When Sunday Comes…

13/05/2012 by admin.

 I live in a continent of convenience or tenuous connections when it comes to football clubs. Although that disease emanated from the United Kingdom and will long remain there I have no doubt. I remember being at school in 1995 when Blackburn won the Premier League title, suddenly the Manchester United shirts turned into Blackburn shirts, overnight, as if by magic. Now I never had the crisis of choice, even though the village we were brought up in and went to school in was technically over the border, that is to say we were in Blackburn. It was faster to drive to Bolton than to Blackburn. The nearest high school, which we all went to, was in Bolton and not in Blackburn. Everyone who grew up in that village considered themselves to be from Bolton. I can think of one other person in my class who was a Bolton fan. That’s childhood though and kids follow the trends, although not me. I’d have been flayed alive for it.

 I was taken to my first Bolton game in the autumn of 1993. Bolton beat Millwall 4-0 and I haven’t missed a season since then. The next game was in the F.A Cup against the now defunct Gretna FC when current manager Owen Coyle scored a brace and saved us from the ignominy of a Cupset. So I am in my 19^th consecutive season of going to Bolton games. The last six or so seasons haven’t been as busy as the first 13. In the 2000-01 season I went to 56 matches, only missing two – if memory serves. Bolton had been playing at the Reebok Stadium for eight years before I missed a match there. I didn’t have a choice in the football team I supported, my father supported them and my sister and I followed suit, just behind our mother who became the most passionate of us all.

 For almost eight years we were player sponsors and had our names in the Bolton Wanderers Matchday Programme. We waited for player autographs after every single match even though we had each one a hundred times. I’ve been to the most obscure parts of the county following Bolton Wanderers; from Ipswich to Swindon, Hartlepool and Grimsby. Grimsby really was grim, one of those cold Boxing Days when you’d rather be in bed. Going on the Coach which was commanded by a legendary Boltonian called Dave Higson who used to sell scratch cards he called ‘rub offs’ and would stick re-runs of classic, read dire, Bolton games from the late eighties on VHS into the television. Fish and chips on the beach and a gale force wind in your face but Nathan Blake scored the winner so you didn’t care; it was a great day out.

 The coach journeys were full of drunks and pensioners gambling together, each throwing in a quid and picking a goal scorer out of a hat. We won the tenner once when Peter Beardsley scored first for Bolton against Crystal Palace. I think the score was 2-2 but all I remember, being eleven, was the tenner I got. We got relegated that season. My Dad and I went down to Chelsea and we got sent down on goal difference. The Chelsea fans wanted us to stay up; they booed their own players as they went 1 and then 2 goals up. Some of them got on the bus with us as we waited to drive up to Bolton. They kept getting on to say sorry.

 The next two seasons Bolton had a great ability to let slip 2 goal leads and they seemed to be eternally destined for the second tier. Weekend after weekend was ruined by eleven men but then things picked up and they rose up, and up and suddenly they were one of the elite. We’ve always been pretty lucky in getting to Wembley and Cardiff. By my 18^th birthday I had seen Bolton at either of the two stadiums six times. The opening day of the season 2001-02 was remarkable, I was about to start my last year of high school when we travelled to Leicester expecting to get beaten only to win 5-0 and then to follow it up with a home victory against Liverpool.

 Sitting watching Sky Sports News as George Best fumbled through his lines explaining that Bolton were actually beating United and going crazy. Playing Ipswich in a virtual winner takes all match, followed the next season by a game against Middlesborough, both of which won, indescribable ecstasy for anyone who doesn’t know it. Then we got into Europe and we went on some real adventures. You’re probably reading this as a non-football fan and not understanding this, for which I feel sorry for you because you’re missing something in your life.

 Bolton suffers from its proximity to Manchester and many, many people who live there support United. Most claim to have been born in Salford, which must have an amazingly large maternity clinic, or to have a father who is a United fan. It is quite remarkable that so many of the town are prepared to put their money and time into such a small, unfashionable club when such illustrious neighbours can be reached in almost equal time. That and City look set to dominate the domestic scene over the near future.

 It was in 2007 when I first, in fact the only time, saw Bolton beat Manchester United. I was there with a Swiss friend who asked “Is David Beckham playing?” It was a tense affair and Bolton won in the end, for the first time at home against Manchester United since my father had been my age. Twenty thousand people took photographs of the scoreboard with their phones. Irene just said “That was boring; it was only 1-0.” Not realising that she had just witnessed the greatest game of football ever played.

 The first European trip was to Bulgaria to play Plovdiv, a game moved to Bourgas with thousands of Bolton fans dropped in the tiny island of Nessebar to spend a day drinking before we scraped through to the next round. The most memorable set of trips followed to Istanbul, where maybe two hundred of us huddled in the cold watching the insane display of Beskitas’ fans as Bolton equalised in the last minute and I cried with happiness. Guimares, where I was so wankered by mid-morning that I had to be tied to my other, equally drunk, friend with a scarf.  By the time the game kicked off we had hangovers which we tried to cure with more beer but the stadium only sold non-alcoholic, much to our consternation. Then we beat Zenit St. Petersburg on our own turf as the pitch became a swimming pool.

 Down and out to Marseille we got back into it a couple of seasons later. Standing on the stand in Skopje, my first ever game alone, Bolton equalise and I turn to the stranger next to me who ignores his wife and we give each other the biggest man hug in the history of the universe. The moment Ricardo Gardener scored against Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena was immense, after a day on the beer we hit the roof. Al-Habsi’s save kept us in it and we pulled through with a point. Then the freezing cold of Belgrade in December and their psychotic Ultras in a bad mood for losing 1-0 to the Wanderers. Even the disappointment of bowing out in Lisbon didn’t dampen the experience of being a Wanderer.

 Every time I have travelled around this continent I am met by people in fake Manchester or Chelsea shirts. “I used to be a Manchester fan, but now I am Chelsea.” A man tells me in Guinea-Bissau in 2010. I ask him if he knows where either is. He doesn’t. “Is Chelsea a hilly country?” One boy asks me in Uganda in 2008, shortly after I’d watched the Champions League final between Manchester and Chelsea in a bar in Lamu, Kenya, with the Chelsea fans. “It’s a fix! It’s a fix!” They shouted, when Terry missed his penalty. It was in Kenya that a man hung himself after an Arsenal defeat.

 Most people haven’t even heard of Bolton here. Even though they’ve been one of the top 20 teams in the only league they watch for a decade. If they see Bolton, and consequently if I get to watch Bolton, it is when they are playing the big teams. So they assume Bolton are terrible because they only ever see them lose. Sometimes people comment on my shirt if I am wearing it. Once, in Ethiopia, someone asked for it. I said he could have it if he named the stadium, captain and manager. Of course he couldn’t.

 That’s not to say that there aren’t Bolton fans on this continent. My secretary now claims to be a Bolton fan. I left a class full of Ugandan Bolton fans back in 2008 and my Ethiopian girlfriend was very excited to hear she is getting a Bolton shirt with my next aid parcel in a month. The first time we went out she told me she liked Manchester United and didn’t understand what she had done wrong when I got up and walked away. She is cured now.

 “Teacher, why are you a Bolton fan?” I get asked a lot. Particularly as in the first lesson with every class I write the same three rules on the whiteboard: 1. No Manchester United Fans, 2. No speaking Somali, 3. No Manchester United Fans. I ask them, if Somaliland are playing a football match against Ethiopia, who do you support? “SOMALILAND!” Why? “Because that is where I am from.” But Ethiopia are much better, they’re going to win and you know it. “It doesn’t matter, I am Somali.” So do you understand now why I support Bolton? Apparently not, I am on the bus and a student comes up to sit with me. “Do you still support Bolton?” Well, I’ve been doing it for twenty-six years, I have no intention of giving up now just because times have got a little harder.

 So I spend my Saturday afternoon at the office watching BBC live text tell me when a goal goes in. I go off to class knowing there is still twenty minutes to play but I have ninety minutes away from it when I don’t know if we sealed the victory or threw it away. I don’t know if we managed to claw back from 3-1 down until after it has happened. The worst experience out here was watching Bolton vs Liverpool at the fancy hotel. Being the only person there supporting Bolton the Somalis all lost interest at 3-1 to Bolton and left. Liverpool were on the attack and I thought we would throw it away. We had a fifteen minute time lapse from the game to the television so at 80 minutes I knew the game was finished. I didn’t have the balls to call home and ask the score. Fortunately for my health, we won that one.

 Football fans have a song, regardless of club, which they sing when they’re winning. “Bolton ‘til I die, I’m Bolton ‘til I die.” (Fill in the appropriate team name…) Faced with relegation that’s how I feel and we all show our sincerity in the moments of adversity. Manchester United fans are probably gutted at such a bad season (they will probably finish second) but we have a better song with the lines “Born to be a Wanderer, victoriously. They all laugh at us, they all XXX (unintelligible) at us, they all say our days are numbered.” And that’s what being a Bolton fan is all about, being true to yourself and your town.

And so, regardless of what happens this Sunday at 3 p.m. in a matter of all or nothing-ness, I will never stop following Bolton Wanderers. It is easy to support a team when they are doing well and when you had the luxury of choosing that team. The sign of a true supporter to wear the shirt with pride when they are faltering. They will always be a part of my blood and my life. I’m proud to actually support a team knowing that I will be with them through both the ups and downs and that I can never cheer anyone, not even England, as I cheer the Trotters. What’s more I’m proud to be from Bolton and wherever I end up my children will be Bolton fans and a part of me will always be in Lancashire.

 I’m at work during the game but I’ll have one eye on the match and a fancy cigar to celebrate or commiserate with. Come on you fucking white men!

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This is serious.

04/05/2012 by admin.

I got trapped in my room yesterday. I only went inside for a minute and when I came to the door it was raining. The Kenyans were dancing, not a rain dance, but for the first time in Somaliland it is properly raining. Not the usual pissy rain we are used to getting here but rain which is stronger than our shower. Actually, that isn’t hard. They waved to me from the main house (I live in the outhouse) and pointed out that my laptop was in the lounge. Never mind, I thought, I can read a book until this stops. Three hours later I gave up and ran for the main house. Of course they were sitting warm and dry, smoking shisha and listening to music that I last heard when I was eight.

The price of life.

Nujuma and I were at the shisha when she told me more about her work. This is never easy to listen to as she is primarily involved with female genital mutilation (not the act…) but she was talking about domestic violence instead. If a man kills his wife then he has to pay her family fifty camels; or the equivalent in cash. There may or may not be a custodial prison sentence. If this is the law then fair enough, but is it proportionate to the crime? I think camels are expensive. My students tell me that marriage costs 100 camels or 10,000 USD. I don’t think a camel is 100 USD, though.

Nuj had a story about a woman who caught her husband cheating. The support workers were called to the house a couple of days later to mediate in what had happened, they arrived at a tiny shack on the outskirts of Hargeisa. Entering through the blue corrugated iron into the dimly lit space they found an old man in a molass, traditional male skirt like garment, sitting un-movingly. Upon discovering that he was cheating she grabbed him by the balls and sliced one of his testicles off with a kitchen knife.

The court ordered the woman’s family, an interesting term given that he is effectively her property once they are married, to pay the man 100 camels. So the life of a woman is 50 camels and the price of a sixty year old man’s testicle is 100 camels. Right. That annoys me too much to think about.

An interview with Somaliland’s finest actor.

I had the pleasure of meeting Somaliland’s finest actor, Ahmed Yussuf Ahmed. Here’s a transcript of the interview I conducted with him for a local newspaper:
ME: So, Ahmed, can you tell me about your recent role?
AYA: Yeah, it was a part that I really feel, err, I was born to play.
ME: It was an Oxfam advert right?
AYA: It was. It was. Skinny, starving Africans, flies on the eyes. One of those things you watch on your television and have to donate.
ME: Was it a challenging role to play?
AYA: Challenging! Yeah, I had to lose forty-five kilograms before I was skinny enough for the part.
ME: It is funny that, given the high levels of poverty and malnutrition around the Horn, that they would select someone like you to play the part of a starving African. Particularly when you were such a, if you’ll excuse me for saying so, large guy.
AYA: Well I think the studio took a step back and said we can either have a real actor or a real skinny-ass starving Ethiopian AIDS infested bastard.
ME: Do you think that’s what they really said?
AYA: Yes, everyone knows all Ethiopians have AIDS.
ME: No, I meant about the real actor part. Is it not that your father is the Minister for Film and Culture and they wouldn’t grant Oxfam a filming permit unless you were in the main role?
AYA: Well, maybe. I mean, it’s not my fault my old man’s a Minister, right? It’s their fault that they aren’t politically connected.
ME: Quite. So can you describe the filming schedule?
AYA: I don’t know to be honest, I didn’t turn up.
ME: You didn’t turn up?
AYA: Well I did once, but not for long. They used a proper skinny ass etc. for a lot of it. Once they had their permit.
ME: So that isn’t you we are seeing?
AYA: At 02:34 that is me, yeah.
ME: (Watching clip) We can see your wristwatch if we pause it.
AYA: Yeah, you like it? It’s Rolex. (Holds up wrist) I bought it with the $10,000 that Oxfam paid me to not be in their advert.
ME: $10,000? I believe that is enough to immunise 20,000 of your countrymen against polio, an epidemic of which is about to start. (Looking at AYA’s watch) By the way there is an R in Rolex.
AYA: Is there?
ME: Yes, and an X. Can I ask you if you do your own stunts?
AYA: Absolutely. It’s something I really, really believe in. Doing your own stunts. That’s why I have my own stuntman to do them for me.
ME: So you don’t do your own stunts?
AYA: Well, I mean. The flies, right. The flies in the advert, they are, like, actually on my face isn’t it.
ME: Those are real flies?
AYA: Yeah man, they’re not C.I.G (sic) or nothing.
ME: Now, you are well known for your prominent smile.
AYA: Yeah, now, the thing is right. I was born with teeth, like. I just lost them from chewing qat and drinking coke. Then I discovered that coke is like 400% alcohol and am Muslim right, so I can’t drink coke any more.
ME: Do you have any future roles lined up?
AYA: Yeah, I have a couple of irons in the fire.
ME: What are they?
AYA: Hang on a minute. (Takes two irons out of the fire place.) Would you like to buy an iron? It’s from China.
ME: No, thank you. Do you have any future acting jobs?
AYA: Acting? Me. I’m only in the country fifteen days a year, fuck no. I prefer to stay in London, it’s better like, this place is shit.
ME: Now I was reading your blog and it says you had three projects running in Somaliland.
AYA: Oh yeah, yeah. We got a few things going on here: Who Wants to be a Millionaire – Somaliland!
ME: Right.
AYA: It’s like Who Wants to be a Millionaire but with Somaliland Shillings.
ME: How much is a million shillings?
AYA: About $150.
ME: So not much of an incentive?
AYA: Nah, me cousin sends me more than that every week. Works in Maccy D’s and sends the money through.
ME: Sorry to press you but what are the other two projects?
AYA: Right, you know that show, what’s it, Greatest Britons. We is running this thing, right, Greatest Soma-lions.
ME: Do you mean Somalis?
AYA: Nah, man, am pretty sure it’s Somalions.
ME: Okay and when can we see this show?
AYA: Well, we are still writing the short list.
ME: How many great Somalis have you found so far?
AYA: None.
ME: Okay so your final project?
AYA: Kung Fu Camel, it’s, right, nah man it’s like Kung Fu Panda but it’s Kung Fu Camel.
ME: An animation?
AYA: Nah man, it’s me in a camel suit.
ME: And you know Kung Fu?
AYA: Do I bollocks, but it’s cool and that. I get to do my own fights and stuff.
ME: You get to fight?
AYA: Yeah and they’re real women I’m fighting too!
ME: You don’t fight men?
AYA: Are you kidding? I’d get twatted.
ME: Ahmed Yussuf Ahmed, we are just about out of time, is there anything you’d like to say to your fans?
AYA: Hope you are both doing all right.
ME: Well, Ahmed, I think it was a pleasure. Good luck with your career.
AYA: Word, Bro.

