Visit to the Somali Community centre: Lambeth

Somalia culture and Somali cuisine has been next on my hit list to add to the World in One City map of London. To reiterate the purpose of the map is to create a multifaceted, rich image of the cities incredible ethnic diversity through the food that they each individually consume through the stories they impart in order to promote understanding, awareness and encourage exploration of the teemingly life that exists but a bus ride a way. 

Restaurants offering 'authentic' experiences are countless, delineating faint lines of the culture that exist behind it's authentic showcase. It is my aim to reveal the actuality of these cultures through the food that they consume for the inhabitants and visitors to the city, where it is consumed and why, I hate to refer back to the old adage but people literally are what they eat, a poignant and beautiful metaphor and I am mesmersed that it is actually possible to sample the globe in one city.

The time remaining to execute this map situates me in a position of being able to choose but a small selection of the cultures identified, Somalia though, has made it in due to a pervading air of uncertainty that masks their presence and culture in the city. 

Having identified Somali clusters within the city I biked to the Somali community centre which is situated in Lambeth for a chat with the curator about my projects interests in their culture and location in the city. 

My reception upon arrival was somewhat reserved, an air of scepticism clearly directed towards the intentions of the project, which I understood. With the cold air failing to warm up I delved into the aims of the project which is a delineation of the Somalia culture as it exists within the city with notable attention to be paid to the food that is consumed both in the home and outside publicly, in order to paint a rich, detailed picture as relatively little material exists. Abdikarims lips remained somewhat pursed with the silence beginning to grow quite painfully uncomfortable, in an attempt to pierce it, I removed the photo's that I had taken in a Caribbean restaurant the week before, that illustrated the nature of what it is I want to capture. Finally, an understanding smile gradually began to emerge and he finally agreed to put me in contact with a Somali restaurant owner and one of the ladies who usually works at the centre. 

(I had read an article in the Guardian describing the impenetrability of the Somali community, and had begun to sympathise although this community defense mechanism has developed justly in accordance to a history of discrimination received within the city).