Somaliland

Hot, dusty, and frustrating...sounds good to me.
-Lonely Planet Thorn Tree post


My latest country, Somaliland, is so well off the beaten path that it isn't even a country. Yet.

Somalia as a whole is shaped like a "7," with the Red Sea to the north and east, Djibouti to the NW, Ethiopia to the east, and Kenya to the south. The majority of the country has suffered through varying states of anarchy since 1991 when dictator Siad Barre was over-thrown and replaced by various waring clans. One region of the country though, the northern region of Somaliland, used this opportunity to delcare its indpeendence after having fought for years against the south. It has since turned into a rare success story in the Horn of Africa.

This is where I set off to visit.

Somaliland is at the very top of Somalia. To its east lies another autonomous region, Puntland, and below that lies Somalia-proper. Somalia-proper was governed by regional tribal chiefs until 2006 when the radical "Islamic Court Union" took it over. At this point, Ethiopia, who has never been a fan of Somalia, invaded them to prop up the US-backed central government which in reality governed only parts of a single city. This turned into their own personal Iraq and they finally pulled out, having accomplished nothing, just a couple weeks ago. Puntland, who still recognizes themselves as part of a greater-Somalia, has fared little better. It is off this coast that all of the recent piracy issues have occurred. I'm going nowhere near Puntland because I risk getting shot or, much worse, getting kidnapped and having to explain to the nearest US consulate and my mother (hi Mom!) why I was stupid enough to go there in the first place.

But Somaliland has always thought of itself as something apart. They don't like violence and pride themselves on being an island of calm surrounded by a stormy sea of violence in the Horn. The emblem of the police force here is a type of desert deer which I've seen a couple times, a docile, tasty-looking animal that runs as soon as it sees humans. It isn't an accident, I've been told; indeed, the police are very honest, careful, and courteous. The only real violence that Somaliland has seen recently were a trio of suicide bombings here in October courtesy of some crazies who came up from the South. These bombers were a real shock to a country which otherwise has seen none of the violence that has been the norm in the south.

The country forms a weird juxtaposition between two conflicting beliefs regarding the level of danger to tourists. The first belief, that of backpackers, most locals, businessmen, and actual news reports, is that the country is incredibly safe and poses absolutely no risk. This is the view that I take. The lack of violence here since 1988 is stunning and there is no evidence that foreigners are targeted for any reason. The locals are equally safe. Most everyone is friendly and appears to like Americans . . . or at least those who voted for Barack Obama. People are anxious to appeal to tourists and are naturally extremely friendly and hospitable. When I ask them what they think about me wandering alone they swear to its safety. With all this in mind, I have come to think of this country as far safer than Minnesota.

The second belief is taken by foreign state departments, the Somaliland authorities, aid agencies, and the those with long memories. Hargesia was leveled to the ground in the war for independence in the late 1980s and the affects are still felt. The AK-47, a normal feature of travel in Africa, is a standard here with security forces and you get used to seeing it around. I've been told that there are fantastic weapons bizarres in the east which feature everything from hand guns to anti-aircraft guns. Fortunately, the roads to these towns are closed to foreigners so I won't be checking them out. A little closer to home, my hotel in the capital Hargesia has a picture of a knife, handgun, AK-47, and hang grenade on the front door, all with a red "X" through them. You can imagine how reassuring that is. (The front desk, by the way, also has a no-smoking sign. So, you know, you can't do that either.)

Various state departments, who have a Fox News-like tendency to hyperventilate when it comes to foreigners and violence, warn against travel here, though most I've talked to to dismiss these warnings out of hand. The aid agencies, who I find annoying in this region, pulled out after the bombings and most have yet to come back. Perhaps, however, agencies and foreign governments are simply taking their cue from the Somaliland authorities, whose paranoia makes travel difficult.

The world has refused to recognize Somaliland's independence, so the foreign investment desperately needed here has yet to show up. It's stuck in a sort of international no-man's land and they get almost no visitors. Most tourists get their visas from the Addis Ababa consulate, and when I was there I was the 14th person of the year to have gotten a visa two weeks into January.

The lack of visitors appears to be for three main reasons. First off, the authorities are worried that any visitor getting injured, kidnapped, or killed could derail an international recognition which is potentially is only months away. Consequently, they make it very difficult to go anywhere . . . I've never encountered a country with more red tape. Secondly, there is little infrastructure in place. Finally, many tourists just don't know about Somaliland.

