Somaliland: Working in Somaliland part 3
Iain will be writing to Somalilandpress.com about his experience in Somaliland and will be offering tips to anyone who may want to visit the unrecognized republic along the way – discover Somaliland from a Non-Somali perspective.
I wanted to watch the sunset. It was not that I hadn’t seen sunsets, I’ve seen hundreds across twenty countries on this continent, and it was as beautiful as all of the others. Africa seems to have globally anomalous sunsets. In Europe we have daytime and then we have dusk; the sun will linger as it drops slowly away from us, and then we have night time. If you want to catch the sunset in Africa then you have to be quick. It will be thirty-five degrees with no wind and perfect sunshine through the clear blue sky when suddenly the sun will start to free fall. The entire sky radiates an orange hue as far as the Western facing eye can see.
The reason I wanted to watch this particular sunset was down to an internal debate about when stars start to appear in the sky. I had never watched the sky for the emergence of stars, perhaps because I had been too focused on the ball of fire disappearing rapidly in the distance. I was making tea in the kitchen when the room started to fade to black, I did not have much time to get to the roof top to test my theories. By the time the tea had brewed properly and I was on the rooftop it was already shrouded in semi-darkness and no part of the sun remained in view; just its fiery shadow trying to catch up. The sky still retained a hint of turquoise in its colour and there were no stars in the sky when I settled my tea on the wall and sat down to watch and wait.
I woke up early on my birthday and didn’t have a lot to do. Our Ethiopian chef turned up for the first time. She only cooks our dinner so I’m still on lunch duty which means we share the kitchen as she is hanging around making dinner for us to re-heat. She watches everything I do and asks a lot of questions, mostly the names of the dishes I am making which don’t actually have names. I might start to make some up. “In my country we call this ‘Everything-we-have-in-the fridge-that-needs-eating-today-before-it-gets-even-more-mouldy-and-yesterday’s-leftover-rice-mixed-together.’” Maybe I will teach her to put some spices into things!
My flatmates got me some great birthday presents! I was bought me some Nutella which I stuck straight in my medicine drawer; such is its medicinal value to me. I also got a 24 box of Al Nugom – a peanut nougat bar which is covered with chocolate. The things are addictive and cost about $0.12 each so we are always buying them except for Matthew who seems immune to sweet things. Matthew bought me a few cans of alcohol-free malty imitation beer substitute. He bought a few for himself and I swear they almost tasted good. I took a Cuban cigar from home and had half in the morning whilst out on a desert walk with Matt and half on the rooftop with as I looked out of the night lights of Hargeisa.
People keep asking me how it feels to live out here in Somaliland. We are as different to the people we live amongst as we can possibly be. Apart from a love of tea I cannot see many similarities between British and Somalilanders. Generally people are very reserved around us, although there are always wonderful exceptions but it seems that it is difficult to integrate into Somali society. Since taking Somali lessons I have been trying very hard to use the language as much as I can on the street. Just this week I went to buy ten pieces of bread for the house “Toban roodhi.” I said. But the vendor, who knows us all as we always shop at his store, passed me two. He wasn’t expecting me to speak Somali and the closest English number he could think of was two.
Whilst there have been many, many positive experiences it is the negative ones which quickly stick in our minds and ferment our opinions of the places we visit. A few weeks ago three of us were walking down the street when a man started shouting at us and ran over.
“Hey you.” It sounded a little aggressive. “Why you walking?” He addressed me, the only white male in the group.
“We live here.”
“You live here? Do you have papers? Who gave you papers?”
“Our employer.”
“Who is your employer?”
“The University of Hargeisa.”
“Hmm, okay.” He walked off. We suspect the same man is responsible for a later altercation which I did not witness but can only report as it happened to one of my flatmates as they walked along the same road near our house in Jigjiga-Yar.
“What are you doing here in Hargeisa?”
“I teach English at the University.”
“I don’t like white people. If I see you again then I will kill you.” It contrasts greatly to the kindness we are usually treated with. Yesterday two of us took a bus back from the market with about 20kg of fresh vegetables for our cook to turn into something and everyone in the bus was friendly and chatty, wanting to practice their English with us and asking for advice on some University issues. We also talked about how much warmer Hargeisa is than England! When we got back from shopping we went to play football at the local hotel with some friends. We were a Brit, an American, a Kenyan, a Ugandan and a Ghanaian. A couple of local guys joined in our match which we played enthusiastically for an hour before ten or so local guys turned up and started warming up. After ten minutes they had lined up into two teams to play a match, even though we were on the pitch.
“Can we join your game?” We asked.
“No.” Said the guy we had approached. As we sat in the shade watching we noticed that the two Somali guys who had played with us had been allowed to join in. So we went for tea instead.
And that is what I was thinking about as I leant against the wall and watched the final orange radiance start to fade away. I wondered how long it would take for the stars to come out as one of those evanescent winds swept across and chilled me in the darkness. There was next to no orange light left on the horizon, just a thin band of fire south of the heavens and east of the hills.
The orange was interrupted by a black flash as I watched. Then another. Giant butterfly wings were flapping manically across the dying light in the distance. The flight of these creatures held no rhyme or reason as they flew in dizzying circles coming closer and closer to the roof. I stood up to investigate them a little closer, they were bats answering the Imam’s call to prayer which emanated from the nearest minaret. As I watched the bats I noticed behind them, in the darkening blue of the sky, that the first silver speck had appeared. Then came another. And another. They punctured the night sky faster than I could count them and suddenly the entire dark dome of firmament was swathed in shimmering stars. Having hedged my bets one of my two theories had been proved correct. I felt a smug sense of satisfaction as I sipped my shaah (tea in Somali) and then I turned back to watch the twilight butterflies. But they were long gone into the night.