I made this up.
The part about writing it for a local newspaper.

Edited for your pleasure.

I was given the book of a Somaliland MP to edit in January. I had a month to do it, glanced at the document then put it away for a week. When I actually sat down to work my way through it I wished I had given myself the extra time. Damn there was a lot of work to be done! Things which anyone editing any of my work would not have to worry about.
First off, let’s justify the text and leave a line between paragraphs. Okay now I can read it. Next I’d like the font to be in the same size and font throughout the entire book. Glad that’s done. Bullet points, well I don’t think they have any place in a narrative book but if you want to put them in make them consistent. First they are black dots, then arrows, then smiley faces. SMILEY FACES? This is meant to be a serious book!

Now, let’s look at the title: Roadmap to win. Is win a place? Because if that isn’t a proper noun, and you are using the verb then your title is incorrect. Roadmap to Victory. Fortunately about 10% of the book turned out to be images. The English wasn’t all that bad, particularly considering the author had never lived in an English speaking country. My problem with the text was mostly the author’s arrogant, although autobiographies are probably all like that. It did have some fine moments. Was it worth the money? No. Would I do it again? No. Yes.
Brandon put me in touch with a Law Professor at the University of Hargeisa. He had written a novel that Brandon was editing and he would need someone to take over. I took a copy of the manuscript about a month ago and started to read it a while later. Again, Mohamed has never lived in an English speaking country so faults with his English are permissible. It was frustrating to sort out his direct speech. I am a fan of using reported speech in novel writing so that it saves space on the page so instead of:
“I was thinking of going to the market. Want to come with me?” I asked.
“Yes.” He said.
“Maybe we can buy some oranges?”
“Lemons might be better.”

We have:
“I was thinking of going to the market.” I invited him to come with me and he agreed. I suggested we buy some oranges although he suggested that lemons would be better.
It also helped to clear up a lot of punctuation issues which were frustrating me when I finished the book this afternoon. We met a couple of weeks ago to talk about how I found it. I had to be honest.
It’s absolutely outstanding. Whilst his English needs improvement, and he is writing in his third language, Mohamed’s story telling is in its own class. With some tidying up this book would be an international award winning effort. The only problem is how he can get it out to the world. No one writes here, Somali is a traditionally oral culture and stories are passed down from generation to generation. They are the same stories. Mohamed’s work is challenging and original. It can be compared to the only prominent Somali writer today; Nuradin Farah.
I asked Mohamed if he was familiar with the work of Nuradin Farah as I had found similarities in both their English and their style. “You know, it’s a funny story.” We were breaking bread in Mansoor hotel and discussing literature, for a moment I felt like I was in any other African country and not Somaliland. “I first picked up a Farah book after I had finished writing this. Otherwise I could have been accused of copying it.” I knew exactly how he felt. I watched Before Sunrise with Irene last summer and spent most of the film thinking; I am glad I finished the book before watching this because we have the same ideas and I wouldn’t have been able to have them myself if I had seen this film first.
This is Mohamed’s second book. The first, self-published in Ethiopia (where he is from, although he is ethnically Somali) got him kicked out of Ethiopia. The second is a great story of a couple who become separated and she must marry her husband’s brother. He is forty years older than her so she runs away only to be picked up by a Cuban army patrol (there were a lot of Cuban soldiers in Ethiopia in the 1970s) who rape her. She gets pregnant by the only white soldier, has a white baby and is cast away from her clan, ending up in Dire Dawa giving up the baby. She finds work, as a nanny and ends up raising her own child for a richer Ethiopian family. Then her original husband arrives back after serious prison time for a crime he didn’t commit. I’ll tell you no more.
Mohamed sits opposite me at the table chewing on some bread. If you like the second one you will love the third one, it might get me banned from Somaliland. He grins cheekily. Now that is something I really want to read.

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Speaking in tongues, typing with fingers.

01/05/2012 by admin.

 I was in a cheap restaurant today enjoying my usual dish of pasta, soup and half a baguette for $0.80 when a guy came and sat next to me. I was the only person in the restaurant and so he had no need for this. “Are you military?” I don’t want to talk to you, I am eating and I can already tell that you are boring. “Are you an NGO worker?” Look at this place! A full meal is less than a dollar, the floor is covered in sawdust and the hygiene of the chef is questionable at best. Now, fuck off.

 “I want to go to England.” I know you do. Everyone does, even if they don’t speak English and would be offended by everything they found there; women’s rights, paved roads and bacon are just a few things which Somalis cannot stand but also cannot explain to you why they are not allowed to like them. “Can you help me?” No. “I want to go to University in England.” You need better English. “No I don’t.” Good luck then. “No, I need better English. You’re right.” I know I’m right. I’m right because despite knowing you for two minutes I know that you cannot write. And that’s where you will fail any test to get into a legitimate institution. My advice to you is to fuck off and leave me alone.

 He wants to go to my classes now.

 The whole discussion reminded me of my desire to write a multilingual blog which I am doing now as a form of procrastination, so that I can avoid doing any of the work which I am supposed to be doing. I’ve set myself some rules:

1.       No Google translate.

2.       No proof readers.

3.       The tools I am allowed for each language are: a. Somali – my work book from class b. French – an English-French dictionary c. German – my brain. d. English – nothing.

       4. They will be written in order according to my ability in each language; the English section will be written last.

 If you can read in multiple languages and notice differences, this is ultimately down to my own abilities and vocabulary. They are not supposed to be direct translations of each other.

 

 Af Soomaliga.

 Manta waa salaasada? Ha, waxaan umalanay daqiiqadka iyo waxaan garanayaa manta waa salaasada. Ma shaqo manta. Waxaan doonay in aan shaqo lakin Somaliland hayaan fasaxaagii. Waxaan cabayaa halkan, iyo akriyaa. Waa kaligay gudo Mansoor huudil. Toddobbad walba waxaan shaqayaa sedeh malin; axad, isniin iyo  salaasaday. Immika, waxaan donayaa in aan garo wayo Adbrisahid ma yidhaahdaa waxannu haynaa eber shaqo manta. Waxaan tagay Ethiopia wiiga gore iyo immika waxaan hayaa shan malin cajis ah.

 Waa kulul halkan iyo ma jeceli. Waxaan joogaa Pepsi Diet, waa halkan! Waxaan cabayaa siooman. Inta ka dib waxaan akriyaa buuq iyo tagayaa gurigaygu. Abdirashid wuxuu daydayay dugsiga cusub. Dugsiga leeyahay sideed qol dugsiga iyo laba qol guri. Waxaan umalanyaa in aan tagayaa in aan eego halka. Waxaan doonayaa ku noolahay halka.  Waxaan ubahanahay macalin cusub, waxaan hayaa riyo in aay gabadh. Halkan waa adagyahay, waa kaligay iyo ma hayo dalxiise badan. Waxaan baranaya kala duwan madooyin iyo cabaa shaah Soomaliga.

 Waxaan umalanayaa in aan donayaa in aan tago Ethiopia salaasada dambe. Waxaan doonaya in aan kulma Elene halka. Waxaan umalanaay Elene malin walba, (habeen walba) iyo waxaan hayaa  u dhow sariirgaygu. Waxaan rajeyayaa in aanu kulma malin walba. Addis waa fogyahay iyo buska waa kali. Ma la kulmay laba bilol, lakin iyagu jogsaa ku riyo. Intee bay jirtaa in aan tago Addis? Laba malin mise kow malin iyo kow. Malin waa la buska. Waxaan jecelahay in aan shaqo sedeh malin. Waxaan ubahanay in aan tago Ethiopia bil walba. Waxaan ubahanay gabadh iyo beera. Waxaan doonayaa in aan tago dabaal.

 Waxaan u tagay souka subaax manta. Waxaan daydayayaa buska Addis Ababa lakin waa $60. Ethiopian Airlines waa $65, lakin ma tagi karnaa Jijiga gore hore wiiga dambe. Waxaan umalanayaa in aan tago buska. Ma aha fiicaan!

 Xagge waxaan ku noolahay sanadood dambe? Waxannu leenahay dugsiga cusub, waa fiicaan. Waxaannu haynaa laag badan lakin waxaan doonaya la noolahay Elene. Waxaan la umalanaya wadnaka.

(28 minutes – 315 words)

 

En Francais.

 Dacord. Je pense que ajourd’hui est mardi. C’est vraiment? Je ne c’est pas pour ma vie en Somalie est tout mange, bois, travaille, dor, mange, bois, travaille, etc. La monde me manqué. Je suis un petit blanc ile dans le mer ici. Je habite avec les Kenyans, et c’est vrai que vous etre tres gentil mais nous avon nos differences. Je prefer que je habite dans le petit maison pres de nos maison.

 Abdirashid, mon chef, a un bon idee. Nous avons une noveau ecole dans le centre ville. Avec notre ecole nous avons un petite apartament pour deux professors d’anglais. Je n’aime pas le location de ma maison, ce n’est pas pres de le centre ville et c’est difficile pour moi que j’ai besoin allez dans la nuit pour travailez.

 Nous cherchons un noveau professor et j’espere que elle est une elle. Je veux habitez a Ethiopie mais ici, nous avons l’argent et c’est sans le blancs! Mais Elene me manques. Ajourd’hui c’est une fete national et nous travaillez pas. C’est bien mais je pense que Abdirashid  sais avant. Ce n’est pas un grande problem, j’ai allez a Dire Dawa et je vais a Addis Ababa dans un semaine.  J’espere que Elene et moi avez trois jour ensemble la bar. Ce n’est pas facile que je suis ici pour deux mois et elle et dans Ethiopia.

Je veux allez a Addis Ababa avec un avion mais c’est chere. Et je ne sais pas que c’est possible je departee Hargeisa dans le matin et j’arrive dans Jijiga pour l’avion. C’est plus facile et bon marche avec les bus. Mais c’est deux jour au un jour et un nuit terrible dans le petit place.

 J’ai les biere dans ma reve aussi, et couchon. Je pense que je voudrais un autre annee ici, que est, dans l’Afrique. C’est possible que je habite Somaliland pour un autre annee. Le noveau ecole c’est une bon idee, mais c’est difficile pour un atheist dans un pay d’islamique. Je pense que je prefer la Ethiopie. Je sais que je pense avec mon cour, au pantalon.

(14 minutes - 350 words)

 

Auf Deutsch.

 Ich habe nicht seit sieben monat Deutsch gesprochen. Ich finde dass ich vergessen habe. Gestern ich habe mit mein Chef, Abdirashid gesprochen und von heute wir haben ein neue schule. Es ist wirklich eine gut idee weil die anderer zu laut war. Es war an der hauptstrasse durch die zentrum und hat kein klo oder abfall. Die neue schule hat zwei wohnungen und er moechtet dass ich da wohne. Es ist auch eine gut idee. Ich bin nicht zu glucklich in meinen wohnung.

 Ich mag meinen mitbewohneren aber es ist ein bisschen gefallig da. Ich arbeit drei tagen pro woche und ich muss zwischen meine wohnung und die schule mit bus fahren. Es ist im arbend und ich bin allein. Wir wohnen zehn minuten von die strass und ich muss nich vergessen dass ich im Somaliland wohnen. Im zentrum is besser und hat ein kuche! Ich vermisse kochen. Unser Koch, Sa’ada, macht nur Afrikanische spiesen. Ich mag Afrikanische spiesen aber wir essen nie gemuse und ich mag gemuse. Ich moechte jeden tag kochen, es ist gesund auch.

 Heute ich soll arbeiten aber es ist ein frei tag. Ich wunsch dass ich habe gewissen, jetzt ich habe funf tage frei! Ich habe, letztet wochen, nach Dire Dawa gefahren und naecheste woche ich reise nach Addis Ababa. Ich werde Elene treffen. Sie ist in mein kopf un meinen traumen jeden tag, oder ich soll jeden nacht schreiben. Ich habe ein foto von sie gegenuber mein bett. Ich Weiss nicht wie oft wir koennen uns naechste wochen sehen, hoffenlich die ganze zeit.

 Fliegen is schewrig hier. Die flug abfahrt 13:25 von Jijiga. Es ist nur drei stundent zwischen Hargeisa und Jijia aber wir haben kein transport mit ein schedule. Ich glaube dass ich muss mit bus fahren. Es ist nicht so teurer, zwanzig dollar aber es ist zwei tag oder ein tag und ein schlectes ubernach im bus. Ich weiss nicht wo ich moechte naechste jahr wohnen. Vielleicht hier, oder Addis. Hier hat mehr geld und ein interessant job. Addis hat bier und Elene. Hier ist ein kampf, und ich bin allein, oder mit die neue schule ich kann ein anderer Lehrer finden und er/sie (hoffenlich sie) kann bei mir wohnen. Ich weiss nicht, aber ich weiss dass ich mit meinen herz denken werde.

(10 minutes – 382 words.)

 

 In English.

 I’m sitting in Mansoor hotel right now, rather annoyed that I only noticed in the German section that Microsoft Office is changing some of the words to English words it thinks I meant. That now means that I have to go back and re-read the damn text in places. Anyway that took remarkably little time. I’ve not even been sitting here for an hour and I’ve managed to bash that out. Unfortunately I do not have a French dictionary but there’s only one word I want to look up when I get home, it may come to me sooner. The annoying thing is that I didn’t use that word in either Somali or German, but I know it! I just wanted it in French.

