I was away on vacation ,came back and no SOL(what a disappointment) but I'm glad everything is back to normal now.Kudos to the site Admin.

^^^Yeap 8 days macaanto...... Ever heard the Somali saying "Lama Huraan waa caws jilaal " well feels like that today Waxa kala been.........

^^^^^LOL.....Waan kula qasaan lahaa maanta but it just so happens to be my last day of work b4 taking off for the next 8 days for a well deserved rest.Cirka ayaan marayaa markaas dhulka qof guurguranayoo kuma soo noqnoqon karo Lucky Trust me walaalo you weren't that much help with Nefertiti but you know what they say "its the thought that counts" Gracias Ever heard the Somali saying "Lama Huraan waa caws jilaal Lucky"well feels like that today me n Flying...

Sow maan garan.Anaad shaqo iga dhiganeysaa miyaa markaas.Bal horta take a seat & have a cup of tea.Is dhaji xanaaq ma fiicna.......

Maanta ma shaqo la'aan baa dhacdey.....or did the boss go home early today..

Flying is on fire today......Iga qalee nooh reer magalka saas lagu yaaqaney.

^^^^Flying Still Adiguna faro dheeridaa.Meesha filmka fiirso nooh.

Hehehehehe I cant help but wonder when Nefertiti will recognize Lucky played her.Intey rag kugu dirtey bey kii ugu horeyey Shukansi 101 la gashey......WAKE UP Nefertiti...........

Politicians are a different breed once they taste power they can't let go.Its the hardest thing to relinquish but the singers you gotta admit there's no one to replace them yet. Kuwa maanta joooga can't compose or write a decent song and they sure as hell can't even tell the differece between whether the song was meant for a girl or a guy.

Originally posted by Opinionated: What does the actions of the Indian people have to do with Somali men? Every culture has its bad side ...even ours! :rolleyes: Dont you think you have exhausted this line?? :rolleyes: :rolleyes: Thanks Barwaaqo for the article.This practice is not only confined to India but takes place in Bangaladesh,Nepal,Pakistan,Afghanistan and is also carried out more discreetly in some of the Arab countries.In most cases honor killings are carried out on mere speculation like seeing a girl walk down the street alongside a boy,but the most tragic case I heard was when a husband killed his wife claiming she was being unfaithful.The truth was he fell for her younger sister and under their strict family laws he would not divorce her so he killed her and ended up marrying the younger one as XAAL.Ironically there are laws that would bring these killers to court but they are never enforced.

Bari If you and reer "Somali-Weyn" (note I put Somali-Weyn in inverted commas because I know and we all know in taas idinka aheyn dacadnimo oo wax kale lagu walaaqayo)had the chance nimcada Ilaahey in eey ka hor istaagtaan Somaliland umaad neefesan laheeyn.In the blink of an eye ayaad cirka ka shiraaqi laheed.

Originally posted by OG_Moti: ok this is where i get personal... forgive me dear nomads but i will try hard to be polite... 1. nothing in somaliland, all the green and farms are in south not to mention animal resources or what is left of, somaliland is a dry land how would people survive, beside that eithopia has a big eye on somaliland and will eventually take control if we dont do something about it... OG Hope this puts to rest your dry theory of Somaliland.This just shows your lake of knowledge of an area that you all talk about but have no idea of ..... Originally posted by OG_Moti: conclusion i suggest somaliland stays the way they are and over come thier tribal differences with negotition rather than power and no matter what, never deal with eithopia.. "difficult" but possible... OG what tribal differences are you reffering to here.We have passed that stage long ago saaxiib.This above paragraph waa simple disinformation of the innocent folks in SOL

Thats a very good question dawaco.I actually know the first woman in that article.I have known her for a while now and seen first hand what she goes through daily trying hard to make ends meet.Inspite all the hardships she encounters she always has a smile on her face and Mansha Allah is raising her kids very well.I think as a Somali when I see a westerner write our suffering we tend to get a little suspicious thinking maybe they have ulterior motives behind it but this article truly depicts what Maryan and whole lot of other Somali women go through daily.

