Visiting Somaliland: Three Hunks and a Dinner at the Ambassador

You have already met Barakat, our truly gifted and totally dedicated trainer who never fails to show up at 6am (more or less) to squeeze our bones and muscles. But we don't want to talk about THAT again, don't we.

Well, we've made friends not only with Barakat but also with his Ethiopian pal Andale and the Kenian hunk Hosea. While Barakat teaches the future Apothecaries, Andale works at the Somaliland Family Health Agency (SOFHA) and lives in the guest wing of the Edna Adan University Hospital. Hosea is an Anesthesist from Nairobi who is teaching a class of future Anesthesists here in Hargeisa because there are none in Somaliland!
Hosea's wife gave birth prematurely to a baby-girl last week and he's leaving in a couple of days to spend a month with his new family in Nairobi. Before he leaves, we wanted to have a few pictures taken and decided to use the roof for this undertaking. Well, I don't want to keep the beautiful result from you:

Barakat Hosea

Andale

The Three Friends...

...always ready for a joke

Salomé has become 'the sister'

and I think she likes the attention :-)

While we were up there taking all These pics, I heard a cat miauing all the time. First I thought the sound came from below but then it was too close and we started looking for the source. We found a tiny little kitty hiding behind the water tanks. She was too shy and would not let us get near her. She eventually made her way down the stairs and hopefully out of the building. When Edna heard about it she wasn't too pleased... to say the least!

Madame Edna invited her current residing guests for a dinner at the Hotel Ambassador in Hargeisa. I've heard of it and was told, it's a very nice hotel. So, at 7:15pm we gathered at the hospital entrance and spread out into two cars, one driven by Edna herself, the other by her driver Faisal. He was dressed in his sunday best, nice beige linen suit and tie. I would say he was the best dressed male at the table. Food was delicious, I had grilled camel meat with vegies and fries. For desert a fruit salad and an espresso. I would have thought that they have this really strong arabic coffee that we know from countries like Lebanon or Egypt, but they don't. Even the espresso tastes like a stronger Version of Nescafé, which in my books is not really coffee. Anyway, camel meat is quite traditional in Somaliland even though rather on the expensive side. So is camel milk, by the way. Well, I like it a lot, it's tasty and tender and my guess is that this one was not one of the old camels but rather a younger one.