 I’m not at work today, it’s a holiday here. That annoys me a little because no one told me we had it off until last night. I would have probably gone to Dire Dawa this week, knowing that I had longer off. I cannot complain though as I am going to Addis next week to see Elene. Now…how to get to Addis? A flight is $65 and it is difficult to make the flight in time, being from Jijiga airport at 13:25. 9 times out of 10 I would make that flight but the last time I went to Ethiopia I noted that it was 12:55 when I got to Jijiga, not even to the airport! The bus might do but it is either two days or one day and one night, something which doesn’t look too comfortable.

 We’re moving buildings this week as well, something else I found at the last minute! Abdirashid has found a new building with eight classrooms and two upstairs bedrooms for the teachers. I think I might move in there soon. The house I live in is great but it’s a pain being ten minutes’ walk through hostile territory to the nearest shop, or bus. Downtown is a much more relaxed place all round. There’s the possibility of setting up a long term English program here. Who I get out to occupy the other room would require some skill. I would have to live with them as long as I am out here!

 I’ll see though. The Sudanese University idea is fading in my mind. They didn’t answer a lot of questions satisfactorily. I might try to move to Sudan but away from the program, i.e. more money and more independence for the same job. I’ll see though. For now I’m just thinking about seeing Elene and we’ll see where it goes from there.

(10 minutes – 440 words)

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What could have been, but ultimately did not come to pass.

29/04/2012 by admin.

  I am struggling with how to place these four pieces of writing, very close to my heart and thoughts, in an a way which won’t leave you, the reader, incredibly distressed. I think, for convention’s sake, I will favour you with a happy ending but a hard slog of concentrated sorrow to get there.

 Wood-smoke infused dreams.

 It was like an alternative future, like meeting an ex-girlfriend five years later, but it was less than five months since we first met. I was staring at a completely different woman.

 I hadn’t been in Harar for two months when I arrived after the most arduous of journeys, rainy season having come to Hargeisa and turned the lack of a road to Wajaale into a muddy pit through which a car must crawl or face being flipped. Yarid, owner of the hotel I always stay at, seemed surprised to see me. “It’s been a long time.” That and having fallen for Dire Dawa, I suppose it had.

 “I’ve not seen her for months.” He told me, referring to Selam. Well, I will go see her at work. She wasn’t all that pleased last time I saw her but she was drunk, and she’s a woman. She will surely have changed her mind. I walked through the old town but she wasn’t there. It was still early so I stopped in my favourite dive bar for a pint. The staff I knew so well weren’t there. In fact, apart from Yarid and Besah, the cleaner at the hotel, the whole city seemed to have changed immeasurably in the previous two months. Even my friend, literally named Again in Amharic after he was the second twin, had left the city leaving his former boss no telephone number or contact details.

 I walked back. She wasn’t there. Neither was Abdi, the old man who would sit beside her, watching over her like a grandfather as she prepared and sold samosas. It felt like I was living in an Adventure game, akin to Monkey Island, in which the characters disappear as soon as their worth in your story has diminished. As soon as you’ve used them, they’re gone. I got back to the hotel and gave her a call. She answered straight away. “I want a samosa.” I told her.

 “I don’t have any.”  I know you don’t have any; I just went looking for you. “Are you in Harar?” How on earth would I know you weren’t there if I wasn’t in Harar? Do you want a beer? “Yes.” She hung up. I figured I had time to have a beer of my own and do some work but after unpacking my bag and changing my shirt I walked onto the balcony and saw her walking up the road. Or at least I saw the girl she has become, it wasn’t like what I remembered from even two months ago, let alone when we first met. Her hair was cut short and was curly, like a 1950s American housewife. Her body looked different too.

 She kissed me on both cheeks as she sat down beside me. I had been impressed by the increased size of her stomach between December and February, the difference now was phenomenal. “You’re pregnant.”

 “No.”

 “Right, I’m not a Doctor but how did you put on so much weight in five months? You were a stick when I met you.”

 “I drink too much beer.” I asked her to show me her stomach. Her skin was tight across her stomach. If she wasn’t pregnant she certainly looked it. If she wasn’t pregnant I struggle to see how she could physically have got that large in the last two months. I am so thin at the moment and I have access to much more disposable income than her and so should be the larger one.

“You are pregnant.”

“Yes.”

We went to Fresh Touch for dinner. She showed off her new talent to me. She can write American Burger in English. I couldn’t work out if I thought this was endearing or tragic that someone who couldn’t write in their own language could write that in English. “I sent you a message a few months ago to see if you were okay.” She looked up from her food.

 “Text?” She opened her phone then spoke English. “This you message?” She passed me the phone. ‘Dear Sweaty, I miss you and love you very much. I will see you soon from XXXXX’

 Okay, well this is not actually from me. Firstly because it has some other guy’s name at the end of it. Secondly because of all the things I have ever called a woman, sweaty is not one of them. “I think you have a German admirer.” She nodded and repeated the word German. Sweaty seems to be a common mistake for Germans. She was wearing sweat pants and her breasts seemed tiny juxtaposed to her stomach. I had previously thought she had quite big breasts for her body size.

 We went back to the hotel to have a beer. She stuck her arm through mine and started babbling about hyenas, I assume she was reminding me of the first time we had walked home and a hyena had run through the streets of Harar as we walked. That was in December when I had visited her for the first time since our first meeting. We had been nervous, clumsy and sweet together. Now I felt uncomfortable with her arm through mine. I felt uncomfortable on the outskirts of town taking a pregnant woman for a beer. They normally stick to the outskirts. Hyenas, that is, not samosa sellers.

 She started to tell me about high school. I had never asked her about her education, assuming that she had none. She went to high school for two years from the age of ten to twelve. Then her mother didn’t have enough money to support her. Her mother, she told me, has just turned thirty-four. Selam is twenty. Young motherhood and marriage for women seems pretty common here, even in cities as developed as this one.

 I went into Yarid’s office to talk to him whilst our beers were being poured. “Come look at her, she’s pregnant!”  We had discussed this possibility in February. He looked up at me from his work.

 “You seem pretty sure. I will see if I can take a look for you later. Meanwhile try to find out why she doesn’t work anymore.” A good point and one I hadn’t followed up on.

 “No samosas?”

 “No samosas.”

 “How do you get money?”

 “I want money.”

 “No, how do you get money?” There was no way of getting this conversation to progress.

“Can I have 10 birr for phone credit.”

 “No.”

“Please?”

 “You don’t’ get money for nothing.”

 “I will sleep with you for phone credit.”

 “You will sleep with me for 10 birr ($0.60)? You’re pregnant.”

“It’s yours.”

“How can it possibly be mine, we haven’t had sex!” And the alternative operation would surely have woken me up.

“Please.”

“Okay, I will give you 10 birr for phone credit if you promise to never have sex with me.”

“Okay.” We finished our beers and she left. I doubt I’ll ever see her again, or my wood-smoke infused dreams.

 

The Darkest Shadow: Part 2.

 

 I spent a productive evening trying to convince myself that I didn’t have AIDS. It was completely hopeless though, as the facts clearly pointed to me having AIDS. In Africa, a man can take being hypochondriacal to a whole new level. There is all manner of infectious diseases which even Hugh Laurie couldn’t cure and every cough or sniff or cut or scrape will lead to all of them in our self-inflicting minds.

 Every cut is treated as a catastrophe as wet wipes soaked in disinfectant cream become hastily-made tourniquets to the tiniest scratch which could not have possibly been infected in anyway as the virus has a difficult time surviving outside of the body. The chances of a man contracting the virus are far more difficult too, in heterosexual protected intercourse. So I make a point not to get drunk in Africa for fear that something stupid will occur and this plan works quite well but the easiest route is to find someone who is not HIV positive and to be monogamous with them. Find a girl who won’t say yes at the first attempt, or second, or third because then you know she acts the same with others and one who acts this way acts with caution.

 I spent a rather unproductive bus journey of ten hours convinced that I must be HIV positive and should wait three months to take the test to find the terrible news. The reason being that I had spent a night with a girl and had had, of all things, protected intercourse. A problem, this should not be, but now I share with you, my dear reader, the fact that this girl was black and sure as no black woman can swim we know that they all have AIDS.

 Or so went my sleepless-fuddled insomniac head one night when, unable to sleep, I scoured the internet and chanced upon a website detailing the ins and outs of AIDS. Whilst the chances of contracting it, going on the assumption that she herself is HIV positive (a term I find somewhat contradictory as it is not a positive thing to have about oneself) are low, I was able to comfortably diagnose myself with AIDS and plan my upcoming suicide.

 Until I realised that I most likely didn’t have AIDS, and shouldn’t go to downtown Hargeisa and see which over the counter drugs I could get for myself.

 My friend, and spiritual guide, Dia whose fiendish plan it is to have me, and Elene; who by coincidence he also knew quite well, eloping and living in an apartment next to his, producing babies bred to dominate all manner of international sports to whom he can be a doting godfather, gave me some advice. “Utiliser un preserfativ.” Fluent in French he switches from English when he struggles with the words or wants to put across a more serious point. I prefer he keeps the important messages to English, although I had heard this one before.

 “Toujours.” I reply as he pulls a serious face and goes back to English. Five years ago his five best friends all died. One, two, three, four, five. They fell like dominoes to AIDS. He sits alone, the last of his ilk who worked the trains when they ran to Djibouti before the sickening decay brought the Addis-Djibouti line to a perpetual standstill. The train, which took two days, provided prostitutes with the perfect opportunity to hop on at one station, literally as well as figuratively, and hop off at the next. For train workers on handsome salaries this was convenient in the extreme to sample many of Ethiopia’s fine ethnic groups and the Djiboutian beauties of the coast. Dia himself was not averse the charms of a beautiful lady of the night and as an unmarried man he had the income to keep himself, and his temporary amores in a luxurious manner.

 It started just over five years ago. The trains were grinding to a halt and three friends discovered they were HIV positive, from when they do not know but other sicknesses led doctors to test them and presto! they were statistics. A fourth, unknown to have the virus did not get tested, fell and was found to have the poisoned blood. The fifth, unknowing of the plight of his friends, in a new line of work too, took a prostitute to his room and in his eagerness showed a lack of self-preservation. He came to Dia a nervous wreck, who told him to get tested as soon as it was practical, three months, but failed to represent the facts to his wife, who may have become infected by her own disobedient means but probably died because of her husband’s indiscretion. And they left children with a grandparent, too.

 Dia, who had led the high life himself, now worried checks himself into a clinic for a test. They prick him and say “Come back tomorrow.” Which he nervously does and sits, ignoring the call for his name by the doctor. He waits until each person has been called and leaves the room in tears of happiness or sorrow. Alone, he approaches the Doctor. “Why didn’t you come when I called?” I was too scared, I am too scared. And luckily for my good friend the test came back negative. He swore in that moment to give up drink and women, he thanked God for sparing him when five of his closest friends perished and he has stuck to his word. His only vice is Ethiopian coffee by the bathtub full.

 He shares his sorrow with me, and I wonder how many friends he now has, or will have, like those he lost and how protective he is over us and even though he is fond of Elene he cautions me more than he would caution her. The simple fact being that she is the more likely of the two of us to be ill. I am concerned that she lives with her Grandmother and uncle, that both of her parents are deceased but I’ve never asked her why, for fear of hearing the answer and not liking it.

 The statistics I read about transmission differ wildly. If your partner is not HIV positive then you will not get AIDS. If she is, then you might. So you make damn sure that you use precautions, which themselves have to suffer serious stress to even create the possibility and when you know it will become a regular activity you take her for a test. And go yourself, as if your celibacy requires it, to show that you are not bigoted and willing to walk the same path for her, although you know that if you have it that it can come from but one source.

 And then you read more on the most comprehensive of websites where Doctors laugh at patients’ fears. The people send in the most ridiculous descriptions of their sex lives with random partners or prostitutes in Brazilian favelas. They tell the patients not to worry, they will probably be fine but get tested for peace of mind. And your story is even more unlikely than theirs but you still have the lingering thought in your mind for no good reason. And then your mind recoils and goes back to your grand thoughts of suicide in magical ways, upon discovery that you have AIDS. I imagine a pilfered bottle of morphine atop the summit of Everest. Climb up, have a bacon sandwich with a beer (cold) and then as your fellow climbers descend shake hands and say hello to the night and goodbye to the world; you do not need to live with this stigma henceforth.

 And then you read more and see that AIDS is not the precursor for a post-apocalyptic zombie film, that people exist and live and flourish whilst simple, affordable (for us) medication exists. Those who live with it pass amongst us every day and we don’t see them and we don’t know. Perhaps too they do not know but I think in the west they mostly do. You find yourself dehumanising sufferers and immediately discounting the idea that you could live a life of mild inconvenience and ample length.

 The changes must be complex and the guilt difficult to bear for the giver. Do you stay together knowing that you can be together as you both have the disease? Do you give up romance for fear of spreading it to innocents? (I think you probably should.) Could you take a lifetime of tests and medication and stigma?

 I spent some time away from convincing myself that I had AIDS to convince myself that this sore throat was actually tonsillitis and that I would have to be operated on in a Somaliland hospital (certain death by all accounts) and then when that passed I went back to thinking long and hard about AIDS. I decided that I didn’t have AIDS, and also that I didn’t want it. And here, you’ve got to work more towards that than anywhere else but it’s better to work now rather than pray later, and to stay out from that enormous shadow which still hangs over everything on this continent.

 

Just a little off the top.

 

 It is crude, I know, but light heartedness might make this topic more manageable as something unforeseen and untoward as it is unexpected and ultimately unwelcome rears its ugly head across the Horn of Africa. At least in my conscious mind it does.

 Today I was in the transport on the way back from Dire Dawa when a white guy got into the car next to me. He introduced himself and by the time we had got into Hargeisa I had invited him to stay at our place. As we drove back I told him of my friend, Nujuma, who works with FGM in Somaliland. James rightly thought this was an NGO as acronyms are many in the development context. NGO is a non-governmental organisation for those who wonder and FGM is female genital mutilation. The Wikipedia entry for FGM is about as depressing reading you can find which isn’t on genocide.

 There are three types of genital mutilation known as Types I, II and III. Type I is the removal of the clitoris. Type II is the removal of the clitoris and inner labia (I don’t know what that is so I will have to click the link…oh that’s gross, who lets Wikipedia stick those pictures up without a warning?) Type III is removing the above and the outer labia, sewing the whole thing up and leaving a small hole for urination and menstruation. Type IV, oh wait there are four types, is something using corrosive agents to tighten the vagina. I think we can all agree this is disgusting.

 In rural Mali, Fanny and I visited the circumcision site above the small village of Songo. Every three years the adolescent boys are brought up there for a circumcision ceremony which involves the burying of the foreskin. Meanwhile down in the village the girls undergo FGM by untrained older women, have their legs bound and sit in agony for a week trying not to move. The foreskin is seen as the female part of the male genitalia, and should therefore be removed. The clitoris is seen as the male part of the female genitalia and the same applies.