Somalian Women in N.Va. Struggle With Past, Present Widows, Traumatized by War, Face Poverty in New Home By David Cho Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, August 28, 2003; Page B01 They are, in several respects, like so many other refugees newly arrived in the Washington area. Most came here speaking little or no English, with few possessions beyond what they wore. Clustered together, often in crowded apartments with their children, they shared a harrowing history in their native country and harbored the struggling immigrant's dream of a better life in this one. But these women of Somalia are different in one major way: Close to half, according to a recent local survey, are widows. Having lost their husbands in Somalia's brutal, prolonged civil war, thousands of them fled to this country, where they face a new struggle: how to support their families as single parents with few, if any, marketable skills. In Northern Virginia, where nearly all of the region's 2,800 Somalis live, the number of single-parent households has caught the attention of local officials. Fairfax County, which surveyed the Somalian community in 2000, found that the incidence of single parents was more than double the county's average. In Somalia, the women were brought up with the expectation that they would marry and raise children. Education was not a priority, they say, and many never finished what schooling was available. Now they are the sole support of their children, often in low-paying jobs -- if they can find them. Sixty percent of the women in the Fairfax survey were unemployed. Of those with jobs, two-thirds made less than $15,000 a year, and 86 percent said they made less than $25,000. As a group, they are by far the poorest of the immigrant poor, the study showed. Dennis Hunt, director of the nonprofit Center for Multicultural Human Services in Falls Church, said focus groups and outreach efforts to help the women made it "clear that many were depressed. . . . They said they have trouble sleeping at night; they jump and startle at loud noises. They showed symptoms that they were traumatized . . . [and] there is great pressure to be employed." Mariam Farah, 40, is raising two children by herself but can remember a time of relative luxury for her family. Her husband was a prominent geologist who worked for think tanks in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, she said. In late 1990, he got a job at home in Somalia and landed in Mogadishu, the capital, not realizing trouble was brewing. Days later, civil war broke out. All Farah knows is that he was shot on the street. In the next few years, she would lose others close to her: her sister, whose head was cut off by rebels outside her home; her sister-in-law, killed by a rocket grenade; her brother, shot when he yelled at soldiers looting a neighbor's home. As the war intensified, Farah fled with her children to refugee camps in Kenya and then Pakistan. In November 2000, she was given asylum in the United States. She came to Fairfax because other mothers she had met in the camps and now considered her friends had settled in Northern Virginia. They helped her find employment and apply for food stamps, Medicaid and other assistance from the county's Department of Family Services. Even though Farah was better positioned than most Somalis -- she had above-average English skills gained from two years at a Somalian college -- she found it difficult to stay employed, in part because she had never held a 9-to-5 job before. Four months after she arrived, she was homeless and signing up for affordable housing. Life was extraordinarily busy for a time. She took two jobs, working full time at a gourmet food company and part time at a multiplex cinema. That meant scrambling to pick up or drop off her children and finding someone to watch them when school was out. She bought a van that always seemed to be on the edge of breaking down. She eked out four or five hours of sleep each night. Her life began to come unhinged late last year. In December, she was laid off from her full-time job. In February, the two-year limit on her housing subsidy expired. And earlier this month she was fired from her $7-an-hour part-time theater job because, she said, she used her pass to allow her daughter and a friend to see a new movie. The pass is restricted to older movies, she said. Now she is without a job, and the bills are piling up. "My account is zero," she said. "I'm worried. I'm counting the days because . . . I cannot afford the rent." In Northern Virginia, Fairfax and Arlington offer adult education classes that help refugees learn English and basic skills such as how to interview for a job, dress for work and use public transportation. To enhance their employability, sessions are offered that allow them to practice working at a department store, for example. Even this is a struggle for some. Teacher Kathy Dunn recalled one recent student who had trouble focusing. The student said she was haunted by the memory of watching rebels kill her 4-year-old son. "They are facing possible homelessness and bills, and I think some of them are just worn out," Dunn said. The 2000 Fairfax survey is one of the few recent studies providing insight into the Somalian community in the United States, analysts said. The U.S. Census Bureau counted 20,000 Somalis nationwide in 2000, not enough to warrant release of detailed data. In an attempt to draw attention to the plight of the single mothers, local Somalian leaders have been talking with officials about establishing a cultural center in Fairfax where the women could support one another and learn job skills, while their children could be taught about their heritage. Mohammed Issa, president of the Somali Development Council, a local nonprofit group started last year to aid the mothers, said some in the community are worried that the children lack guidance and are getting into trouble at school or with the law. They have little appreciation for their culture, he said, because their country has been enmeshed in war for so long. Somalia's latest civil strife began in 1990, when several clans invaded the capital and took power. The West initially intervened to keep the peace, but U.S. involvement waned after a 1993 incident in which a Black Hawk helicopter was downed in Mogadishu and 18 Americans and untold numbers of Somalis were killed. By 1995, the country had been left to the warlords, and as they battled for power, hundreds of thousands died and millions were displaced. A 44-year-old farmer's wife named Halimo, who now lives in Annandale with her seven children, was among them. She remembers fleeing with others down long, dusty roads -- a miserable journey made more so by the fact that so many of the women were mourning their husbands. Halimo lost hers, a corn and melon farmer, when he tried to elude a militia group sent to press him into military service and was shot. Halimo and her children fled to Kenya. Along the way, she said, the bodies of the dead littered the roads. Since arriving in this country in 2000, she has had trouble holding a job, partly because she speaks almost no English and has little schooling. She spoke with a reporter on the condition that her last name not be used because, she said, she is embarrassed that she cannot provide for her family. Her hope now lies in her children. Her eldest, who is 25, works in a grocery store. Soon the others will be old enough to have jobs, too. "I'm hopeful because my kids are growing up and they will finish high school," she said through an interpreter. "I feel the void left by my husband. . . . Now my children will have to help sustain this family."