The trip from Harar to Hargesia, the capital of Somaliland, was one of the more excruciating I have ever had. The border crossing, at a dirty, broken town called Wachale, offered up an indication of the depth of the rabbit hole I had fallen into when the security agent opened up my bag for a search and discovered, oh God, my stash of alka selzter. He glossed over the the two 18-inch Afar knives I had in my bag but freaked out over my pills for stomach acid. It might have been okay had he spoken English, but when you're trying to communicate to a Somali-speaker what heartburn is, you run into problems. Eventually I basically shouted at him in frustration "It's for my hang-overs!" and mimicked drinking and then pretended to look ill. He looked at me, laughed, and let me pass no problem. I realized later that he still probably didn't understand what I was talking about - because booze is illegal in Somaliland - but was tired of trying to get a bribe out of me.

Hargesia doesn't act much like a capital city. The tallest buildings are perhaps six stories, and even those don't number more than a dozen. The rest of the city is sprawled out into the desert, colored with endless trash, wandering goats, the typical stalls hawking everything, and the occasional meandering camel. The roads are crazy, and the dust covers everything. It acts more like a frontier town than a capital city.

Upon arriving, I threw my bags in my room and set off into the heart of the city to do my typical first-day exploration for future restaurants, stores, and markets. However, I ran into a problem after less than five minutes when a plain-clothed police officer picked me up and drove me to the nearest police station. I wasn't worried, as I assumed I needed to check in or something, but instead I was brought before the police chief who drilled me for fifteen minutes about my visit. What I a journalist? Was I alone? Why wasn't I traveling with anyone else? How did I get here? Am I sure I'm not a journalist? How long was I going to stay in Hargesia? How long in Somaliland? Am I positive I'm not a journalist??? I fielded these questions as best I could and, for the first time in my trip, passed around a bunch of Obama stickers I brought for this very purpose to the small group of policemen who had gathered in the room.

Eventually, satisfied that I didn't pose a threat, the chief turned extremely friendly and offered a lieutenant to drive me around. I wasn't about to pass up a free ride, so I jumped into a 4X4 with three officers and they took me on a tour of the city, going through the camel market on the outside of town, the goldsmith section, and a number of other rather interested locations. They dropped me off at my hotel warning me not to wander around by myself. I agreed, and then immediately tried to exit through a back door to explore on my own. The same truck was waiting for me.

"Don't go out by yourself," they repeated.

ARGH! I was to learn, in the coming days, that this was standard procedure. It seems that authorities here had a massive over-reaction to the October bombings and decided that to ensure that tourists were kept utterly and completely safe they wouldn't be allowed to do anything. If they had their way, I would never leave the hotel. In the first three days in Hargesia I was picked up a total of five times by police. They quickly began to remind me of the over-protective mother whose son has never kissed a girl, let alone broken a bone.

Soon, after I had doled out a number of Obama stickers and made friends with enough of the policemen, they apparently decided that I was an alright guy so they stuck to giving me lifts when they saw me or just tossing me a friendly wave. Whew.

But then it was on to the regular population. It seems the further east I travel from Addis Ababa, the more of a spectacle I become. My hotel was downtown, away from where the aid workers stay, so I was the only white guy around. In Hargesia, as elsewhere in the country when I walk around, people are positively shocked to see me. Everyone, and I mean that, wants to stop and talk. I guess I hadn't prepared myself for that, but in reality, it's sometimes like swimming against a tidal wave.

Anyone who approaches me initially guesses that I'm German, which to me is like guessing that my favorite food is ketchup or my hero is James Dobson. But when I tell them I'm American, they get really excited and profess a huge love for Obama and America, which a nice change. And when I say I'm a tourist, a lot of people seem to get confused. This seems to be because most foreigners here are 1) Aid workers, 2) Reporters, or 3) Smugglers/gun runners. They get a huge charge out of the fact that I'm just . . . visiting.

Speaking of the third option, I was walking down the street the other day and a guy grabbed me and asked if I was a reporter. I assumed this to be normal conversation starter, but when I said no he brought me into his empty "shop", locked the door, and dumped a small pile of diamonds on the table and asked how much I wanted to pay for them.

"I hate diamonds," was my truthful reply.

"Okay, my friend, then wait one minute," he said, and went into a back room. When he returned, he had a slightly smaller pile of rubies which he placed on the table. "How much you pay for these?"

Stalling, trying to think of a way to get away from this creepy guy, I asked how much one cost.

"No buy one, only buy all!" he insisted.