In Somaliland reports suggest that 99% of women have been subject to some form of FGM, the most prevalent type is Type III. I probably only know 100 women here so I can figure that only one of those hasn’t been hacked up at a young age when consent is not something that can be given, and if it could it would not be fully understood by the child. Girls are often told it is a duty or adventure and are mutilated along with their peers, and left to recuperate together with their legs bound. This increases their willingness to go along with it and the physical wounds have healed long before their hormones have start to tell them what these parts of the body are for.

 Nujuma told me one story of a woman they came across who had a swelling the size of a rugby ball around her genitals which was the result of a long term complication from the mutilation. Without any sexual health awareness the woman hadn’t known that there was anything wrong with her and that was not how her body was supposed to look.

 Most mutilations are performed by elderly women, and the process is entirely undertaken by females. The tools they use are often unsterilized and severely rudimentary leading to high incidences of disease and further complications like the one stated above.

 When the women who were subjected to type III are about to marry they may have the stitches cut open, in which case it will be a bloody mess on their wedding night and not much fun for the man either. Or they keep it sealed and the man’s virility will be tested, something which they will invariably fail at and will frustrate them to the point of beating their wife.

 Brandon tells a story of a student who approached him and another teacher telling them he was about to get married and that he wanted to know if sex would be like it was in the movies. Brandon stayed quiet, unwilling to talk about such things with a student, but the other teacher gave his opinion which I summarise: Your wife has mostly likely been cut and sewn up as a child; she will then be sliced open before your wedding night. Sex will most likely be incredibly painful and unpleasant for her, and simply unpleasant and bloody for you.

 I would add to that that you also probably don’t have a clue what to do and most first times are absolutely awful anyway.

 Given that most men are as randy as hell and the strict society in which they are brought up, I am thinking in the Somali context but I will broaden it later, they have probably at some point visited a prostitute or found solace in an older, neglected woman who has already been opened.  As much as they will deny this here there is a percentage of the population who are HIV positive and that will spread much more easily if the whole process of intercourse is bloody.

 In travelling from Cairo to Cape Town, Paul Theroux meets an Egyptian man who advocates FGM as a means to drive women wild with desire. He claims that if the clitoris is cut off then female stimulation is pan-bodily and the simplest touch can drive a woman wild with desire. This sounds like absolute bullshit. The clitoris is the only part of human anatomy designed entirely for human pleasure (something I saw on a Bravo late night show was a thirteen year old and has stuck with me over time) and has been given to women by nature/the creator, presumably with the purpose of pleasing them.

 “If a woman has been circumcised,” that’s a euphemism if ever there was one, “she will be faithful to you always.” This is surely untrue because the incidences of affairs in these countries are great and it is human nature to seek more attention than that which you are receiving from your present partner if that level is inadequate.

 This rather strikes me as the biggest resignation by Somali men when they spout this shit. They are standing up and saying: I am not adequate for my wife. I will not give her what she needs, nor meet her sexual desires so the easiest thing for me to do is to literally cut them clean away from her so she never has pleasure.

 I don’t think it is too strange a view to prefer your partner to enjoy sex. I want to be constantly on my toes with a woman. I want her to pin a chart to the wall with a three strikes and you’re out rule for bad sex so that I have to make sure every time I give her an above average level of quality, attention and affection. It will make me a better boyfriend/lover/person. If I don’t deserve a girl, let her walk away from me to someone better. (N.B there is no one better.)

 Nujuma told me about a survey trying to ascertain the levels of marital rape in Somaliland to which many women were surprised to hear that they had a choice in when they had sex with their husbands. To me this says it all about FGM, at least Type III, in action.

 The reason I bring this up, and the reason I waited for a period of time before I wrote about it, is that I have experienced it twice in the last seven months. Ethiopia has a rate of 73%, according to the table on Wikipedia so I will take that with a pinch of salt, which is still phenomenally high. The preferred type there is Type I or “a little off the top” although in one of the cases that was not what I saw.

 To spare you the details, I didn’t actually have a clue what I had seen until about two months later when I first started to read about FGM. My mind rolled back to perhaps one of the most uncomfortable evenings of my life and the most apparent emotion which occurred was confusion. You don’t know what the hell you are supposed to be doing with someone who has received Type II FGM. You don’t know how to touch them or even where.

 Fortunately I hadn’t figured out at the time what had happened to her, and I certainly wouldn’t want her to feel self-conscious about her body, but I knew at that time I didn’t want to be with that girl. Fortunately I was sick, which put the brakes on anything happening anyway, I wouldn’t need to find an excuse at that time.

 Despite this, women who have suffered from FGM can still enjoy sex, although I don’t suppose they do with Type III or careless husbands. It is the sort of thing that, the longer you spend in this region, shouldn’t surprise you, but does. Something you have to get over if you care for someone. Most importantly it is something you have to remember is not the other person’s fault, and not let your own insecurities over something ruin whatever you have with that person. It can be good for and with someone who has suffered FGM, and fortunately it is slowly on the decline in Ethiopia.

 In Somaliland, it’s another battle and one which the men have to fight just as hard as the women. They don’t know it, but it is for their benefit too.

 

Paradise Found.

 

 Faded around the edges, colours which start bold and vibrant but reduce to dog-eared corners. The walls are pink and blue and contrast or meld with the clear sky beside them. The streets are quiet. Trees overhang and overhand the boulevards with blossoming flowers falling gently down on sleeping beggars laid out on cardboard sheets. No sigh or sign of life. Their feet are cracked, dirty. Their eyes don’t move as men walk past. They would have thrown consternation to my thoughts some years ago but now they’re a backdrop to a never ending carousel of African poverty that always fails to touch deep, or at all.

 The roads are sometimes cobbled, sometimes paved. Leafy paths wind through leafy gardens to grand colonial manors resided in by regular people. Train tracks worn deep into the road, never planning to be used again but planned to be used again some time, they rest and wait, and rest. Tiny blue and white bajaj, three-wheel contraptions, scuttle past and drivers call out destinations no one needs to drive to; yet no one is poor enough to walk to. And so they have their full fare and needn’t shout, but do all the same.

 Men undo the buttons of their shirts and recline on cardboard pieces, looking like the lifeless without homes, the difference being the bag of green stems in their hands and green grime sucking to their teeth as they stare just as vacantly at passers-by. They chew the hours away with nothing better to do and those that can afford it drink their jolly lager drink in sidewalk cafes. Served by street children, urchins hawking chewing gum and tissues: masticato, soft: two words which come from two very different languages which have permeated Amharic and they squeak them as they fuss around the men, always men, who want away their time in drugs and liquor.

 The humid sweaty, clammy feel that has its own particular smell, not one that anyone could describe succinctly, but one known to all that have smelt it before as “Africa”, pure and simple. The humidity hangs around the nostrils interspersed by flowers, refuse, smoke and oil. Frying foods served up from women squatting on their haunches above cooking stoves which date back millennia and which their descendants will use in millennia still to come.

 Camels sit patiently as they are loaded by the church, in the shadows of the palace. The church, beside the hospital for ease of commute between life and death; birth to baptism and grieving straight to grave. The poor sit outside, those strong enough to sit, and beg and receive as the nearest shop rotates whole chicken on a spit in the window and greasy drops of fat drip down to be wasted on a sawdust floor. A gentle wind blows blossom across the scene as a distant horn sounds and bankers lock their vault-like doors and disappear for night time exuberance.

 My feet make no sound as I pad the bridge across the dried up river. The camels stand and walk the bed, led by turbaned men with dark, dark skin and heavier loads than we can see. Their journey to the most desolate place on earth commences thus and I shall never see their faces, nor their backs, again.

 In the shade sits an old Italian garden. The worn out pieces of an ancient amusement park ride sit disassembled behind a knee high wattle fence. A waitress looking from between tea-party tables sitting jauntily on uneven tiled ground. Take away the waitress and you are in 1936, and nothing ages or moves since. Put her back it is 1936, still. The trees are bare around this placid scene, and creepy too. So I hurry by.

 Huge blobs of rain start to fall loosely scattered, rationed and explosive with their massive range. They sit, like giant water lily leaves, on the pavement for a few seconds before the heat evaporates them up to fall again in their earthly cycle. I walk with purpose, knowing full well my destination and goal. A holy city at whose gates I am to be met waiting.

 Cast iron gates hang from crumbing concrete walls and openly invite the wanderer to sandy scrubland lawns before hollow shells of former houses. No interest even here for squatters, one of whom uses a two tiered fountain for a home, making space between the tiers and sound asleep, or dead, or both. At this time of day.

 At last the fading grandeur of a raison d’étre which has long ceased to exist but stands a mighty testament to its slow and painful Bolshevik death. An everlasting epitaph reads Chemin de fer Djibouté – Ethiopien on this giant monolithic memorial to what can push through the limits of nature. A city, thrown up for a single purpose, now deprived of that purpose is sitting, purposely as yet lost as the eyes of the chewers and the drinkers are lost forever in the bottom of their glass or bag.

 I know that when I see La Gare, I’m there, or thereabouts and moments later through the ivy creepers, flower petal veranda I will emerge onto the most peaceful of centres.  I scrape a stool across a chequered floor and sit, and wait, and sit. I’m early by five minutes and a waitress brings a cool, frothing beer I did not order but she knows I want. A screen flickers into life across the street before La Gare but no one stands the rain to watch. The beads increase in size and spread and just as I bring the bitter taste of ale to my lips she appears through the rain, denim jacket over her head, protecting hair that took an hour to shape, which was meant to protect her shoulders and arms from the chill of water, heaven sent.

 She smiles, an apologetic smile, and takes my hand as I take her cheek, to cheek, to cheek. Three touches of the lips is all that can be done, in public. She’s late but I had noticed not, I was beyond caring for a minute or two when that time was spent in here. The quiet bustle of a city with no presumptions but the presumption to carry on in idyllic peace and quiet bliss. Our thoughts turn to other, more important, matters and we retire to the great empiric balcony, framed by bird-filled trees which leave us with a sense of isolation but a knowledge that the world can see.

 Two chairs, and nothing more, and us, and liquid velvet wine. And time we should have spent together recollected with no rush but the rush to be away from the balcony.

 The chilled blood-red wine stains teeth and lips that haven’t touched but dreamt of touching for some days as messages run back and forth between the worlds we both inhabit. She reclines onto the chair, older than both of us combined, entwined are ancient threads between the vine green hollow metal; held as one by 1930s bolts. Entwined; our looks and thoughts as daylight phases out and the clouds begin to part and cease their ever incessant shower and the crickets start to sing.

 The noise of rowdy revellers rises through the terra cotta tiled floor beneath our feet, intrudes on our shared solitude which now is hidden from those wandering by, by darkness and more dazzling lights. Her skin is soft, her neck is slim. Her eyes are dark and rich. We stop to talk and start to whisper, gazing at the ever present lust of the other. We’re patient, though, and not just now, but always, as we’re blessed with time. It is the first of several nights and so we wait and drink red wine.

 The cold chill which follows continental rain and the dying down of the ruckus beneath, sends us clumsily back through portico doors to the quiet humming of a ceiling fan which cools the heat stored up through the day but doesn’t cool what’s come between us now. She sits nervously on the edge of the bed, I sit in the great antique armchair, half sunk, half perched and yet, fully engulfed. I act the part of a true gentleman but feel inside that part was played enough. Time, we have but patience, no. And as the moon brightens we lose the need for light and I lose her in the darkness save the white of her eyes and teeth which brighten the room as her long fingers reach out to mine.

 Long fingers lead up slender hands to threadbare arms, which never did work, to dainty shoulders with pimples from the chill, or worse; the anticipation. Side-by-side, we sit. We talk. Behind us time ticks away with the comforting volume of a century-old wall clock which has watched this scene play out a thousand times in this hotel room. And never tires of seeing it play out once more.

 Those shoulders lead to that slim neck, a few stray hairs not elaborately tied back with the others, curl down unapologetically and tempt the wandering hand to put them back in place. The slightest touch of fingers to the jaw bone sends shivers from her chin to my arm as light slowly fills the room, our eyes adjust and vibrant colours. More than just black and white; which we already had, surround us and fail to distract us from the long awaited kiss beneath the creaky fan, behind the open doors closed to the world in which we hold each other dear, but not too dearly and embrace into the night.

 And everything that came before built up into that one wondrous moment and everything that follows happens because that chanced to pass. I hold her slender hips as she presses her back into me. I feel her nervous heart beat as we stand on the balcony overlooking the dead of Dire Dawa night. I kiss her neck and bade goodnight and stand and watch her walk away into the darkness. And know the quiet shrine of her body will be back the following morning but that night I sleep alone and want her more for it.

 The morning that will bathe the room with light through the creaking colonial access to my world and dreams which hang, unseen to me, cream coloured from the aching joints of many years’ service. And I know that nimble pastel glow will bring her back to me, and Dire Dawa; that city of imperfect perfections, back to light. That I may walk its streets again and savour everything that it reserved for me; and me alone. And I might do the same when she returns to my arms and we play out this scene, again.

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Bureaucracy.

24/04/2012 by admin.

 I roused myself at an un-Godly hour and took the bus down towards what I am calling in my new guidebook the “Embassy District”. The irony here being that there are no Embassies in Somaliland, just a Liaison Office for Ethiopia which can issue visas. I was on my way to the Ministry of Commerce, something beginning with I or E and Tourism. I entered the first floor tourism office and was greeted in Somali by the guy behind the desk “Teacher!”

 I’ve come here about getting my Father’s visa. “Oh yes, do you have everything?” I had been there almost a month earlier when I was given a list of the things I had to bring in order to get the visa. It wasn’t much actually; two photocopies of his passport, my passport and $25. I would fill out the forms there before going to the Ministry of the Interior and the Immigration police and back to the Tourism Ministry. It seemed like a lot of bullshit but he had assured me a month earlier that I could get the visa.

 I handed over the documents which he looked over carefully. “You,” he paused, “Are not Somali.” No, I paused. I am not. “This is problematic.” What is problematic? “You cannot sponsor a visa if you are not a Somalilander.” Sahib, you knew I wasn’t a Somalilander when I was last in here yet you gave me a list of things to bring. “This is problematic.” He left the room and could be heard in the corridor talking. I vaguely followed the conversation. He came back into the room.

 “Which hotel will he be staying at?” He won’t be staying at a hotel; he will be staying with me. “He cannot stay with you.” Why not? I live nearby Mansoor, I have a guard. “It isn’t safe.” Then it surely isn’t safe for me to live there? “No, Somaliland is not safe.” It was his assistant who spoke now. She had been silent until this point. So that is the Official Tourism Ministry line: Come to Somaliland (it is not safe!)

