Saturday July 23, 2011
Rain & Thunderstorms tonight
9:10 p.m. I’m back in my room, I visited with Carolyn the older volunteer lady from New Mexico & Stephanie Crosby from Maine. It was a nice visit. I was treated to a great spaghetti meal at the school that I wasn’t expecting, it was marvellous. It was really quiet & everyone was in their rooms or elsewhere.
7:21 p.m. I am in my room & the Internet is up but pretty sketchy. Watched some tall Somali boys play basketball in the pouring rain on the court using equipment that Amanda Smalls & Lindhout donated to the school.
3:43 p.m. Jeff, Steph (teachers at Abaarso) & I wandered into the village of Abaarso. Jeff & Stephanie got goats milk or something & I just stuck with my water. We walked across the stony ground & sitting there I felt a little uneasy, everyone was lying around chewing khat & like most mind altering substances affect people differently. Some men all were whacked were incredibly agitated and edgy, one man was walking around in his bare feet in delirium. Another approached our table teeth stained green with khat flakes covering his teeth shooting bits out as he spoke in broken English in a gravely voice.
12:48 p.m. Back in my room after a short visit to the office, no go on the cave painting field trip but we may go into town in a few minutes. I was ecstatic to get Internet! I quickly sent out messages to everyone before we lose the internet again.
7:24 a.m. I’m lying here reading ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro & other short stories’ with a rooster crowing in the distance. The heavy winds are whistling, heaving & shaking everything. The pigeons are scurrying & cooing in my ceiling. I woke up with the steely claw gripping & squeezing my intestines, I went to the toilet & had the contents of my bowels spill into the white porcelain like poring a bucket of brown water into the bowl. I’m leaving tomorrow morning and I’ll still approach today with happiness & laughter. I’ll try & get to see the nearby cave paintings in the Land Rover. I also have to ensure Stephanie that I will send her money via Western Union as she paid for my entry fee into Somalia.
Friday July 22, 2011
Sunny very windy
9:39 p.m. I’m in my room in Somalia, still no Internet. Will another teacher from the UK & I sat & talked, laughed & had great conversation. The teachers were cooking a big feast all day of pasta, home made sauce with real garlic peeled, garlic bread, boiled eggs, cheese. I helped Stephanie move all this food down to the building where they were having the feast , I moved in these delicious cakes, chocolate & vanilla. They told another traveller Will (who is a Jake Gyllenhall look a like with a Queens English accent & tuffs of facial hair on his face ) & I that that we could help ourselves to whatever was in the kitchen & pantry but all they had was Corn Flakes & week old bread, so Will & I had peanut butter & jam sandwiches.
3:22 p.m. I just talked to Christine from San Francisco. I walked around the school compound & it is barren & really in the middle of nowhere, but it’s also kind of nice to escape the urban chaos. I visited with Ode & we talked about so many interesting topics, Canadian politics, world politics, & Africa. She pointed out that made me feel better about all of the street dogs that (the injured or maltreated animals aside) at least these animals aren’t kept in a kennel or alone all day, they’re free to roam & be with their pack. Ode & I talked for quite awhile then we were joined by Ilya, a Russian
11:22 a.m. I more than likely will go outside the compound of the school & go for a walk around. The school is an incredible compound that is actually located about 18 kms. outside Hargeisa on top of a hill which makes it even windier, outside of a small village Abaarso. The nicest young man Jeff, an America of half Japanese -Chinese & half American decent showed me around. I visited with Jonathan & I quite like him, he’s confident, self assured, well spoken, educated & I enjoy visiting with him. He has put together a remarkable establishment & program. We had breakfast & I visited with Jonathan & met a few of the other teachers, Ode who went to school at my alma matter UofA, & is from Nelson BC. Ilya the Russian from St. Petersburg (Leningrad). Sophie from Maine who’s tenure is coming to an end with in the fortnight as is Able’s. A young guy from Chicago Mike lit up when we talked sports. The Somali girls cooked us a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs & their ‘pancakes’ which are actually more like crepes.