Here's another interesting article.I actually saw this on MSNBC last night and some of the "alleged" victims now have a lawyer who has brought criminal charges against the Colonel......Enjoy =============================================================== Serial Proposer Army Officer Accused of Proposing to Dozens Now Faces Wrath of Duped Women ABCNEWS.com June 12 — U.S. Army Col. Kassem Saleh seemed like a dream — a Taliban-battling soldier with the soul of a poet who wrote intoxicating love letters home. The trouble was, he was doing a lot of writing. Saleh was allegedly romancing and even proposing to some 50 women across the United States and Canada whom he had met through online dating sites including www.Christiansingles.com, Match.com and tallpersonals.com. Worse still, he is reportedly married. ''You are my world, my life, my love and my universe," Saleh allegedly wrote in one cyber love note. Another woman said she received this e-mail from Saleh: "You and the thought of you have created a desire so deep within my soul that I cannot fathom a time I will ever be without you." The women found out about the multiple proposals after an Internet news site ran a story about a woman in Washington state who said she was waiting to become Saleh's wartime bride. Soon, calls were pouring into KNDU-TV from other women who said that they were engaged to Saleh. Romancing the 'Monk Warrior' Robin Solod, 42, of New York, is one of the women who says she was duped. Seven months ago, she met Saleh through the www.tallpersonals.com dating site, and they began an online courtship. She felt that Saleh's letters were more romantic than the works of poets William Butler Yeats or Robert Browning, and she soon fell in love, Solod said. Then, five months ago, the 50-year-old colonel proposed. Solod said yes. Then she read about another of his "fiancées" on the Internet. "I was crushed … the total deceit, the betrayal," Solod said on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. Solod said Saleh told her that the reports of his many proposals were false. "Now, this girl from Brooklyn was born at night, but not last night," said Solod in response to Saleh's excuse. She says he never apologized to her. Some of the women say Saleh claimed to be divorced and called himself the monk warrior because he hadn't had sex in 10 years. Though she was impressed with his action-packed adventures in the military, it was Saleh's flowery words that drew Solod. "The letters were totally intoxicating," Solod said. "He totally swept me off my feet," she said. Army Investigating Colonel The women say Saleh interspersed the e-mails with phone calls from what he termed "the front lines" in Afghanistan. While he was proposing to some of the women, he reportedly remained lawfully married to a wife who continues to share a home with him in Fayetteville, N.C. The Army is investigating the incidents, though it is unclear at this point whether his alleged actions violated either criminal law or Army regulations. Saleh is a 29-year Army veteran who helped bring down the Taliban, and later helped lead reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. He is currently stationed with the Army's 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, N.C. Solod said she would like to see Saleh court-martialed. She said that he sent her a photo of a motorcycle with a bomb on the back which she understood to be a piece of confidential military information. Solod came out in public about the issue because she said that the Army was such a "sexist" institution that she feared there would be no reprisal for Saleh from the military. What Phone Call? At least two of the women had already purchased wedding gowns. Now, the women are comparing e-mails and finding that Saleh must have cut and pasted the same copy into multiple letters. Another woman who said she met Saleh through www.tallpersonals.com, where he claimed he had been 6'5" until parachute jumps caused him to shrink down to 5'9", said she became suspicious when Saleh slipped up in a e-mail to her. In it Saleh wrote "when we got off the phone in the middle of the night," but the woman, who wanted her name withheld, said he had never called her. Solod said she got caught up in the romance, and even her therapist warned her that something was awry after he proposed. She is now dating another man she met through a dating site, but she says she is much more careful now. Still, Solod says she would like to see Saleh come to terms with what he did to her and the other women who believed he loved them. "He has to have accountability," Solod said. "I would refer him to the American Psychiatric Association. This is a man that has no sense of conscience," she said.