Next time I will tell you all about my attempts to learn Somali…stay tuned!
I wanted to watch the sunset. It was not that I hadn’t seen sunsets, I’ve seen hundreds across twenty countries on this continent, and it was as beautiful as all of the others. Africa seems to have globally anomalous sunsets. In Europe we have daytime and then we have dusk; the sun will linger as it drops slowly away from us, and then we have night time. If you want to catch the sunset in Africa then you have to be quick. It will be thirty-five degrees with no wind and perfect sunshine through the clear blue sky when suddenly the sun will start to free fall. The entire sky radiates an orange hue as far as the Western facing eye can see.
The reason I wanted to watch this particular sunset was down to an internal debate about when stars start to appear in the sky. I had never watched the sky for the emergence of stars, perhaps because I had been too focused on the ball of fire disappearing rapidly in the distance. I was making tea in the kitchen when the room started to fade to black, I did not have much time to get to the roof top to test my theories. By the time the tea had brewed properly and I was on the rooftop it was already shrouded in semi-darkness and no part of the sun remained in view; just its fiery shadow trying to catch up. The sky still retained a hint of turquoise in its colour and there were no stars in the sky when I settled my tea on the wall and sat down to watch and wait.
I woke up early on my birthday and didn’t have a lot to do. Our Ethiopian chef turned up for the first time. She only cooks our dinner so I’m still on lunch duty which means we share the kitchen as she is hanging around making dinner for us to re-heat. She watches everything I do and asks a lot of questions, mostly the names of the dishes I am making which don’t actually have names. I might start to make some up. “In my country we call this ‘Everything-we-have-in-the fridge-that-needs-eating-today-before-it-gets-even-more-mouldy-and-yesterday’s-leftover-rice-mixed-together.’” Maybe I will teach her to put some spices into things!
My flatmates got me some great birthday presents! I was bought me some Nutella which I stuck straight in my medicine drawer; such is its medicinal value to me. I also got a 24 box of Al Nugom – a peanut nougat bar which is covered with chocolate. The things are addictive and cost about $0.12 each so we are always buying them except for Matthew who seems immune to sweet things. Matthew bought me a few cans of alcohol-free malty imitation beer substitute. He bought a few for himself and I swear they almost tasted good. I took a Cuban cigar from home and had half in the morning whilst out on a desert walk with Matt and half on the rooftop with as I looked out of the night lights of Hargeisa.
People keep asking me how it feels to live out here in Somaliland. We are as different to the people we live amongst as we can possibly be. Apart from a love of tea I cannot see many similarities between British and Somalilanders. Generally people are very reserved around us, although there are always wonderful exceptions but it seems that it is difficult to integrate into Somali society. Since taking Somali lessons I have been trying very hard to use the language as much as I can on the street. Just this week I went to buy ten pieces of bread for the house “Toban roodhi.” I said. But the vendor, who knows us all as we always shop at his store, passed me two. He wasn’t expecting me to speak Somali and the closest English number he could think of was two.
Whilst there have been many, many positive experiences it is the negative ones which quickly stick in our minds and ferment our opinions of the places we visit. A few weeks ago three of us were walking down the street when a man started shouting at us and ran over.
“Hey you.” It sounded a little aggressive. “Why you walking?” He addressed me, the only white male in the group.
“We live here.”
“You live here? Do you have papers? Who gave you papers?”
“Our employer.”
“Who is your employer?”
“The University of Hargeisa.”
“Hmm, okay.” He walked off. We suspect the same man is responsible for a later altercation which I did not witness but can only report as it happened to one of my flatmates as they walked along the same road near our house in Jigjiga-Yar.
“What are you doing here in Hargeisa?”
“I teach English at the University.”
“I don’t like white people. If I see you again then I will kill you.” It contrasts greatly to the kindness we are usually treated with. Yesterday two of us took a bus back from the market with about 20kg of fresh vegetables for our cook to turn into something and everyone in the bus was friendly and chatty, wanting to practice their English with us and asking for advice on some University issues. We also talked about how much warmer Hargeisa is than England! When we got back from shopping we went to play football at the local hotel with some friends. We were a Brit, an American, a Kenyan, a Ugandan and a Ghanaian. A couple of local guys joined in our match which we played enthusiastically for an hour before ten or so local guys turned up and started warming up. After ten minutes they had lined up into two teams to play a match, even though we were on the pitch.
“Can we join your game?” We asked.
“No.” Said the guy we had approached. As we sat in the shade watching we noticed that the two Somali guys who had played with us had been allowed to join in. So we went for tea instead.
And that is what I was thinking about as I leant against the wall and watched the final orange radiance start to fade away. I wondered how long it would take for the stars to come out as one of those evanescent winds swept across and chilled me in the darkness. There was next to no orange light left on the horizon, just a thin band of fire south of the heavens and east of the hills.
The orange was interrupted by a black flash as I watched. Then another. Giant butterfly wings were flapping manically across the dying light in the distance. The flight of these creatures held no rhyme or reason as they flew in dizzying circles coming closer and closer to the roof. I stood up to investigate them a little closer, they were bats answering the Imam’s call to prayer which emanated from the nearest minaret. As I watched the bats I noticed behind them, in the darkening blue of the sky, that the first silver speck had appeared. Then came another. And another. They punctured the night sky faster than I could count them and suddenly the entire dark dome of firmament was swathed in shimmering stars. Having hedged my bets one of my two theories had been proved correct. I felt a smug sense of satisfaction as I sipped my shaah (tea in Somali) and then I turned back to watch the twilight butterflies. But they were long gone into the night.
Next time I will tell you all about my attempts to learn Somali…stay tuned!
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