daughter Mona. I was touched when I learned that Salim never remarried, and I saw a painting of me on the living room wall. The man I loved hadn't forgotten me. He looked a bit different from the younger man I married, but he was still the same. And my tall, statuesque daughter Mona was the mirror image of me. What a wonderful reunion it was, in spite of the initial unpleasantness of having to forcibly bring them into the ranks of the undead.

I took no pleasure in hurting my dear ones, but I did what I had to do. It's for the best, after all. Only by shaking off the mortal coil can one achieve immortality. Thus I bit my daughter, and my father bit my husband Salim. Three nights later, they joined the ranks of the undead. A few days later, my daughter Mona bit her fiancé, a nice Muslim lad from Nigeria named Omar Adewale, and he's one of us now. I can't wait to help my daughter plan their wedding. At last, we're together again, just like a real family. Only this time, I vowed that nothing shall ever get in our way or tear us apart. Now I know what I'd been missing all those years. At the end of the day, no matter who or what you are, nothing is more important than family. Even if you've got fangs.