The Special Services did not function so well anymore this time. I had to make a bit of a 'schtink' to get it but eventually, that worked too.
They started boarding a full hour before departure and for a good reason too; it took more than that to settle everyone, have the puking child taken care of, resolve the fight over seats that were wrongly occupied, calm the screaming children - and I mean SCREAMING - and have everyone buccled-up. The flight attendants looked Russian or Baltic and not very patient. Iwan did the old emergency routine, it's been a while since I've seen that one. :-)
Salomé was a bit worried since the plane made funny noises, I explained that this was normal on older planes. Also, it seemed that spare parts were rather hard to come by and had been brought in from China.
Anyhow, we missed our 4am departure slot and had to wait for the next available one which was half an hour later. The flight took off and everything was fine, people did lots of exercising and children continued to scream and be sick for a while. Things calmed down a bit when the lights went out and since there was no movie, people tried to get some sleep. We were the only whities on board and got the appropriate attention; people placed bets on where we were heading! They were all very friendly and especially the women wanted to know where we were going. We had a few interesting conversations and soon enough the plane tipped it's nose downward towards the landing place in Berbera. Here the Special Service was non-existant, but I sort of expected that. With a crutch and a limp we were however skipping waiting lines nonetheless and no one complained.
Stepping out of the plane almost blew my Shirt off! It was and still is very windy which on one hand makes the heat bearable but on the other makes you hold on to all you have. I just don't know how the women manage to NOT get unraveled all the time with the sheets they are wearing wrapped around their bodies. I can't even keep a towel on my head! In Berbera we were expected by Edna's driver, Faisal, and the mandatory police officer who accompanies every such drive. They loaded our luggage and we squeezed into the back of the Toyota Pathfinder. It took about a three hour drive through desert-like land with very little vegetation but some greens here and there. The Somalilanders are a clan people and nomadic, they live in huts and makeshift homes. We passed through tiny villages every now and then, stopped once for a Somali tea (very sweet but very good) and when approaching the larger city area the villages and huts became a constant stream on both sides of the road. We passed a large family of Baboons with children and all, lots of Camels (Dromedars) and goats. I did not see cows nor chicken which is something they obviously don't have around here.
The land is flat except for a mountain range that lasted from Berbera to Hargeisa and reminded me a lot of the desert mountains of Egypt. The colors were predominantly brown-ish, green-ish and yellow-ish, not red like I've seen in other places. I wonder what kind of substance lies in the ground to give the sand and rocks this green-ish/yellow-ish color.
Driving through Hargeisa was a culture-shock, I admit. Especially for Salomé who has not seen and could not imagine such disorder, poverty and crowdedness. The absence of an official waste disposal system adds to the picutre; there is garbage laying all over the place and the wind carries the plastic bags into the trees which looks funny, a bit like the prayer-sheets I have seen in Mongolia. While we were taking in what happend in the streets, people outside stopped to look at us inside the car. Finally we reached the Edna Adan Hospital, our final destination. All the planning, talking and imagining came to an end - we had arrived. Some staff came to greet us and help us with the luggage, Tom, a volonteer from Ohio, welcomed us and introduced us to the most important routines. Later, he showed us around the hospital and all it's wards (not many patients here at the moment) and class-rooms, the library, the offices, the reception and the little hospital shop and pharmacy. I was so tired that I almost missed lunch and slept most of the afternoon.
At dinner time we met the local doctores and interns, a doctor couple from South Africa (Capetown! ;-), a man from Germany who's doing some research here, an anesthesist from Kenia who's teaching local students on the topic. Edna is returning from Gabon today. As a matter of fact she called this morning from the airport in Addis Abbeba to say hi and will be arriving in Hargeisa shortly. Tom has been a great help showing us around, explaining a lot of things and answering our questions. He's been here since last November and knows how it all works. It is interesting to learn about this society and I will have more to write about that later.
I did not date to run around with the camera yet, so no pics yet. I will close for now and go have a nap. Ramadan is about to start (it has not been called out yet) and things have slowed down considerably here at the hospital already. Ttl. :-)
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