Powerful women, kids, a HUMMER and lots of laughter

Compared to yesterday when all I did was exercise, eat breakfast, sleep, talk to Edna, sleep, eat lunch, write an E-Mail or two, sleep some more, watch the news, eat dinner and then sleep again, so compared to yesterday, today I was hyperactive! To be honest I was just completely tired yesterday, I could have slept all day long, felt as if I had been chewed and spit out. Today, I felt much better and I had things to do, people to meet and places to go.

Even though I'm not going to repeat it EVERY time, my day does start at 05:45 and I'm up on the roof at 6am for the exercise class with Barakat. We're the four of us and tomorrow I will bring my camera again to have some pictures taken of the tough Ninjas.

At 9am me and Tom were ready to be taken to one of the local NGOs called 'Allah Amin' lead by the mother of Ibrahim, the IT guy here at the Hospital. Her name is Anab and she does not speak any English. Ibrahim did the translating. Present at the Meeting were also Fatma from the board of directors, Ibrahim2 the finance guy and Mona the administrator. The location of the 'Allah Amin' premises lies in one of the poorest neighbourhoods of Hargeisa; in the refugee camp not far from the Hospital. The UN considers these people internally displaced people, because to the UN Somaliland is not a seperate country. In fact these are refugees from Somalia having fled the never ending war around Mogadishu in the south of Somalia. I did not want to take any pictures yet, Frank will do that. But you cannot imagine the poverty in those camps. And still, out of sheer determination these women have started projects as early as 1988 to help the displaced and the poorest of the poor. Once Somaliland was born beginning of the nineties, the single purpose of the NGO became the empowerment of women. It is like everywhere in the world; where you empower the women, you empower society as a whole. Women are the backbone of society also here in Somaliland. To this day I have difficulties understanding why these women don't raise their sons to be more responsible and focused. Boys have a much better chance to go to school than girls, illiteracy among women is much higher than among men. Still these girls and women are determined to learn, to better themselves in order to get a chance at making a living for themselves and their families. This small NGO offers programs such as learning how to read and write, cooking, computer courses, sawing, beauty and hairdressing classes, how to get clean water and last but not least women's health and FGM. I was very impressed with how little funding they accomodate around 100 students in different classes. I saw some funding coming from Caritas Schweiz and Luxembourg but also other big NGOs in Europe have helped them realise projects. They also go out into the rural areas, they have 28 locations where they teach, inform and discuss their topics with the women of the villages. Well, after much talking we agreed that I will come back with Frank to have one or two foto sessions. Since TERRE DES FEMMES Schweiz does not partner with foreign projects, I had to deny their wish for a partnership. They understood but are clearly eager to find new funding sources. I will leave them a generous donation after the foto shoot, that's all I can do at this time.

After the Meeting with Anab and her team we had to get the tickets for Frank fixed and went to the office of Ethiopian Airlines and then Ultimate Air for the flight from Djibouti to Hargeisa. That can only be booked at that office, nowhere else on earth! Anyway, we also went to the Immigration Office to have Frank's visa fixed and while waiting for Ibrahim to return, I caught these boys playing. When they saw my camera...

...some shouted at me while others immediately responsded....

....by striking a pose :-D

And this is the big difference between the richest and the poorest!!!

 

 

Later in the evening, Khadija and Hassan together with their oldest daughter Ilham came to visit and to have dinner with us all. Khadija and Hassan live in Berne with their 3 children and through TDF they have met Edna in 2010 when she was on tour in Switzerland. I new Khadija and her Family will be in Hargeisa at the same time that we are and so after one week, we have finally hooked-up and will see each other again soon.

 

Edna is a born entertainer and she loves to have guests :-)

 

Having dinner together, but first Tom...

 

...has to answer a phone call.

After dinner we drink tea together and Edna tells us

one of her countless stories...

 ...that make us laugh until we cry.

This one is about the visit of the 23 Koreans :-D

 

 

Tomorrow there's going to be 'Movie Night'. I realised that I have the documentary 'More Than Honey' on my computer in very good quality. Since there is not much to do in the evenings around here, we will have two vewings; one at 5pm for the early birds and one at 9pm for the late sleepers.

But that's for tomorrow's blog.

 

Good night, sleep tight and don't let the bed bugs bite.

:-)