 Does staying at Mansoor hotel protect guests when they are walking around down town? Do children not throw rocks at people staying in hotels? Do adults not tell you that they will “fucking kill you, one at a time” (fortunately not all at the same time, terrible way to go) if you are staying in a hotel? Are Al-Shabab’s bullets magically diverted by the fact that you have stayed in a hotel? I don’t suppose that Somaliland is the safest place on the planet but staying in a hotel isn’t going to significantly reduce any risks. If I wanted to kill or kidnap Westerners it would be the first place I would go to!

 I’ve said it one hundred times in this country and a thousand on this continent. Rules are fine. We can all follow rules if we are told about them. But I had been in this guy’s office a month before and was told I could do this, we planned around this. Booked flights around this. Nothing has changed but it is no longer possible. I fail to understand why a country whose people don’t seem to want tourists can support four people working in one office which is so utterly useless that it not only doesn’t give you information, it gives you the wrong information.

 I’m going to make them an advert and give it to them, a photo of a Somaliland flag with the words from above:

 Come to Somaliland (it is not safe!)

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Snapshots from the past, present and future.

23/04/2012 by admin.

Past:

 In a couple of weeks it will be four years since I first set foot on this continent. A quick calculation of what I’ve been up to since then shows that 27% of the last four years will have been spent in Africa. Germany gets 25% Thailand gets 16% and the United Kingdom has 15% of which almost all was in the same 7 month stint. The remaining 17% is shared amongst Europe and the Caribbean. What started as a trip from Nairobi to Jo’burg (I never made it to Jo’burg) has rolled on into something much longer. I’m getting much better at staying in the same place though, in the last four years I have only been to forty new countries. In the four years before that I had managed about fifty. But to honest it is getting harder to find safe new places to visit!

Future:

 Anna is coming to visit in the summer. We will visit a few countries I’ve not been to, if we can both get the money together between now and then. On the list is Zambia, Botswana and Mozambique or Namibia. Whichever one we miss out I will visit with my Sister before then heading to Lesotho. I also want to visit Zimbabwe again.

Past:

 It is one year since Agnes passed away. She was a classmate of mine in South Africa and she was an awesome lady. She had her birthday in Hoedspruit and we almost fainted when we found out she was turning forty-eight! What is it with white people that we age so much faster than the rest of the ethnicities? She played volleyball with us young-uns and she invited me to go and stay with her and her eighteen year old son in Harare. I went with some other friends to Bulawayo instead.

 Anges acted as my referee on several job applications in 2010 and we all remember the song she taught us which we had to sing in the afternoons as a wake up in the bush.

 There was a bird in the nest, there was a nest on the branch, a branch on the tree, there was a tree on the ground, and the ground was never found.

 It builds up slowly from the last line up to the whole thing, with alternating run-throughs with the nouns missing.

 There was a, and a, in the, on the, and a, on the, and a, on the, and the, was never found.

 Agnes passed away one year ago. When you hear that a Zimbabwean has died your mind runs through hundreds of typically African deaths. As it is, she had breast cancer. We forget that whilst the people of Zimbabwe, and fifty other states, suffer from all manner of ailments we aren’t exposed to along with violence on a level we cannot comprehend, they also have all the regular stuff we have, only without the medical facilities to deal with it.

 I want to go to Zimbabwe to visit her grave and, with our other Zimbabwean friends, sing the song one more time.

Present:

 I asked Elene out, and she said no. I asked Helen to go for tea with me, and she said yes. I asked Helen how to get Elene to go out with me. We went to the National Museum of Ethiopia to talk about it. There was a third girl in the picture, she is called Lucy. She was, until 1992, the oldest known hominin fossil discovered in the world. She was found in the desert in Ethiopia.

 Helen and I went down to the basement where a replica of Lucy is housed amongst an evolutionary map of life from year 0 to today. “This doesn’t make sense.” Helen says to me. There were some long words but everything was written in Amharic too. “Everyone knows that Adam and Eve were the first humans.” You have got to be shitting me. You live in the country with the oldest two human discoveries, you are standing before one of them and you are denying its validity.

 I was hoping that Elene wouldn’t be as Christian. But first I had to get her on a date…

 Future:

 I have four job offers before me at the moment. I said I would make a decision on May 14^th, ostensibly that is so I can talk to various love interests about the jobs. It is also to search for a few more choices. In no particular order…

Somaliland – I know, it sounds like an exercise in extreme masochism. Life without the other Westerners is going okay but perhaps that is only because there is a set evacuation date and four trips to Ethiopia in that time. As it stands work is going well and the guy I am working with/for and I have a good working relationship. The fact remains that one can make an enormous amount of money here. The only downside is that one has to remain here.

 A guy I know is trying to get some funding to train frankincense collectors to abseil and ascend ropes to reduce the incidents of accidents in the mountains. It is something that would be very good to be involved with. I would escape in June or July 2013.

Positives: $$$, no white people, being one of, if not the only, native English teacher who works downtown, get better at Somali, I know what I am letting myself in for.
Negatives: Daily racism, no beer, no girls, continuing living in a staunchly Islamic society (i.e. no one is the slightest bit liberal) I know what I am letting myself in for.

Sudan – Is this a step forward, backward or sideways? I don’t know, but I’ve been offered work at Nileen University in Khartoum. I like working in Universities and everyone I have spoken to who has lived in Khartoum speaks very highly of the people. It is a much more liberal society than Somaliland; women don’t need to wear headscarves and other religions are not only not illegal but they are actively permitted with churches in Khartoum! I would escape in June 2013.

Positives: Work at a University again. Work at a real University. Have the opportunity to learn Arabic (albeit Sudanese Arabic). Chance to progress with French due to a French Cultural Centre. It’s a hard country to get to as a tourist.
Negatives: Less money than UOH(!) Still reduced levels of girls and alcohol, even if I heard it can be found. HIV test on arrival. Imminent war between Sudan and South Sudan. Once you are in, you are in. Exit visas for vacation cost $150. It’s fecking hot. It is in the malarial zone.

Ethiopia – Addis Ababa. I had a phone interview in Addis and my friend Dia is on a one man mission to get me in Addis Ababa, living in the next building to him and married to Elene. I have a few more schools to have a look at when I go to Addis in a couple of weeks and there’s an international academy which gives its teachers accommodation and sounds incredibly professional. It would be nice to work somewhere professional. I would escape in July 2013.

Positives: It’s Addis baby! Decent money. Girls. Beer. Beer. Girls. Places to visit for the weekend and on holidays. There’s no malaria. There’s beer. And girls. I can get good at Amharic.
Negatives: I would end up married by the age of 28. I’d spend all of my money on beer. Addis is full of white people.

China – Harbin. For some reason I’ve always wanted to go to Harbin. After two attempts to get to China in the past I thought I’d apply again, although my name is probably in a file labelled “Goes through every process then decides he doesn’t want to come.” Harbin sounds good. A rough city in the north of China with a lot of Korean and Russian immigrants. Unfortunately it will be cold but the job would be good. Escape August 2013.

Positives: It’s not in Africa. I can learn Mandarin. Good, reputable school. Beer and girls. Good money and low, low living costs.
Negatives: It’s not in Africa. It’s cold. People will think I am Russian. It’s not in Africa.

 Other ideas in my mind are: Dire Dawa University, Ethiopia. Fort Portal, Uganda to work in a primary school and build my own house. Travelling until Christmas and then back to Europe. Go work in a hostel in South Africa. Send in a last minute application for the Masters I want to do.  Join the RAF. Go teach in Southern Thailand. Find an NGO internship somewhere. Join the French Foreign Legion.

 I’ll do a lot of thinking in the next three weeks.

Present:

 The weather was fine as I left the house today. I packed my rucksack and hopped on the bus. I did a bit of marking on the more gentle parts of the journey and then chatted to the driver a while. About five hundred metres from the city centre it started to rain heavily. Heavily isn’t the right word. It was torrential, tropical and tumultuous. No one got off the bus. No one wanted to go out into that weather. It was only 18:00 and at the moment I don’t teach until 18:30. I waited. I shouldn’t have waited.

 We were at a crossroads with the engine off. This is the usual jump out point for buses before they turn into the station. Our offices were diagonally across the road. As I waited the road, which dissected ours, turned rapidly into a river. Not just a river, but a contender for Hargeisa white water rafting course. A girl was chasing her sandals down the river as they floated away. At 18:28 I had to get out and try to make it to work. The rain was heavy but not terribly so. It was the river that was causing problems. I sheltered under the umbrella of a café with one of my students who was also musing the best way to get across.

 We watched people wading through it and saw that the water was coming higher than their knees. My student gave me a look which said “Fuck this for a lark.” Turned and walked home. I rang Abdirashid, who himself was having problems driving through a different river which formed after the bus had got into town. He called the office, which I could see, and they were briefed on where to find the prepared lessons.

 Someone who knew me but that I didn’t know, some former cover lesson student, came to chat and led me to a place he thought we could cross. We couldn’t but with my height I could jump it, so I left him there. I got to the office to find just the secretary. No one else had made it in. We sat for an hour and chatted until Abdirashid turned up. Top marks for her, unintentional witty comeback. I walked into the office and said “What is this?” in Somali. It’s rain, she answered in English.

Past:

 At UOH we followed the New Headway Course Book series. A bland and less than interesting text book which often manages to be either culturally or religiously inappropriate. Having to explain to Somalis what sunbathing is and why we do it was particularly challenging. At Studio Cambridge we had a load of books to pick from and that enabled us to diversify our lessons somewhat. Now I’ve got a mix of the two approaches. (This might have to be present.) I can diversify my lessons in any way that I want, but I have fuck all in the way of resources.

 That’s not strictly true as teachers do steal resources electronically and then share them with colleagues so I have a whole host of activity packs digitally, along with several copies of Headway from which to rip my work. In addition to this we have so far studied Lord of the Flies by William Golding and we have taken a look at Utz by Bruce Chatwin. Both of these are test runs for my project to write an Islamic-friendly textbook series.

 Classes are 90 minutes, three times a week. At the moment I am ripping off various grammar books to make worksheets on certain grammatical points (this week has been direct and indirect questions) and then listening exercises from Headway (same topic but on the theme of “New to town.”) Which leads to the writing exercise: Describe your town to a newcomer. In the second lesson the students get a couple of pages of UTZ which is one of Chatwin’s easier to read books. The pages I wanted them to read were the author inviting a friend of the late Utz to dinner. It is full of direct and indirect questions.

 After the reading comprehension the third lesson is based around a millennia old teaching activity called fantasy dinner party. I’m keeping all the lesson plans to hopefully string together an intermediate text book and sell the idea to some publishers in a couple of years. With that in mind (this should be future…) going to Sudan would be a good idea to further test my lessons.

Present:

 Elene doesn’t like white people. She told me when we went for tea. I asked where I fit in to all of this, being white. “You’re not white, you’re Abasha.” That is nice of you to say that, but I am definitely a foreigner for now.

 We sit in Taitu hotel talking and she tuts at the eccentric westerners who walk past her in every direction. “Crazy Faranji.” She says in English. Faranji is a great word, Faranjo in Oromo  (I do know a word in Oromo!) which is also present in Thailand where they say Farang. According to Paul Theroux, the word started in the Middle East during the Crusades when the majority of the soldiers were Franks. The Islamic troops knew their entire enemies as Franks and the word travelled with Islam, staying in some places yet not in others. Now it has been morphed into its current form and is used by Christian girls on dates with white guys to talk badly of other white guys.

 But I wanted to see if she was really Christian. She had the stonking great cross around her neck, but so did every Ethiopian girl I ever met. “Do you want a beer?” No, I’m fasting. “Do you want some ice cream?” No, I’m fasting. “Do you want to go to my room?” No, I’m fasting.” You have got to be shitting me. God doesn’t let you have sex during lent?” Nope. “Or ice cream?” Nope. “Or beer?!” Nope. “But, what is the point?” Something about God, I stopped listening. “Okay well let’s go listen to music in my room, I am going to take a beer and some ice cream and show you that the devil is white.” Perhaps she would be more pragmatic than Helen.

 My favourite moment with Elene came when we were in Kaldis (Starbucks imitation) and she started to tell me a story from work. “So then Speedo and Yarid had to go outside and,” Hold on a minute, who is Yarid? I don’t think I know him. “Yarid? He’s the black one.” What do you mean ‘the black one’? Everyone who works at Buffet is black. Everyone in this country is black. “I’m not black.” Yes you are! “I’m not.” You are! You’re black. “No, I’m not black.” Well what the fuck are you if you’re not black? “I’m sort of brown.” Look, I’m not white. This table cloth is white but you’d still call me white. “Parts of me are black.” Yeah, parts of me are black too! (We’ll get into that some other time.)

Outside opinion required on this one:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ibiss/7008151493/in/set-72157629285285452

Future:

 I’m worse than an NGO worker. I’m going on R & R this week. This was one of the reasons for making my sweet little timetable the way it is. I can leave Hargeisa on Wednesday morning, spend the night in Harar and catch up with a few friends and then get to Dire Dawa for three days of tranquillity with Eyeruaslem who I managed to convince to forgive me for my earlier “Kiss me or Fuck off!” comments of mid-March.

 I love Harar but I really think I like Dire Dawa, hence throwing it on the list of future possibilities as an afterthought. My favourite hotel, and one of the cheapest, in Harar is 150 birr a night. That is 8 dollars! In Dire Dawa it is only 70 birr. Dire Dawa is only fifty minutes further away than Harar and is a lot more relaxed. No one speaks English, except Eyerusalem, so I can practice Amharic with the waitresses and I’m left in peace when I walk around town. It has ATMs and quality restaurants. It is Ethiopia’s second biggest city but doesn’t feel like it. Bizarrely I can leave there at 06:30 and be home earlier than leaving Harar at 06:30.

 Then there is the swimming pool. I’ve been fantasising about the swimming pool for the last two weeks since I saw it. It has been so, so hot in Hargeisa for the last two weeks. It is less than a dollar to swim all day. It is 400m walk from my hotel. It has a nice restaurant there and Eyerusalem wants to learn to swim. I would ask if swimming was against fasting but that cursed period ended last week! I found her interpretation of fasting vastly different to Elene’s. She drank wine with me again and stuck her finger in my ice cream to taste it. Thanks for that.

 Laila’s boyfriend Sami told me that the best way to get an Ethiopian girl was to tell her you had something to show her in your room. I thought this was fucking ludicrous. I recently started to think it was absolutely genius. This simple line will instantly unmask whether or not you have a chance with a girl. If she likes you she will know that there is absolutely nothing worth seeing in your hotel room, you just want to take her up there. If she doesn’t like you, well she will know the same right? So you have essentially found a euphemistic way to say “Are you up for it?” I hadn’t actually considered the middle ground.