"Okay, where did you get these?"

"In the desert, I go, and look around, and see them."

"And they're already polished? I think I need to go."

So I left. That being said, however, the other foreigners in my hotel were two Chinese who are also smugglers, so I can always get my hands on some diamonds from them if I change my mind.

Site-wise, as I indicated, there hasn't been much to get excited about. It took me a full day in order to secure a permit to travel to a place called Las Geel, located 40 kilometers outside of town. Las Geel has some neolithic rock paintings that are up to 11,000 years old, some of the oldest in Africa. It was just discovered five years ago in reality is a pretty amazing historical find, though there is a distinct lack of tourists. As it is, I had the entire place to myself to explore, and it was pretty cool. Set in the middle of the desert, it was an entertaining, if slightly underwhelming, tourist stop a country that has no others.

In the short time I've been here, a couple weeks, I've made some genuine friends and have gotten to know a hilariously large amount of the locals. Going out has become a real treat just because everywhere I go I can sit down with someone and have tea with someone while chatting about anything under the sun. Today, drinking some mango juice mixed with milk - a spectacular combination - with a friend, I noticed the only other foreign tourist I had seen so far, a Korean guy, changing money on the other side of the street. My friend and I got a huge charge out of watching him and joined the rest of the street in staring at the poor guy. It was at this moment I realized that I'd gone native.

I arrived in the port city of Berbera on the Gulf of Aden, basically the only other tourist town, after a week in Hargesia. And when I say "tourist town," I mean town-where-tourists-might-go, not town-where-tourists-are. As it was, I was the only white person there save for a absolutely fantastic British couple. I think it's more a tourist town for Somalilanders living elsewhere who are back in the country for vacation.

This British couple, Jill and Steve, were staying semi-permanently at a hotel called the Maan-Soor on the outside of town on the beach and are in the process of setting up a dive shop in and around Berbera and marine reserves up the coast to the Djibouti border. They are working with a businessman named Abdulker. Not only does Abdulkaer own the Mann-Soor and two others in Somaliland, but he is amazingly well-connected to the business and political community in the country. As such, he is working closely with Steve and Jill to navigate through the red tape of Somalialnd in order to ensure they succeed in their endeavors.

He is also, along with Steve and Jill, among the friendliest people I have ever met. Every day in Berbera I played a game of cat-and-mouse with the local police (they acted similar to the Hargesia police) and fled town to visit the Maan-Soor and beach. It was only a few kilometres from town to the hotel so after hiking there I would go snokeling or diving with the Steve and Jill (I brought snorkel gear with me and, because they are just setting up shop, they let me dive for free). The beach is fantastic with its beautiful blue-green water, perfect weather, and great marine life. Abdulkaer was always there to offer me fish, lobster, and pasta free of charge for my meals and help me with any questions I had. When the Regional Tourism Minister - a position that doesn't actually exist - showed up with two intelligence officers and tried to give me a hard time and take me for $50, Abdulkaer not only solved this dilemma for me in less than a minute of talking to him but called the Minister of Tourism (whom I had previously had a run-in with), the Information Minister, and the mayor of Berbera to let them know what happened and ensure it would never happen again.

These three also offered friendly and sincere conversation for me in the days I spent in Berbera and I learned a great deal about Somaliland's history and current political situation. Today we even had breakfast with a member of the electoral commission who described their efforts to register the country for the national election in two months. These efforts are stunning.

To fully understand how excited I am about what they're doing, imagine a country where no census exists and no voters have been registered. Then imagine that this country has a terrible infrastructure with horrible roads and little electricity outside of the major towns - which really aren't that "major". And then keep in mind that this country is largely NOMADIC. Think of the shear problems you would have with registering the voters!

But they're doing it here, with less than $20 million. Using electronic fingerprinting, computerized face-recognition, and good old-fashion clan names and family history, the electoral commission has manage to use its 15,000 workers to take not only the first national census but register every eligible voter as well. The USA has had 230 years to get it down and we haven't, but Somaliland's FEDERAL registration effort has turned out to be one of the best in the world in one try. I still can't get over the issue of registering so many nomads, but they have somehow managed to do that. Unbelievable!

Getting Back to Addulkaer, Steve, and Jill, they have also been a lot of help in planning for an upcoming adventure I'm embarking on. I won't be writing again for a number of days, but assuming that my plans go through as planned, I would definitely recommend checking back here in a few weeks because I'm going to attempt something pretty cool.

Cheers to everyone. Keep well!