7:31 a.m. I am in a pretty nice (all things considered) teachers suite at the school in Hargeisa Somalia. I am still incredibly tired but would like to get some Internet. I get 2 bars of service but I can’t seem to connect to the wireless network here. I should send some emails home to let everyone know that I’m alright. The wind here is very strong & has been constantly blowing all night. The rooster is crowing & there was something scurrying in the ceiling all night.
Thursday July 21, 2011
I went to my room after midnight & spent some time unsuccessfully trying to connect to Wi-Fi. I really enjoyed the evening talking to the creator of the school Jonathan, a confident 35 year old from Massachusetts His teachers are mainly young university grads although there is an older female college professor from New Mexico and, there is also an older stocky Brit with a shaved head & goatee who wears nothing but black t-shirts, Steven. Those two stand out only because everyone else is so young, apparently there is an Edmonton girl here too, Ode, but I haven’t met her yet. Harry, Jonathan & I talked in the kitchen about he school, it’s standards, the vision, & issues facing both the school & the Somali culture. The issues in Somalia are much the same as the rest of Africa in that they don’t seem to have either the widespread education nor the infrastructure or organization to make the significant necessary changes required to have a substantial impact in the Somali culture. Having said that Jonathan’s vision & standards are immense, he sees his graduates excelling at MIT & Harvard. The North really should be it’s own country, Somaliland, although they are still strict Muslims, they don’t seem to have the violent tendencies as there is South around Mogadishu. In fact Hargeisa got bombed out by Mohammed Said Barre In the late 1980’s. We had supper at a local Somali restaurant, & in the teachers bus there & to the school we had great talks about the Israeli domination of the Palestinians, the trickiness of having a book & a cause where to draw the line between philanthropy & profiting. We used my dear friend Amanda & Greg Mortensen as case studies.
The messiness of the situation with the famine is a moral dilemma which there are no easy answers. The fact is that this famine is a man made disaster. Yes there is a drought yet There is lots of aid & food here it is just controlled by the war lords in the South. Well meaning People In the West see images of starving children & they want to do a good thing & assist. The reality is in order for anything to happen organizations like Al Shabaab profit from this. Nobody gets aid unless Al Shabaab say so,they choose who gets the aid & with Somalia being a very clan based culture, their people eat first & then they decide who gets what. What actually happens in the situation is NGO’s are directly funding terrorist organizations, allowing them to exist & prosper. If people knew where there money was going it gives people yet another excuse not to give & help yet the harsh reality is children would have to suffer & die horrible deaths as we watched in order to turn their own people against them. Many in fact most children will die anyway as the extremists & criminal organizations fund & arm themselves with donations from various NGO’s. The fact is there is some really bad people even in the refugee camps who decide who eats & who doesn’t. It is very very messy here, do you let children starve or save some & perpetuate the situation by allowing bad people to prosper & exist invariably killing more people in the long run. It is the harsh reality.
I landed at he airport & was met by a 20 something American from Maine in her covered head, the airport was chaos yet we went through rather quickly & the Somali people have been very friendly. In fact we had to pay a small $ 20 entry fee & I thought that we were getting greased but all she had was $100 & as we were walking away the older Somali man in the glass booth tapped on the glass, we forgot our change & he called us back to give it to us.
4:17 a guy from Djibouti, Saed is helping everyone, me because I have no visa, Muna who looks like a teen is stunningly beautiful and is an American married Mother and was adopted from Hargeisa & is meeting her Mom for the first time, she missed her flight.
3:35 p.m. Thank goodness for Wi-Fi. I’m here thinking about that Ethiopian man with blue eyes at the fire hall that lost his son who was murdered in Addis.
2:06 p.m. Djibouti in the airport the temperature is 43C. I sat next to & visited with Somali singing sensation Sarah Halgan from Addis to Djibouti.
Somali Medhat Salid- thank you
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