 I had been on my absolute best behaviour after the last time out. I made her drink two glasses of wine this time so I didn’t have to drink six on my own, merely five. And I had only had one beer before we went for dinner. She didn’t eat because she was fasting but she talked a lot more than before. Then we walked home and for some reason the words of Sami came into my head. “Eyeruaslem, I.” She looked at me. “I have something to show you in my room.” What’s that? “Erm.” Meanwhile my brain is thinking Shit, what sort of a line is this? Why did you show her the photos of Djibouti over dinner? That could have been your get out of this well card. Instead you are going to seem like an absolute arsehole for the second date in a row. “I will be honest; I just want to take you up to my room and, well, do bad, irreligious things. There’s really nothing to see.”

 I wanted to visit Dire Dawa between getting back to Hargeisa and going to Addis for my job interviews and to see Elene. That meant either this week or next so it had to be this week to avoid two consecutive weekly trips, it does take a bit out of you having 7 hours of travelling just for beer and a snog. Two weeks until Addis then a month until I am back there collecting my Dad from the airport to bring him to Somaliland.

 Then there is my eagerly awaited moment when I get out of Hargeisa and go to Addis in July. By which time Eyerusalem will be finished with University and moving back to her parents’ house to look for a job. I asked her where her parents lived. “Right by Taitu Hotel, do you know it?” I’m dead.

Now: I haven’t shared flickr for a while; until just now that is but it is up to date with just a few albums (old European snaps which need their tags sorting out) so if you want even more of my snapshots then follow this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ibiss/collections

When I get back I plan to write a quad lingual blog, so stay tuned!

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La maison de quatre langues.

23/04/2012 by admin.

 

 My new house is eclectic, eccentric and electric. I’d like to tell you who lives with me but I don’t rightly know. I am pretty sure I live here. And I need to change the title to cinq. A month ago I moved into my new digs with my former colleague Steve. He is also on the University of Hargeisa’s blacklist for the heinous crime of having a housekeeper. At least that was what we heard when we were both sacked by proxy.

 Last year the University brought in a Kenyan statistics teacher (Wycliffe who shared our house with us) but didn’t have a place for him to stay so they dropped him off with Steve. Entering the house they saw the Ethiopian housekeeper…without a headscarf! The Chinese-whisper style Somali rumour went round the city twice and came back as “Steve keeps girls in his house.” Which I guess technically is true, she is a girl.

 Steve is a short guy who uses the self-made catchphrase “This is serious!” with so much regularity that it has passed on to the housekeeper. Invariably nothing is serious. We’re both in touch with former students and we chart the decline of the University. The President and Vice Presidents all quit. Ostensibly because they wanted the fees to go up to $500 a year (from $360) and the students, quite rightly, protested and demanded some sort of quality for this price. The Government started to investigate and the top brass walked in protest. The reason, which we were all informed of when we worked there, that they needed to raise the money is that money was simply disappearing over the last six months.

 “Will you be coming back to the University?” One of my students was on the bus yesterday. Do you think that is plausible? Having now been relieved of work three times by the same institution. “But we hate our new teacher.” Of course you do, but you also didn’t like me so much when I was teaching you, it was from your class that the rumour I was a Christian Missionary came from (bizarre for an atheist, I know!). “But he doesn’t know English.”

 We’ve been hearing this a lot from our former students. The opinion in our house is that the University gets the teachers it deserves. If they prefer good Muslims over good teachers then they are not guaranteed good teachers. In fact there is a wonderful example of a man (who is related to the former President of the University) who is neither a good teacher nor a good Muslim. He even admits he is a bad Muslim and told me I would need 500 dollars to go to Zeila, a town in the north. “40$ for the return bus and 460$ for the women and booze.” The students are taking an advanced course which was written by me and Brandon without either of us there to coach the teachers through the syllabus. Some of the teachers themselves are anything but advanced.

 The only problem in saying that the University gets the teachers it deserves is that some of the students do not get the teachers they deserve. Most of them do. The typical student I came into contact with was concerned with one thing: getting a high grade. In the first week I had many complaints that students got 4 out of 10 for a piece of work. They were right, their work wasn’t a 4. It was a 3. I duly changed the grade. Most students don’t actually want to get better at English, they want to keep up their % which takes into account all the courses they take at the Uni. Despite this they will all leave with a piece of paper which might entitle them to a job in this country, but probably not.

 Those who want to get better at English do so and ultimately stand to do better in the employment market as no one can write well in this country. If a Somali can write in English then they can get a good job with an International NGO. The strangest thing about their weak writing is that they use the same punctuation and format in their language. They then promptly forget full stops, paragraphs, sentences even! My new students are all there to get better at English and they will. Even the classes at the University got better without noticing it, the result of me forcing them to write two A4 pages a week for twelve weeks.

 Steve is making good money by taking groups of disillusioned UOH students and giving them private lessons. I’m far too lazy to profit from anything, I borderline don’t believe in money and am just happy to exist. As long as I get access to beer and girls. Which I don’t. So I just carry on with my own school project.

 Two days before my sign up day I still hadn’t found a class room for the students. In the end I made a deal with an existing college in a great location downtown and with good facilities. I would work for them and they would take over the management of the courses but the courses would be run on my terms: small classes and a big focus on writing. This proved rather inspired as the open day was flat with hardly any students turning up. This was primarily down to the strange Somali attitude towards their weekends. Friday is the only day off and they literally do nothing. Signing up to a language school isn’t something they would consider doing on their day off. If it was an excuse to miss work we would probably have had 1000!

 I was amused when the college ran an additional intake day; they had exactly the same number of people turn up that I had had, and their location was better (not on the third floor of an elevator-less building). My business partner put it down to the rain. By some incredible twist of fate every student who turned up, bar one, was of a very similar standard; strong pre-intermediate. We threw the class together quickly and I started teaching. The other student didn’t even write his name on the paper and managed to get 0 on the multiple choice of 15 questions. 0! I wonder what the statistical chance of getting a 0 would be if you guessed everything?

 When I was writing the test in Addis I hadn’t considered the probability of certain scores. I sat in a café with a beer and wrote the test out, printed it and took it to Elene’s work. From extended time with her I could safely say she would get between 10 and 13 out of 25. A score which I calculated as being bog standard pre-intermediate. (I took the questions from the UOH exam papers I had written) and I figured her friend Helen, whose help I had enlisted to get Elene on a date with me and with whom I had chatted over many a cup of tea, would score somewhere around 20. Helen got 21 and Elene got 13. I thought I was an amazing judge of students.

 Another waitress and the barman wanted to take the English test so I handed them over a copy and had a beer. The waitress got 17 and I chatted to her to ascertain her spoken English level, she seemed better than my girl so that made sense. The barman scored 10 and came to sit with me to talk. He couldn’t speak English. Literally not a word. Of course he had just circled random answers on the quiz and the law of probability had led him to a certain score. I should have thought of that.

 I told Abdirashid in no uncertain terms that Ahmed, I had to ask him his name in Somali, should not be in my class. Or anywhere near the school. So of course he turned up in the first lesson and sat there looking blankly at me. “He said he wanted to see how he coped.” I could have told him before how he would cope, but he wouldn’t have understood what I said, which should have been the biggest indicator to him that he couldn’t cope. There’s a place for people with no English, and it is in a beginners’ class not with my pre-intermediates who were happily reading the first page of Lord of the Flies in the follow-up lesson.

 The other person who definitely lives in the house is Abdiraham, who is eight months old. For the first week he avoided me like the plague but sat staring from across the room. “What the hell is wrong with that guy? He is white!” He seemed to be thinking. Now he is always walking up because I give him more attention than everyone including his mother; an Ethiopian who for some unknown reason married a Somali man. It didn’t work out and now she is living in our house rent-free and with a baby who has just started teething, I assume, because he never cried once for the first three weeks but suddenly he is crying all the time.

 Sa’ada is the mother of Abdirahman. She used to be the housekeeper here, and is the one who the University saw without her headscarf on, she sits around smoking shisha and telling us she is looking for a job and wishes she could give the baby away. I suggested she thought of this before she married a Somali, she had a choice in the matter. Apparently Somali men don’t treat women well. Well, I could have guessed that one. Sa’ada is great but she is on a one woman campaign to try to undermine her rivals for my affection. She misguidedly thinks that because I like 21 year old Ethiopian women I must therefore like her as she is a 21 year old Ethiopian woman. The girls I go for tend not to be quite so desperate and certainly come with no baby baggage.

 Our first housekeeper was called Tegest and was pretty cute. Laila and I had an argument over her age, Laila assuming she was a teenager. It turns out Tegest is actually my age. Sa’ada took every opportunity to remind me that Tegest had two children back in Ethiopia. So if I didn’t like Sa’ada I couldn’t like Tegest. Eventually Tegest didn’t like being paid $50 a month to be our house slave and so left. She was then replaced by Fadumo. Despite having a Somali name she is also Ethiopian but she doesn’t speak any language we speak. I assumed she spoke Amharic but got nothing back. She doesn’t speak any European languages and the Kenyans shout at her in Somali. Today I tried Somali which she told me, in Somali, she does not know. So we have the first woman with no mother tongue? She speaks Oromo, an Ethiopian language, she told me. None of us know a word of that.

 Mutai and Abdiasis are Kenyan guys with proper jobs who have been in Somaliland a long while. We also now have a babysitter whose name and ethnicity I am not sure about. One thing is for certain, living with Africans is way more fun and relaxed than Westerners. Everything happens at a tranquil pace. The house is perpetually full of visitors and guests. Nothing is ever a bother. I tried to pay rent last week and was told to buggar off, I don’t earn as much as the rest of them so I am a guest. It’s a personal choice that I don’t earn as much. I only work three days a week by choice, I’ve got a lot of other things to do too.

 So what language do we speak in our house? It’s a language of our own creation. Greetings are all done in Somali. Orders to the housekeepers are done in Somali. Sa’ada speaks to all of us in Amharic although the Kenyans don’t understand it. I got Tegest in trouble when she referred to Abdiasis as “Schmegurleh”(Old Man) in Amharic. Some sentences start in English (something which makes me listen from whatever I am doing as I assume it must be for me) and then move into Swahili and finish with Somali. I assumed that the Kenyans would speak Swahili together but they don’t, they often just speak English.

 I live in the little outhouse separated from the main building. The room is about 10m2 and gets the occasional cockroach but apart from that it’s the perfect place to hide away and work on my other projects. At the moment I am trying to get my first proper book published and I am using a website called Authonomy to get feedback and comments, if the book makes it to the top of the pile at the end of every month then HarperCollins will read it. Take a look if you’re bored:

http://www.authonomy.com/books/27852/smashing-clocks-/

My second, travelogue style book is going up there as I write it too:

http://www.authonomy.com/books/43263/welcome-to-civilisation-/

 On top of that I find with all this free time I am able to blast through the Diploma in Logistics. My tutor had been checking up on me for the past few months as no work was coming from my end. Now the poor bloke cannot keep up!

 A new guidebook to Somaliland came out in March but it is only available in hardcopy and it is expensive. On top of that there’s not that much to see here. I’m writing my own PDF which should be around 100 pages and is something I will make available in a couple of months on Amazon.

 Our museum project has become MY museum project as the others have all left. It should be done by the end of June if I can find the right place to house it.

 I’m also half way through a Bruce Chatwin style book on Somaliland, living and travelling here and also a bit of its history. Again I will try to publish it or stick it in Amazon for a couple of bucks.

 I should be leaving here around July 13^th so that is just under 12 weeks left. I’ve restarted Somali class determined to add it to the functioning languages I seem to be acquiring quickly. With a few months of effort I can add both Amharic and Somali to English, German and…I was quite surprised to discover French in Djibouti. Although I guess that was the first time I was in a French speaking country with no one to hide behind. Whether I can speak any of these languages living in the house of four languages is another matter completely! 

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An African bus.

13/04/2012 by admin.

It is cold in the pre-dawn gloom. The guard to the hotel is asleep and cannot be found to open the gate. After five minutes of frantic searching you discover him under the stairs on a thin mattress. It takes a minute for him to come round, another minute to find his keys. He isn’t wearing any trousers when he leads you to the door to the hotel and you emerge onto the streets. You walk about two hundred metres, in the dark, through streets that every guidebook and website warns you from being at night. Nothing stirs. You check your money belt is in place, passport is in the passport pocket and your mobile phone is where it should be. Shit, that’s the hotel key. It’s too late to go back.

You rush. You had woken up as late as possible and the delay means you might miss the bus. Taxi drivers sleep in their cars and wake up as you pass. They shout out obscenely high quotes for the four hundred metres you have left to walk. You didn’t bother to make a reconnaissance of the bus station the previous night; you don’t actually have a clue where it is. You walk past it twice before you finally see a minibus, your minibus, leaving the entrance and disappearing into the distance. You walk through the gates to the bus station. It is a patch of mud. The world explodes before your eyes.

“You, you, you.” Bus station workers aren’t known for their skills in European languages. What seems like one hundred people mob you. You place your hands in your pockets even though nothing is there to be picked. Either you have it safely secured or it already got picked before your hands were there, and you will sure as hell have it securely hidden next time. Some try to pull your bag from your back. “Too heavy, me carry.” Others point you to a completely empty bus. Some ask you if you want to hire the entire bus for yourself.

“Where are you go?” Wherever your grammar book went, far away. You are pointed to the bus you want. The engine is running. One hundred offers to load your bag on the roof appear. You do it yourself. “Five dollars for the bag.” It is only three dollars for the ticket. You might as well buy a seat for your bag. You suspect a ruse. “Four, three, two, one.” Eventually it is free, like the locals pay, and you get on the bus. They follow you to the door. “I help you, give money.” You ignore them, you are too shocked at the state of the bus, even though you shouldn’t be. Most of the seats have no covers. Some don’t even have the cushioning any more. Just bare balsa wood. For some reason there is a full bag of rice under every seat. No one can own it though.

No one can own it because the bus is deserted. A teenage boy sits in the driver’s seat revving the engine. You look around. It is deserted. An old woman sits on the back row with mountains of vegetables in big sacks, despite the market not having yet opened. A man in a suit with a briefcase, who has obviously lived in Europe for some time, sits looking at his watch. You pick two seats in the middle, where you think you will not be over the wheels. Ten seconds into the journey you realise you are over the wheels. The teenage boy turns and stares at you with his jaws open for ten minutes, as if he had never seen a white person before.

An alternative scenario exists if you are more than one person. You get to the bus and there is only one seat left. The only difference is that once you are on the deserted bus the old lady and the man in the suit arrive later. The driver opens his door to put some music on. He leaves loud 80s music on a radio station which isn’t entirely tuned in correctly. Then he goes.

