Kismayo

Kismayo is young by the standards of the Somali coast. The Indian Ocean ports to the north — Mogadishu, Merca, Barawa — were medieval trading towns, while this harbour near the mouth of the Jubba grew from a small fishing settlement in the nineteenth century, when the Sultanate of Zanzibar controlled much of this coast and traders, fishermen and farming communities came together at the river's outlet. The Bajuni, a coastal people of fishermen and sailors, had long used the shore and the islands to the south.

Britain held the area as part of British East Africa until 1925, when Jubaland was ceded to Italy and joined to Italian Somaliland; the town became the outlet for the produce of the Jubba valley — bananas, sesame, maize and livestock — and its port grew with that trade. Its position at the meeting of river and sea, and of several clans, made it a prize.

That is what made the years after 1991 so destructive here. The port and its revenues were fought over by militias, the town changed hands repeatedly, and for several years it was held by al-Shabaab, for whom the charcoal trade through the harbour was a major source of income. Somali army troops, allied militia and Kenyan forces under the African Union mission retook the city in September 2012. It became the seat of the Jubaland administration, one of Somalia's federal member states, whose relations with the federal government in Mogadishu have often been tense, and reconstruction has proceeded in a city still ringed by contested countryside.

Kismayo is the most mixed city in southern Somalia after the capital. Several Somali clans have claims and communities here, and the balance between them has driven much of the city's politics and conflict. Alongside them are farming communities from the Jubba valley, including Somali Bantu families, many descended from people brought as slaves in the nineteenth century and long subject to discrimination, and the Bajuni of the coast and islands, who speak their own language related to Swahili and live by fishing and sailing.

Proximity to Kenya shapes the city as much as its distance from Mogadishu. Swahili is heard along with Somali and Arabic, goods and money move across the border, and many families have relatives in Nairobi or in the refugee camps of north-eastern Kenya, which received people from this region in large numbers. Some have returned; the ties remain.

Religious life is Sunni Muslim and conservative, and the mosque and the Qur'anic school organise the week. Poetry and song keep their prestige, and the coast adds its own repertoire of fishing and sailing songs. Hospitality is expected, tea is offered at every visit, and the two Eids are the great occasions of the year, when the beaches fill with families in the evenings.

Population estimates vary widely and no recent census settles them; a United Nations estimate put the city at about 89,000 residents in 2005. Kismayo is one of the larger cities of southern Somalia but far smaller than the capital, and its numbers have risen with people displaced from the surrounding countryside. The day starts before dawn with the boats and the first prayers, work runs through the morning, the streets empty in the humid middle of the day, and life returns in the late afternoon.

The port is the economy. Livestock, sesame and fruit move out; rice, sugar, fuel, building materials and manufactured goods come in and are distributed through the market. Fishing supports many families along the shore, and the irrigated land of the Jubba valley behind the city grows maize, sesame, bananas and mangoes, when the security situation allows the harvest to reach the market. Mobile money is used for almost every payment.

Daily life is shaped by the surrounding conflict. Checkpoints, guarded compounds and a visible military presence are ordinary, roads out of the city are unsafe, and settlements of displaced families sit on the edges with thin water and schooling. Flooding after heavy rain, drought inland, food prices and unemployment are the recurring worries, and many young people look for work in Mogadishu, Kenya or the Gulf.

The sea and the river valley set the table here. Fish is landed every morning — tuna, kingfish, snapper and lobster from waters that are among the richest on the coast — and is grilled over charcoal or fried and served with rice, with flatbread and with a hot relish of chilli, coriander and lime. Much of the lobster and the best of the catch is sold for export rather than eaten locally.

From the Jubba valley come bananas, mangoes, maize, sorghum and sesame. Soor, a stiff maize or sorghum porridge eaten with meat or vegetable stew, and muufo, a maize flatbread baked against the wall of a clay oven, are the farming country's staples and are eaten in the city too. Cambuulo, adzuki beans cooked soft with butter, sugar and sesame oil, is a common supper.

Otherwise the food is Somali: canjeero, the soft fermented flatbread, at breakfast with ghee and sugar or with liver; bariis iskukaris, rice spiced with cumin, cardamom and cloves with goat or camel, at lunch; baasto, pasta with a heavy meat sauce, a legacy of the Italian period; and shaah, tea boiled with cardamom, cinnamon and cloves, at any hour. Sambuusa are the evening snack, dates break the Ramadan fast, and xalwo, the dense sweet of sugar, ghee and spices, is served at weddings and on Eid. No alcohol is sold.