UNITED WE BUILD ROADS

[Jacaylbaro]

The people of Awdal have again demonstrated that the people’s will power is mightier than the power of the government and all international aid organizations put together. With a masterstroke by the industrious and visionary leadership of Borama Mayor Abdi Shide Bile, the Awdal people have realized that help will not fall from the sky; that waiting for assistance from the government and international donor bodies is like waiting to see the sun rise from the west; that throwing wishes in the air and daydreaming would not turn a stone let alone build roads.

 

The Mayor’s initiative to build a two-kilometer tarmac road in the middle of Borama town, the first tarmac road to run through Borama in more than 90 years, is nothing less than heroic. It rekindled Awdal’s famous self-help spirit that started in the 1950s. It re-ignited that will power which propelled the building of many of the region’s schools, hospitals and dams, the spirit of self-reliance that established such memorable projects as Sheikh Ali Jowhar Secondary School, and Amoud University. It reawakened the determination fabled by “the pay a shilling, buy a cow, build a school” slogan on which the Abu Qais elementary was built.

 

Abdi Shide Bile has indeed served (Abdi), ignited (Shide) and glorified (Bile) his town and people true to the meaning of his name. Equally astounding is the historical initiative of Borama businessmen and businesswomen who established Awdal Roads Network Association (ARNA), who embarked on the rehabilitation of the inaccessible 30-km road between Dilla and Borama. This is the beauty of community work, the fruits of honesty and the strength of determination and unity.

 

Thank you honorable Mayor, thank you for your vision, your patriotism, your honesty and above all your leadership. Thanks also to ARNA and to all those who are behind it. We admire you as the authors of glorious pages of our people’s history. You have demonstrated that roads rise and fall by the people’s determination and unity.

 

 

Here

[Suldaanka]

^Well done to rer Borama. Very inspirational people.

 

Indeed, "United" not only will we build roads but a whole nation from the ground up.

[stoit]

That was on truely one good story. Oh how i wish that people would realise that if they dont act for their good they might just as well hand themselves in as slaves.

 

There is a persistent belief among many of us africans that nothing can be done if not done by the west. I even met a few eglish people that say that blacks canot rule themselves and must therefor be ruled.

 

It is also widely believed that we cant feed ourselves and that is why all we here of is aid for africa. The truth is we dont know how to work with each other. To come out cleverer in any interaction than the rest, is more important than to cooperate to eliminate an obstacle. We are not realy firmly grounded in reality and it is sad to say that. But how much pain and suffering and death must it then take before the light in our heads get ignited and we all go ooooooh aaaaaah i see ! its cooperation ! it was cooperation all along even when we were told by the west that it is competition. The competion is only to cooperate.

 

Nothing was ever realy achieved by competition if you think of it, for even competition ends up in cooperation to be fruitfull otherwise it is just as destructive as an all out war.

 

It is said that the last word in politics as well as everything else is coordibated energy. That i also think ought to be the last frontier to be captured by mankind in order to move on to higher consciousness.

 

That will be the final print on the pages of life if we are to escape destruction by our own hands.