The bus fills up slowly. It takes hours. The heat of the day starts to rise. People walk past selling biscuits, watches, socks and spades. The most eclectic mix of unnecessary items are held for long periods of time by your window. If you turn away they place a flat palm against the window and slide it open to shout at you in a language you don’t know. The bitch selling corn on the cob, however, will not move. She knows you want that warm buttery treat, but you have to come to her for it. You look at your bag. Will it be safe. The teenager tears his gaze away from you to your bag. It won’t be safe.

The old lady has a change of heart after three hours and gets off the bus. No one moves for her. She just forces her way down the aisle with one sack and throws it out of the bus. She returns for sacks two, three and four. You fall asleep when a man gets on and tells you that you are in his seat. The passengers like the commotion. They start speaking quickly and animatedly in a local language. You hear the word for white person twenty times in twenty seconds from the lips of the same person. The man sulks when you refuse to move and sits next to you. He later proves to be a really nice person. The teenager in the driver’s seat has knocked the dials on the radio and you have been subjected to loud crackling for ten minutes.

The bus is full, every seat is taken. More people are ushered on. Three people to every two seats. You breathe in and a dumpy woman is perched on the end of your row. “This never happens in Sweden.” The man in the suit mutters in English, for your benefit. The driver opens his door and throws in a shirt, a packet of cigarettes or a bottle of coke mixed with whisky. A man comes on and asks for money. He is begging. Another, who looks no different comes on and people start to give money to him. He is the conductor. The driver reaches through the window and turns off the engine. That’s when you know you are going to leave.

Two more passengers have a change of heart and rush off, boarding a bus which is passing in the opposite direction. The conductor comes to you. He wants thirty. The dumpy woman just paid twenty. Suddenly everyone on the bus has lost the ability to speak English as you argue with the conductor about the price. Eventually he gives it to you for twenty but he wants ten for the small rucksack on your lap. The driver gets in and starts the engine. The bus moves.

At the exit to the bus station the bus stops. The conductor gets out and pays the station fee. He shakes hands with the attendant. They ask about each other’s family. Someone comes up to talk to the driver. They start to argue. The driver turns off the engine and gets out. They start to fight. A crowd emerges. They don’t fight as Europeans would fight. They merely grab each other’s shirt collar with one hand and push their opponent’s face with their other hand. They are pulled apart. Someone rubs the driver’s cheek in a patronising way and lifts him bodily into the cab. You are out of the bus station. The conductor has eight jerry cans tied together with string in his hands. The bus turns the corner. And stops.

Twenty people sit on sacks by the side of the road. They stand up and rush the bus. Eight of them are allowed in. Each is given a jerry can to place alongside a row. They squeeze in to the aisles on their jerry cans. The bus drives for fifty metres. Then stops for petrol. “Why couldn’t they have done this before?” The man in the suit asks. “This would never happen in Sweden.” The refuelling is done with the engine on and some awful local language dance music blaring out. The other passengers have a glazed look in their eyes. Fifty metres later the bus stops for a tyre pressure check. The man in the suit complains.

The bus won’t start after the tyre pressure. The driver and conductor get off to investigate. Twenty minutes later you get driving. You reach the edge of town. The man next to you shouts at the driver who stops but doesn’t turn off the engine. The man gets off. The dumpy woman moves beside you. An old lady gets on and struggles past the jerry can brigade. He was saving the seat for her. You are about to leave town. A policeman appears out of nowhere and waves the bus down. Everyone has to get off and show their ID. You all get back on thirty minutes later and leave town.

The dumpy woman has produced a baby from somewhere. It was strapped to her back and she had been sitting on it for two hours before producing it. It starts to piss itself so she holds it away from her and above you. It is almost eleven a.m. and unbearably hot. You woke up at four a.m. for this journey and you are less than five hundred metres from your hotel as the bus leaves town. You try desperately for twenty minutes but the window won’t open.

You have driven for twenty kilometres, mostly off road as the road is so pot holed that the driver doesn’t want to drive there. He prefers to negotiate the bus along a parallel dirt track which has been gradually graded by bus after bus taking this route. A small village appears in the distance. You stop for lunch. The man in the suit adopts you and offers to translate at the dysentery inducing diner you are all packed in to. A bus has stopped in the opposite direction and a blonde girl with dreadlocks and a European accent is asking for a vegetarian option. You avoid eye contact at all costs.

She sees you anyway and comes over to complain. “Can you believe they don’t have a vegetarian option?” You pray she is from Sweden so the man in the suit, who has been boring you senseless for the past fifteen minutes talking about his work at a super market will have another target. “This wouldn’t happen in Finland.” She has a plate of rice, the only vegetarian option. You wish you had gone for the same. The goat on your plate is putrid. You wouldn’t be surprised if it was full of maggots. Flies land on you, your food and your water. The Finnish girl leaves. The man in the suit expects you to pay for his lunch.

You all pile back on the bus and start to make good time. It is twelve thirty. The passengers protest that they have to get off and pray. You stop. They pray. The bus won’t start. The women get off and sit under the nearest tree. The men become mechanical experts and crowd the driver telling him what to do. They all squat around him pointing and shouting wildly. You want to lie across the seats and sleep but the only person still on the bus with you is the dumpy woman lying beside you. Your phone runs out of battery. There goes poker. You fall asleep with your head on the seat in front. You wake up less than five minutes later to the sound of banging. In the end, and lacking in tools, the drive merely bashed the engine with a rock. For some reason this restarts the bus.

One hundred metres later the police appear from nowhere and ask for the driver’s papers. They aren’t in order. He is taken off and shouted at. The conductor goes to help. They pay a bit of money. They pay a bit more. The policeman’s superior arrives. They pay a bit more money. The superior takes the driver’s papers, and a bit more money. Then points at the bus. The first policeman then walks up to the bus and rips off the licence plate. He walks away with it. The driver gets back on.

You get to the mountains. The road is wide enough for one vehicle but the driver speeds up the hill without care. The road winds like a child’s doodling. The land drops sharply for two hundred metres and there are no barriers. You stare down at your death for the next thirty kilometres. Sharp turns leave the edge of tyres hanging above the abyss. You put your head on the seat in front to try to sleep but the jolting of the bus above the wheels stops you from doing so. Your fellow passengers suddenly start shouting at the conductor who shouts back and starts pointing. It dies down as abruptly as it starts.

The driver almost hits a goat. The passengers start to discuss how much the goat would have been worth. The debate goes on and two old men start to press their fingers aggressively into each other’s throats. The driver turns round to see what the commotion is about and clips an old lady carrying a bundle of wood down the hillside.

You approach a small town; some of the passengers want to get off there. You have stopped to pick up ten more people, three of them policemen, who have crowded into the space of the bus and create a suffocating heat. Your back is wet with sweat. The baby, who hasn’t drunk anything in six hours, is having another piss. The police ask the bus to stop so that they can descend. The process takes ten minutes with the bus stationary. Ten metres later the passengers ask to be let off.

The same policemen who were just on the bus appear and ask for the driver’s papers. He doesn’t have them. He is taken off and shouted at. The conductor goes to help. They pay a bit of money. They pay a bit more. The policeman’s superior arrives. They pay a bit more money. The superior takes the driver’s papers, and a bit more money. The police point to the driver. He takes a swing at one of them but misses. One hundred people appear as if from nowhere and watch as the driver is restrained by the conductor.

You continue for an hour. The music turns out to be a limited mix tape, radio crackle included, on a constant loop. None of the passengers seem to care. The bus stops in the middle of nowhere. You had been dozing and you heard no one call for it. The man in the suit gets off with his brief case. The bus pulls away as you watching him turn off the road and walk towards the setting sun. You strain your eyes but see nothing on the horizon.

You come across an overturned truck ten minutes later. The driver sits holding his head by the cabin. His cargo of goats lay dead beneath the crushed wreck. A group of thirty onlookers stand gawping at the scene. No one offers him assistance. They just stare. Again there are no houses as far as the eye can see but somehow these people have appeared. The driver gives the truck a wide berth. In fact he stays off the road altogether. That may have been the truck driver’s problem.

The music is still going but now a Chinese martial arts movie from the 1980s is showing on a tiny screen at the front. Loud screaming in Chinese is heard with highly exaggerated special effects noises filling the bus. When it finishes the DVD player automatically plays it again.

The engine, which is inexplicably beneath your seat, starts to smoke. Choking black fumes fill the bus. The driver stops. Everyone piles out. They pour water over the engine. The sun has set completely. You are back to being absolutely freezing as somehow the window has now opened itself on the jarring road and will not close. The baby vomits on you. You see nothing in the darkness as you pass through endless plains and wonder how you haven’t reached your destination yet. It is only two hundred kilometres from where you started.

The bus screeches to a stop. Your neck aches from trying to sleep with your head tilted back. From your vantage point above the wheels you see the problem; a stone is wedged between the twin wheels of the bus. The driver and his assistant have a long metal pipe and take it in turns to hit the stone deeper and deeper into the twin tyres. They force it so far in that it cannot be forced any further. Eventually they give up trying to force the stone out and continue to drive on regardless.

You shift uncomfortably from cheek to cheek as your entire body now enters a state of painful numbness. A mobile phone transmitter with a red light appears in the distance. You take this to be a sign that the town is approaching. It isn’t. It’s the hope that kills you. You practice your high school maths by calculating your speed for the whole journey. Four a.m. start, eight p.m. arrival (you have no idea what time it is since your phone died) and two hundred kilometres. Twelve point something kilometres per hour. The dumpy woman’s head rests on your shoulder. She fell asleep breastfeeding her baby. One enormous breast has flopped onto your lap. And the baby has more ammunition.

The bus starts to climb a hill. You try to push the breast back into her dress without looking like an absolute pervert. You are too busy with your task to notice the bus level out and the pinpricks of light appearing in the distance. She wakes up. You needed both hands to physically lift the thing. She doesn’t stare at you; she stares ahead and reaches for her bags. Then she stares at you. You drop her breast and see the magical mirage of one thousand dancing stars. The city of your dreams. The chance to stretch your legs. Beer. Food. The bus drives slowly through town passing every hotel you wanted to stay at. The driver, for the first time, refuses to stop for anyone and drives you three kilometres out of town in the other direction.

“Don’t try to walk. It’s not safe here.” It is safe, but you have no idea. So you overpay for a taxi, throw your bag into the bag and spread out, knowing that the very next day you have to do the whole thing again.

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For being brave enough…

12/04/2012 by admin.

 The kindest man on the planet is from Nigeria. The most generous man on the planet lived in Mali. The gentlest man on the planet doesn’t any more.

 At the start of the millennium he left Nigeria in an attempt to reach Europe. He made it as far as Gao in Mali when he ran out of steam. Or rather, after passing through just one country he ran out of money. There are plenty of people out to make a quick buck from a gullible young man on his way to Europe. Unable to speak French or Arabic he struggled to get by but found his way to a hotel with a bar. He looked up at the sign and dreamt of working in such a place. He continued dreaming and walked away.

 Desperation drove him to ask for work in the bar. He would do anything just for food and a place to sleep. They agreed to let him work collecting bottles and cleaning. He worked earnestly and tried his best to learn French. He proved adept at doing so and was given small tips by the clientele of the bar. Eventually he had enough money to buy a crate of Coca-Cola. He spent his free time on the street selling lukewarm Coca-Cola from his crate. He kept the profit and bought another crate. Eventually he could afford a crate of beer.

 Shaka is a giant of a man, yet so enduringly gentle. He towers at almost two metres tall and has the largest hands imaginable. He speaks softly in both English and French, which he has now mastered perfectly. He sits opposite to us in the darkness of the bar. “It’s not just white people. It is all foreigners they try to cheat.” He tells us of the women at the market. “They know I am not local because I speak to them in French and not an African language.” He doesn’t drink alcohol. He is a devout Christian.

 After selling his crate of beer he bought another and saved the profit. This started the cycle which eventually freed him from sleeping on the floor of the bar, where he still worked but by now for a salary and as a barman, such was his popularity with the customers. His savings grew slowly and he thought back to his dream, several years ago by now, of a hotel and bar. After a couple more years of work he had enough money to open his own bar. It grew from there, a seed planted ten years earlier had grown into a sapling and, by the time we arrived in Gao, it was a blossoming tree.

 It wasn’t the only thing blossoming either. Shaka met a nice woman too, and married her. Together they had children and, as in all of Africa, a big family of distant relatives appeared around the trunk of his enterprise and worked for him in a way not too dissimilar to the way he had once worked for another. Twenty people whose livelihoods could be traced back to a single crate of Coca-Cola.

 I was in Germany wrapping up my life there when Shaka replied to my e-mail. Fanny and I were due to leave for Africa in under a month and there had just been two separate kidnappings in Mauritania and another in Kidal in Mali; not far from Gao. Planning for Mali was primarily Fanny’s task as she was the native French speaker in our trip but a footnote on a forum had recommended Shaka’s hotel, the curiously named Camping Euro, as an English speaking option. I e-mailed him about the safety in the region, the potential for onward travel and the sights of interest.

 Within a couple of hours he had written back to me. He invited us as his special guests to visit Gao and stay with him. It was safe. There were things to see. We could travel through the desert on the back of a 4×4 transporting contraband to the mystical city of Timbuktu. We kept up a steady correspondence over the next few weeks and just before we flew to Gambia I gave him the week we would arrive in Eastern Mali if everything went to plan. Strangely it did.

 Our attempts to hitch-hike out of Hombori had not gone well. Twelve hours sitting in the shade of a tiny tree being rejected by all five vehicles which drove past us. We went to dinner and then hopped on the nightly bus through town. We arrived in Gao at five in the morning, far too late to bother Shaka. At seven, after a couple of hours of dice on the doorstep of a warehouse, we found our way to the campsite and were greeted by the firmest of handshakes by the biggest of hands. “I was so worried!” We had sent a message the previous day predicting our arrival that evening. Therein the obvious reason why no cars had picked us up. “But you are here now, you are very special guests.”

 He showed us to our room, just through the main entrance in his castle-sized empire. “I suppose you want to sleep, but just wait a minute, please.” We rolled up the mosquito net; they wouldn’t bite us in the morning, and turned the fan on. It was already hot. He reappeared with two large beers. We had been awake for twenty-four hours and so only took one we drank it, and slept. We woke up in the mid-afternoon and took a short walk around Gao. We had planned to be there for a few days so felt in no rush to visit Askia’s tomb or the Niger River.

