so i finally have a somali stamp in my passport!! i arrived here on saturday, took the somali airline (!!! i mean how do they have an airline but not a government???!!!) daalo, whose airplane looks like it belonged in world war 2. i thought we might fall out of the sky at anytime, but i arrived in one piece in galkayo, which is about 10 hours drive from bosasso (the place i'm based at right now). so after flying a few hours and driving a few more, here i am, on my second day of work. my leaving of kenya was all very rushed, and honestly, i was not psychologically prepared...but as a wise soul said, 'don't worry, the potholes will still be here when you get back!' so armed with those words of wisdom, here i am, psychologically sound! we landed in mogadishu on the way to galkayo on the plane, and i saw and smelled the ocean there. it looked almost like a dream because it was amazingly blue & hazy, almost like a painting rather than a photo...a friend of a friend has agreed to take me to the coast here and i can't wait. since there are no tourists here, the whole ocean will be mine...just as i have dreamed!!
somalia...what can i say? the tea is really sweet and spicy/gingery...it's very very good. the food could be better but it's livable. we get a 3 hour break for lunch (which means i get to sleep off my food coma after lunch), but work until 6/7/8. there isn't much to do after 8 (for me anyways), nor much to eat or drink...no more mojitos...*sniff*. i've never attempted to live in a place like this...where the western world has only a tenuous grip. the landscape itself is so alien, so barren and so devoid of colour (for the most part) that from the very beginning it hits you that this is a different world. kenya reminds me so much of burma that it almost felt like coming home...when i was in town at night, all i had to do was close my eyes and i might as well have been in burma as i remember it. but somalia is a whole new world. on the drive over, it was a never ending horizon...shades of beige and gray. i have missed my green rice paddies and fluffy trees of the philippines since i left more than 6 years ago, and of course i will not find them here. it's a very lonely place i think...there was not much life out there and the pieces of life we found were few and far between.
bosaso, however, is very much a large town. it's full of life and interesting people. there are a lot of NGOs here although i have yet to see another person from another NGO. but then again, i don't do much but work and sleep, and then again, i've only been here a few days. i have yet to see another 'chinese'. bosaso is very very white, almost blindingly so...white buildings, white roads, white sun, white heat. bosaso is safe, and according to everyone here, it is certainly safer than nairobi. people don't stare at me as much as they did in nairobi, but then again, i have yet to go walking around town and taking matatus here. the women are all wrapped up, and to be honest, i don't know how they keep themselves wrapped up because my headwrap keeps slipping and it's rather hot (40+ degrees celcius). although i do understand why the women wear the dresses because they are wonderfully cool. i thought that i might sense some hostility because i don't quite have the headwrap thing figured out and i don't really do it the right way, but it's okay. i think that i am so obviously foreign that it doesn't really matter that i don't do things right...they just laugh at me when i am fixing that darn headwrap. i also don't have to wear it in the office, which is really nice. so far, i find the women to be very friendly and rather humourous while the men are a bit more reserved.
the women, for the most part are so beautiful, but in a very different way from kenyans, who are also very beautiful. somalis are taller and slimmer and have lighter skin. but i might be generalizing...this is what i see for now, for first impressions, for the short time that i have been here.
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written on 08.08.06
somalia...what can i say? the tea is really sweet and spicy/gingery...it's very very good. the food could be better but it's livable. we get a 3 hour break for lunch (which means i get to sleep off my food coma after lunch), but work until 6/7/8. there isn't much to do after 8 (for me anyways), nor much to eat or drink...no more mojitos...*sniff*. i've never attempted to live in a place like this...where the western world has only a tenuous grip. the landscape itself is so alien, so barren and so devoid of colour (for the most part) that from the very beginning it hits you that this is a different world. kenya reminds me so much of burma that it almost felt like coming home...when i was in town at night, all i had to do was close my eyes and i might as well have been in burma as i remember it. but somalia is a whole new world. on the drive over, it was a never ending horizon...shades of beige and gray. i have missed my green rice paddies and fluffy trees of the philippines since i left more than 6 years ago, and of course i will not find them here. it's a very lonely place i think...there was not much life out there and the pieces of life we found were few and far between.
bosaso, however, is very much a large town. it's full of life and interesting people. there are a lot of NGOs here although i have yet to see another person from another NGO. but then again, i don't do much but work and sleep, and then again, i've only been here a few days. i have yet to see another 'chinese'. bosaso is very very white, almost blindingly so...white buildings, white roads, white sun, white heat. bosaso is safe, and according to everyone here, it is certainly safer than nairobi. people don't stare at me as much as they did in nairobi, but then again, i have yet to go walking around town and taking matatus here. the women are all wrapped up, and to be honest, i don't know how they keep themselves wrapped up because my headwrap keeps slipping and it's rather hot (40+ degrees celcius). although i do understand why the women wear the dresses because they are wonderfully cool. i thought that i might sense some hostility because i don't quite have the headwrap thing figured out and i don't really do it the right way, but it's okay. i think that i am so obviously foreign that it doesn't really matter that i don't do things right...they just laugh at me when i am fixing that darn headwrap. i also don't have to wear it in the office, which is really nice. so far, i find the women to be very friendly and rather humourous while the men are a bit more reserved.
the women, for the most part are so beautiful, but in a very different way from kenyans, who are also very beautiful. somalis are taller and slimmer and have lighter skin. but i might be generalizing...this is what i see for now, for first impressions, for the short time that i have been here.
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written on 08.08.06
puntland visa
1 comment:
oooo, can u post a pic of the stamp? =D
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