Briefing from ROAPE Volume 34 Number 114
How Ordinary Boy Became Extraordinary Man: Hussein Adam

On the evening of Friday, 17 August 2007, under heavy and thunderous skies of Columbus city in Ohio, one of Somalia's eminent scholars (and one of ROAPE's longest-serving editors), Dr Hussein M Adam, was honoured by the Somali Studies International Association (SSIA) for his sustained contributions to Somali Studies. Professor Said S Samatar of Rutgers University, who skillfully served as the MC, organised a by-invitation- only dinner; it was to be an exclusive banquet, or so we thought, until a horde of uninvited individuals crashed in, prompting Professor Samatar to snap at them, in order to shame and eventually steer them into paying up, but to no avail. A la Somali culture, they quickly transformed themselves into hard-to-ignore guests, just like the nomad who for the first time came to a city and, when ignored by its pedestrians, retorted, Magaaloy waligaaba i dhaaf dhaaf, haddee aduun baa marti laguu yahay.