Twin Ambitions - My Autobiography Read Online Free

neighbourhood. Nothing serious – just the usual scrapes that young boys get in from time to time. If someone tried it on with Hassan, I’d be right there at his side. Likewise, Hassan would stand up for me in a fight.
    One of my best memories of childhood in Djibouti is the food. At dinner we’d usually eat a traditional meal of pasta (
baasto
) and chicken (
digaag
), usually with some spices mixed in for flavour. In between meals we’d snack on samosas, or have a treat such as black beans mixed with butter and sugar. For breakfast, Grandma cooked a type of thin, sweet pancake called
malawah
. Every morning I’d wake up to that smell. Grandma made the best pancakes. She liked to drench them in honey and serve them with cooked liver or heart. To this day, I’ll order pancakes for breakfast if they’re on the menu – although they never quite taste as good as Grandma’s.
    I remember hurrying home to eat dinner one evening while Hassan was still playing outside with some friends of his, kicking a ball around.
    ‘Save me some food,’ he called.
    The fact that Hassan and me looked identical gave us plenty of opportunities to cause all kinds of trouble and confusion. One of our favourite games was to play tricks on people by pretending to be each other. I saw a golden opportunity to play a joke on Grandma.
    ‘Where’s your brother?’ Grandma asked as I arrived home. ‘Dinner’s ready.’
    ‘He’s out,
Ayeeyo
,’ I replied, licking my lips at the smell of the feast Grandma was serving up. ‘He says he’ll be in soon and to save him some.’
    No sooner had we sat down than I’d finished off my plateful. I had a voracious appetite in those days. Still do. Once I was finished, I stood up, made my excuses and ducked out of the room. Hassan, meanwhile, was still busy playing outside. Making sure no one was looking, I snuck out of the back door, scurried around the side of the house and waited a couple of minutes. Then I sauntered through the front door again pretending to be Hassan. In those days we often wore each other’s clothes, had the same haircuts and the same tall-but-skinny build. Even for someone who knew us as well as our grandparents, it was almost impossible to tell us apart.
    ‘Hi,
Ayeeyo
, I’m home!’ I announced. ‘Where’s my dinner? I’m starving!’
    Thinking I was Hassan, Grandma handed me my twin brother’s plate of food. I scoffed his portion down. Hassan returned home a while later, belly growling with hunger and asking Grandma for his dinner.
    ‘Don’t be so greedy,’ Grandma snapped at him. ‘You’ve already eaten!’
    There is one way you can tell my brother and me apart. I have a large scar on my right arm around the elbow joint. I got it one day when I was mucking around in the kitchen during Ramadan. I must have been five or six years old at the time. Grandma was making samosas in preparation for the feast to celebrate the end of the fast. The air was filled with the smell of fried pastry and coriander. While my grandma was cooking, I started spinning around in a circle on the spot.
    ‘Stop it, Mo!’ Grandma warned. ‘You’re going to cause an accident!’
    All of a sudden I lost my balance and stumbled backwards. There was this deafening clang as I crashed against the oven and a bunch of pots and pans went flying and clattered to the floor. Grandma shrieked. I shook my head, wondering what the fuss was about. Then I felt this searing pain on my right arm. I lifted up my arm to get a better look at it. The skin was all blistered and scalded. Suddenly I realized what had happened. My arm had slammed against the frying pan as I’d crashed into the stove, tipping the pan over and spilling the hot cooking oil down my arm. I don’t remember the pain, but I do remember having to stay in the nearby hospital for three months while the doctors treated my wounds. The burn marks ran along the back of my arm past my elbow and up towards the underside of my biceps. I was told