Hussein Isaaq Hared’s Story

Music and poetry have the indisputable power of driving one to varying degrees of ecstasy or even momentary madness. A tradition in the somali culture known as Saar is notorious for causing frenzy and fits. Hared Hussein Isaak is a living testimony of the potency of Saar. When he was a young camel herder, Hared would combat the listlessness of his occupation by singing for his camels. The more intense the songs became the more he lost the sovereignty of both his mind and body. An insatiable appetite for his own blood would boil within him to a point he would take a knife and cut himself. Hared would then drive his poetic rage against any girl who turned him down. He would not stop until he wounded and disabled her honor. Once he left her metaphorically naked and undone, Hared would wind down with mocking his camels. 

Such was his life until he and his father conflicted. As others encouraged him to mend his relationship with his patriarch, Hared saw an apology as a bait towards forever living under his father’s tyranny. Without any dramatic farce, he moved to his ancestral homeland of Taleh in Somalia. “What do you know about Taleh?” he nostalgically asks. In the historical city of forts, valleys and horses, Hared naturally adapted and habituated himself with his dervish ancestry. After eight years of basking in the enchanting flourish of Taleh, Hared was unable to endure this bliss. “I missed the chaos and dust of Isiolo,” he confessed. 

As he made his journey back, he detoured at the river settlement of Luuq and found a partner who became the object of his idealization. “I saw her gait and immediately desired her. I approached her and she did not hesitate to elope with me,” he boasted. 

However, as they crossed the border, the kenyan police apprehended her for three nights. The separation was too heavy a weight to bear and despite his underlying resentment for the police, Hared chose to use the compatriot card to plead for her freedom accompanied by a bribe of Ksh. 500. 

Since his marriage, Hared has found a maturation in his personality. He claims to have repented from his previous life and recommits every day to fortify himself against frivolity.