 We were sitting on the roof of the bar when he appeared with two beers. These ones not from him but from a client who offered them to us. “He says they are for being brave enough to come here.” There aren’t that many white people? “White people? Loads of them. Europeans, no we don’t get them here after the kidnapping.” By white people I later found out he meant Arabs. I asked if we could eat there. “We don’t serve food but I could call you a taxi to take you to a nice restaurant. It has fish.” We would rather walk but Shaka insisted he had a reason to go downtown anyway so we might as well come for free in the taxi. Initially suspicious, we agreed and ate dinner in the fish restaurant.

 “Can you find the way back to the hotel?” Fanny asked me. I thought that I could, even in the dark. We paid and walked about ten metres from the restaurant when a car pulled up beside us. The window rolled down.

 “Fancy that, we were just driving back and here you are!” He had been waiting with the taxi driver for almost an hour whilst we ate.

 After three days we found a driver going to Timbuktu who would take us on the back of his 4×4, perched precariously on top of mountains of goods headed, eventually, to Mauritania. We sought Shaka to thank him and settle our bill. “You don’t have to pay me anything, we are friends.”

 “We’ve been drinking your beer like water. We’ve been drinking your water like water. We’ve spent three nights in your best room!” His wife, who didn’t speak English clearly understood what he was saying and was giving Shaka a death stare which he didn’t notice. He shook his head and told me to pay him whatever I wanted but not to feel pressured to pay. We parted with a bear hug, the strongest imaginable; I think.

 Our transport didn’t leave on time. In fact it had a fifty hour delay, the longest I’ve ever faced or heard of on this great continent. After the first twenty hours we returned to Camping Euro much to Shaka’s surprise. He gave us a beer and a bed. We stayed and extra night and this time, as returning friends, he insisted we pay nothing. The next day we successfully left Gao and left behind the kindest man on the planet.

 I didn’t totally leave him behind though. We had become Facebook friends during my visit and over the last two years of turbulence and travel he has been one of the few people who will always remain on my Friend List. We would occasionally say hello and send our wishes to the other. When Fanny came to visit me in Thailand he noticed and commented on the photos. When the Coup D’Etat took place in Mali last month I barely thought about it, it was in Bamako and almost a thousand kilometres away from my friend.

 When the Islamic extremists took over Timbuktu, Kidal and Gao I became concerned. I hadn’t seen him on Facebook for several weeks. I watched the news unfold as various minor Islamic factions took advantage of the power vacuum created by the army deserting their anti-insurgency battle to take power in the capital. Armed with weapons from their time spent in the employ of Colonel Gaddaffi these groups have been busy fighting, killing and maiming the very people they say they are declaring independence for.

 Two weeks after the announcement I finally heard from Shaka.

 The fighters arrived in Gao by cover of night, not that they needed cover to enter the city as the peripheral forces of the former-army-come-rebels disintegrated without support. The city woke up to the news that it had new masters and the people stayed at home with doors locked and baited breath. They weren’t even aware who had taken over such was the diversity of groups now operating in the vast desert region.

 And then came the violence.

 A declaration. Any institution serving alcohol was to be destroyed. Anyone standing in the way was to be killed. The hotels and bars of the city were battered, torched and gutted. Their inhabitants murdered or chased from the scene as the city descended into Islamic-reinventionist hell. Shaka took everything he could carry before changing his mind, it would be better to carry his children. The family left as soon as the destruction started but could not escape without seeing twelve years of his life being torn town before his eyes.

 Mali continues to spin in a tumultuous sandstorm of ambiguity and turmoil. Shaka and his family are safely in Nigeria with his family. His children have never been there before; they are Malians, strangers who don’t speak the language. They have nothing. If you had told me two years ago that Shaka would have nothing in two years’ time I would have assumed it would be because he would have given everything he owned away. As it is, the world’s most generous man is going to start again. Miraculously he is neither daunted nor bitter.

 When another decade has passed and Mali has finished imploding and sits in its personal ruin, I wouldn’t bet against him having something bigger and better than before. And having touched another thousand hearts in the process.

 

Two blogs were published simultaneously so scroll down for Djibouti. 

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Detained in Djibouti and a jerry can.

12/04/2012 by admin.

  A quick country count says that Djibouti is my 20th African country and 90th country visited. You can add a big +1 to those numbers if you think that Western Sahara is a country although I guess most people don’t even know where it is (a clue is in the name!) Brandon and I were at an NGO party on the Friday night. We made a pact that if we ever become NGO workers and discover that the other has turned into one of those people then we will punch them. Twenty-two months in a country and not more than ten words of Somali, never more than three consecutive weeks before they need a break in Nairobi (or in one case Austria) and bonus hazard pay for being in a “war zone” which is higher than our actual pay. One girl had never even been downtown.

  We woke up bright and early the next morning and packed our bags for the airport. I had never taken a flight in or out of the Harg and had no idea what to expect. Bureaucracy, and bags of it. I had to physically restrain Brandon from starting a fight with an overzealous official who confiscated his prize shell. Then there was the 10$ departure tax which somehow differed from the $30 tax included in the ticket. Then there was the call for the flight an hour early with the plane departing 45 minutes early! Well, this is Somaliland. The plane itself was interesting, probably older than I am, there were fewer than thirty passengers on it. The leg room was larger than any first class flight and the windows creaked as the propellers whirled and the plane creaked forwards. No stewards patrolled the cabins so we didn’t fasten our seat belts. I wanted to fold down the tray table to see if the plane would fail to take off with it down. There wasn’t a tray table.

 

 As we were taking our seats the pilots walked through the cabin to the cockpit dressed in sandals, jeans and pink t-shirts. They looked Russian. We got off the ground and turned sharply to the north. We couldn’t have been more than twenty metres off the ground when they attempted this manoeuvre. “We are now at our cruising altitude of five metres.” Brandon joked, as the plane dropped a good five metres. We looked at each other quizzically and started to laugh. At least we would die laughing. I remembered a text message I had received that morning from a girl I had met at the party. “The pilots were at the party last night.” I hope they stayed off the juice.

 Forty-five minutes later and we were safely in Djibouti City, well ahead of schedule. The heat hit us as we descended the rear ramp of the plane. There was no front ramp, the pilot simply lowered a ladder and descended for a cigarette next to the re-fuelling tanker. We entered the air-conditioned terminal and filled in our landing cards. Everything that happened after this was in French.

 “Welcome to Djibouti. Everything seems to be in order. Do you have your onward flight tickets?” Onward flight tickets? I’ve been to both the Djiboutian Embassy in Addis and the Consulate in Dire Dawa and both told me expressly that I could fly in and bus out. Also two Couchsufers we hosted did it in January. “New rules.” Must be very new. “You cannot get a visa on arrival without an onward flight ticket. You will have to buy one.” Brandon had his and so went through to the visa room. I was taken upstairs. “Okay, go into this room and buy a ticket.” I walked into the room. It had a bench in it, otherwise it was empty.

 “Erm, buy the ticket where?”

 “Erm. Wait a minute.” He disappeared for a while and then came back. “You have to wait until 5 p.m. then the ticket office is open.” This is still a room. They took me down to see Brandon, who doesn’t speak a word of French, and I briefed him on what the hell was going on. He left the airport and I stayed downstairs in immigration when a smiling white guy walked in. It was Frederic, our Couchsurfing host, who had come to pick us up at the airport. We talked about the problem and he promised to be back at 5 p.m. having solved it. It wasn’t even 2.30.

 My new phone had only one game on it; fruit machine. I spent an hour trying to figure out how it worked before getting bored and trying to sleep on the metal bench. There was a closed cafeteria which briefly opened and accepted dollars but not $100 bills. A plane made an emergency stop at Djibouti. It was flying between Dubai and Mogadishu. It was full of diaspora flying home. It was full of bratty children. One of the emitted a high pitched squeal for a duration of ten seconds, every thirty seconds. Its mother was nowhere to be seen. I contemplated strangling the little bastard. “What is wrong with that child?” A tall Somali woman said beside me, in English. I don’t know but someone should strangle it. “I was thinking the same thing. I am Zara.” I’m Iain. “Are you going to Mogadishu?” No. I am just sitting in Djibouti airport.

 We talked for a couple of hours. She might be the most beautiful woman on the planet. Twenty-four and from Sweden. Unfortunately she is married and her three year old son was poking the squeaky child with a stick. At ten past five I was brought a flight ticket by the immigration police, Brandon and Frederic were back. Any chance you can leave me an extra twenty minutes with this girl? No. Okay, let’s get out of here. We drove downtown and ordered a beer. 500ml was 2000DJF (11.50$) Take me back to the airport!

 The next morning we took a ferry across the bay for forty kilometres to the small town of Obock. It sits in a picturesque location above an azure sea, but for all intents and purposes it is a hovel. We had a bit of food and sat on the beach before trying to find a way out of town. The police drove past us and stopped to talk. “Are you tourists?” Yes. “It’s not for tourists here.” Why? They just shrugged. Probably because there was nothing to see. We negotiated passage for the 70km trip to Tadjoura and tried there instead. Dropped at a small hotel on the beach. Beer was going at 330ml for $5 so we made a quick exit to the beach where we put up the tent and slept under the stars.

 The next morning we strolled around this non-descript town for an hour and had some breakfast before realising that we didn’t actually have a plan for Djibouti, save that Brandon had to fly to Armenia on Thursday. It was Monday. We asked around for transport to the mountains and were told there was none so we walked 10km out of town to a small roundabout junction. The road to the left went to Djibouti City and the one to the right led up to the mountains. We slept in the shade of an obscure sculpture superfluously, yet usefully for us, thrown up in the centre of the roundabout. Thirty minutes later a car stopped and asked if we wanted a lift up to Randa. Both of us were initially pissed off to have been woken but we hopped in and the car wound the twenty-nine kilometres up the hill to the small village.

 “Do you have accommodation?” A man with a plaster on his nose asked as soon as we were in the boot of the car. Erm, no. “You can stay with me. Do you have money? I can cook food.” We will see the village before we make a decision, thanks. “Have you decided yet?” No, we want to see what options there are. We have a tent anyway. “How about now?”  No, no, no! “What do you want?” To be left in peace and look at the scenery. The others in the car told him to leave me alone. Brandon sat happily ignoring everyone, although he would have done the same had he spoken a mutual language with them.

 Randa looked like the village from ‘the Hills Have Eyes’. We found some lunch and sat in the shade whilst a man spoke to us in broken French. “Don’t you want some qat?” Green pulp fell out of his mouth as he spoke. “It’s very good.” It’s for goats. He looked offended. “Where you go?” Djibouti Ville. “I drive there tomorrow, you come with me.” We want to go to the Lac Assal junction and walk the rest of the way. “No, not possible.” Well, we will pay you the full fare. “No, you not make it.” Okay, well we will find some other transport. “No, I take you now.” We declined and went for a walk around the village led by a French speaking twenty-six year old who had a crush on both of us. She muttered non-stop about a reservation for the restaurant. We popped into the restaurant to find out they weren’t doing food that day and the village had no electricity.

 We decided to walk back to Tadjoura for electricity and a diet coke. We had been walking for about 10km when a car stopped and offered us a lift. It was almost forty kilometres to the beach town. We slept on the same spot on the beach and returned to town for breakfast before hitching a lift with some French sailors who were driving up to Randa. They dropped as at the roundabout from the previous day where we had a three hour wait in the shade for a car towards Djibouti Ville. An old man was hitching up to Randa, he walked to the entrance of the water bottling plant by the junction and came back with ice cold water. Eventually a guy stopped for us and dropped us at the junction to Lac Assal, a mere 17km away. It was 15:35.

 A mile down the path we hit a village which seems to exist simply on Aid hand outs. There wasn’t a single shop. The police called us over and asked where we were going. I explained we had enough water and food and would be walking down to the lake, the lowest point on the African continent at -150m below sea level. It took us a couple of hours to arrive at the moon-like lake with a thick salty crust. It was too salty for anything to live in it and so salty that we floated in tea-temperature water. The sun set as we arrived and Afar traders sold blocks of salt but nothing of interest to travellers (i.e. food and drink.) We didn’t feel comfortable camping around so many of them so we walked back up after two hours of swimming and enjoying the warmth of the water.

 The wind was horrific, amongst the strongest I’ve ever felt. It took us a long time to get back to the police station where they let us pitch our tent for the night. The next morning we were back in Djibouti Ville by thumb at around ten a.m. We toured the city and took photographs before returning to our host’s house and a couple of cold beers. I’d like to say we had a wild last night but on our budget there wasn’t much we could afford. I was particularly sad to see I would miss a Karaoke party on the 14th of April! The next morning we said goodbye and I took a bus to Ethiopia.

 The bus to the border was a dilapidated minibus. It left over two hours later than it was supposed to and very quickly made it to immigration, a mere hundred kilometres away. Djibouti wins an award for the weirdest border I have ever come across. A huge cage sits right beside the immigration point. A cage full of people. They are slumped forlornly in the darkness looking out through the bars. There are probably twenty or so of them in a space which could comfortably hold around fifty. Their eyes reach through the bars but they don’t speak to me. They don’t speak French and presumably don’t think I can speak anything else. A few of the passengers give them cigarettes. I am stamped out of Djibouti with no fuss and then we are driven to Ethiopia.

 The Ethiopian side of the border is more chaotic. Bags. People. Dogs. We were given a voucher on the previous bus, it means we can get on any public bus to Dire Dawa. With no bags to be searched I get on the first bus. It drives for thirty minutes, and breaks down. I don’t have a seat, rather I have a jerry can with a thin cushion on it. I am sitting in the aisle between two old ladies, one of whom almost takes me out with her handbag. We get to a small restaurant and stop for lunch, it is nine in the morning. Start again. Customs, for some reason it is one hundred kilometres inside Ethiopia. It takes an hour to pass customs. I ring Eyerusalem, it is ten a.m. so I figure I am safe to arrange to pick her up at seven for our second date. (Despite my earlier, shall we say, lack of tact she had agreed to give me a second chance.) Nine hours seemed like it would be enough time, we only had one hundred and fifty kilometres to go. We all piled back on after the customs check and promptly stopped one hundred metres down the road. The driver and his assistant got out and started to repair something which we couldn’t see. Nothing untoward seemed to have happened in that hundred metres but I hoped they hadn’t neglected to do their repair work in the previous hour, knowing it had to be done.

 It took two hours to repair the problem. The women left the bus and sat in the shade. The men left the bus and crowded the driver giving him advice despite none of them having any expertise in mechanics. I lay down across a bench and slept until the other passengers prodded me to move, we were going. Our ETA into Dire Dawa had originally been three p.m. and that accounted for all of the regular bullshit one comes across on an African bus journey. It was exactly seven when we crawled into Dire Dawa. I had no idea where I had been dropped off but it only took me ten minutes to find my way to my hotel where Eyerusalem was waiting patiently. “Beer, water and whatever you want for yourself. I will be back in one minute.” I changed,  washed up, checked in and we went out for wine.

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