Saangaabta ayaa uga soo qabatey Shayma....

^^^^Qac Qac .....I tried that line but no1 bought that.Oh by the way that I love Somali women waa trade mark of mine so you better come up with something else otherwise I will start charging royalty fees.

Gaalka cad muxuu yidhi Hope for the best expect the worst....Mise it was the other way round.Nways arrinkeygu waa sidaan sheegey,I'm willing to work with ever I get and learn to appreciate that...

What ever works for her ayaan kula dhaqmi doonaa.

Shayma why fight the inevitable.Markey tidhaa macanoow where's the chocolate anaa u keeni doona tell her Cun cun till she can no longer eat.Xaalku waa Move over Halle Berry,Hello to Baruur and stretch marks.

^^^^^^^^^LOL@Digaagad xafeshdey....I was a little more subtle but I meant it when I said We love you just the way you are.Anigu personally haddi xaasku stretch marks iyo baruur yelaan weydo walee waxaan odhan lahaa kan malaha ku maad farayareysan ee mid kale ayaan kaga raadineynaa........

^^^^^^^^Haaruun yes laakin the dudes hanging out by Somali malls waa odeyall sharbo libaax ah.I would say nuthin wrong with 15-22 or maybe 23 year olds to hang out there but puhlz not odeyall.

Sorry to burst anyone's bubble here but Somali women have a tendency to grow biiiiiig after concieving kids.Marry a halle Berry lookalike and after a couple of kids Furaash looma baahna.So all that body image BS you all dream of is really after all just a dream but we still love you the way you are.

Originally posted by Entrepreneur: Brother Ayoub-sheikh, The usage of "adoon" was out of anger and if that offended you or any other reader- my heartfelt appology. I use the "adoon" word to differentiate between the somalis and non-somalis. I disagree to your thesis that somalis in Kenya have made strides. saaxib, the NFD despite all its resources is backward in terms of economic development and education not to mention the constant denial of basic civil rights. Just to name a few things: *North eastern is the only province in kenya that lacks tarmac roads. *There is no massmedia represented (the two largest dailies don't report on development from NEP) *Exams (KCE) have been cancelled on several occassions contributing to the lack of somalis who enter universities. *there is still state of emergency (the police force in NFD wear special uniforms and have the right to detain and shot "shifts". *as a somali born in the NFD or in kenya for that matter, you can hardly walk in the streets of nairobi, mombasa, nakuru etc without being asked "lete kpande" *you are denied passport ( a basic right that other kenyans enjoy) *rape of somali women is sanctioned!!! etc... I feel your pain and anguish Entrepenuer because I have witnessed similar tragedies but not the hands of kenyans or Ethiopians but at the hands of fellow Somalis themselves.

Ouch Lucky bites guys, so be carefull