Free in Cool Hargeisa

[Jacaylbaro]

We flew from Bossaso on the Gulf of Aden straight to Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland. We skirted the coastline for a while and then turned south-west and over the Golis Mountains.

 

They are saying that there are al-Shabaab fighters down there in the mountains – fighters forced out from Mogadishu and places further south.

 

I couldn’t see them. Also, I failed to work out how they couldn’t be seen in that barren and rugged wasteland, with no tree cover at all.

 

Bossaso in Puntland had been unrelentingly hot. And the NGO guest house where I was staying had a strange timing for the air-conditioning system in the bedrooms: on at 6 pm and off at 6 am, or even earlier. So, each morning, by the time my alarm went off I was already bathed in sweat.

 

It was very refreshing to be in the much cooler Hargeisa. You needed a jacket or a sweater to sit outside in the evenings.

 

And it was a pleasure to be able to walk in the streets, take a bus ride, go shopping, or sit in a café – without being attended by an armed guard.

 

I was staying at a, for me, new hotel – the Safari – in the western fringe of the city. It is very much a “local” hotel – there were no other mzungu expats staying the week I was there.

 

It was good value for the $31 I was paying: a double room, so that I could have more space for hanging clothes and working at a desk.

 

There was an en-suite bathroom with hot water, and a television with both local and international channels.

 

The Safari was especially busy in the early evenings, when men – only men, it seemed – gathered for chatting round the tables set out in the small inner courtyards, or for meals in the separate and secluded rooms that lined the courtyard gardens.

 

The menu was a delight. The staff, all male, were very friendly and solicitous. By the second day of my week’s stay, I became known as the “young Englishman”.

 

The actually young guys serving in the mini-supermarkets along the street were also very ready to chat and to practise their English.

 

There is a mosque just across the street from the hotel. I can appreciate what the explorer, Richard Burton, said: that the muezzin’s call to pray is more tuneful than the bells of a Christian church – though it really does sound sweeter without the loudspeakers.

 

But when the muezzin woke me every morning at 4.30 am, I remembered the story of the reckless British officer who, back in the 1890s, lost his cool in a big way, and did something that was one of the reasons for the uprising against the British occupation of Somaliland by Sayyid Mohamed Abdulle Hassan – called the “Mad Mullah” by the British.

 

The story goes that the officer had his bungalow in Berbera right alongside a mosque. He had, insensitively, protested about being disturbed by the constant calls to prayer. Until one morning he took his gun and shot the muezzin down from his minaret ... The Mad Mullah’s rebellion lasted for 20 years ...

 

There was a young Somali lad of 14 (let’s call him Ahmed), staying at the hotel with his father. One day we got chatting. He told me he was born in the UK and had grown up in the East End of London. His father had brought him back to Somaliland for a year.

 

“My father didn’t want me to get into trouble back there,” he said. “Like having wrong friends, getting mixed up with a gang, and all that stuff.”

 

“So how are you finding Hargeisa?” I asked. “It’s so boring. No entertainment at all. Nothing to do. I have been here for three months – and I can’t imagine staying a year.”

 

I can imagine how a youngster like that must feel. But, for me, there are some clear positives about Hargeisa. The city is expanding fast.

 

Business seems to be healthy. There are many new buildings going up. There are good and busy hotels like the Ambassador, the Man-Soor, the Oriental – and the Safari. I took a walk up the street from the hotel and, within 15 minutes, came across three Ethiopian restaurants ...

 

Maybe these are not things to impress young Ahmed from London. But when you have just spent a week cooped up in a guest house in Bossaso and driven only in guarded convoys, then it is a good feeling to be able to walk the streets again.

[Jacaylbaro]

FULL STORY HERE

[burahadeer]

you know what you getting into.. ensuing fight about bosaso:D

[Jacaylbaro]

Fight with Daily Nation ??

[MoonLight1]

the Dr will hit back soon;)

[Jacaylbaro]

..

 

After 24hrs, I don't think he will ...

[Dr_Osman]

I already hit back with WHY DOES EVERYONE HATE THIS STATE

[Dr_Osman]

I love puntland because i see development. I dont care wat some journalist says, as long as the ppl are prospering im a happy man

[Jacaylbaro]

But when you have just spent a week cooped up in a guest house in Bossaso and driven only in guarded convoys, then it is a good feeling to be able to walk the streets again.

I guess it is not a hate .... it is showing the reality on the ground

[Dr_Osman]

Um yeah makes alot of sense. That is why we have the biggest investment project happening in Somalia with the oil drilling yet it is not safe. That makes alot of sense doesnt it.

[Dr_Osman]

Also Bosaso is not that hot. I already have disproven this. A simple weather check of somalian cities will tell you waxba isma dhaaman

[burahadeer]

atlast

[Dr_Osman]

Yeah this such bad city. Soo overcrowded and developed its like crazy new york

 

 

That reporters needs to know what his talking about. Soco dheh duli

[Jacaylbaro]

The reporter is talking about his presence in Bosaso not how many Somalis are living there ..... it is a different situation when you are a foreigner and when you are a Somali ,, right ??

 

He had a Foreigner experience ......

[Dr_Osman]

Jacaylbaro horta ina adeerkaga oo looga yaqan bosaso kaba caseeye, uu sheeg bosaso is bad

 

7:40 mark