Slowly I begin to understand the basics of this country; dirt poor and unrecognised by the world community, they lack a few major things such as sanitary infrastructure and a waste disposal system. The education system is still quite wabbly; sometimes they can pay their teachers, other times not. There's a bunch of private schools and as usual they are of better quality than the public schools. Being unrecognised, Somaliland cannot participate in any postal system nor can they have their own banks. This makes trade with the outside world practically impossible. There are Money Exchange Offices but no real banks. Think for yourselves what that alone means...
Add to this that Hargeisa, the capital city of Somaliland once held about 250'000 People and today has to provide for around 1'100'000 people. There are refugee camps with people who fled the Mogadishu area and the never ending war of Somalia. There is a very thin layer of rich Somalilanders and a practically non-existing middle-layer. The majority are poor. The dominating and guiding factor is Islam. Before children learn how to read and write, they are taught the Koran. In Arabic. After that they start school. Young Somalilanders don't get visas nor scholarships to live or study abroad, they are confined to their own country and have to rely entirely on people coming from outside to teach them the professions we take for granted such as the different medical professions, languages, agriculture, IT, etc. etc. For almost twenty years now this contry and it's people have been determined to make it on their own, so much do they NOT want to go back to the war that has ravaged this whole region in the eighties and still continues in the south. There are forces who do not agree with Somaliland splitting and they try hard to make life even more difficult for the Somalilanders. Well, I will write more on these topics during the next few weeks. Those who are interested in a few facts about Somaliland and the history can read up on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somaliland.
As I write this, the Muezzin has started singing and it's time for prayer again. Things slow down considerably during Ramadan but part of the lessons continue and hey, a Hospital is never subject to relegious festivities; the sick will be sick no matter what.
The Hospital compound is somewhat of a save haven in the midst of this bubbling city. It's calm and usually quiet, no hectic except for when there's an emergency in the middle of the night. Last night they had to perform an emergency caesarian section or C-section (Kaiserschnitt), that's when the doctors get pulled out of bed and rushed to the operating theater.
The picture above shows the common room and the table we usually all eat at. That happens on the first floor, the ground floor is occupied by the maternity and sick wards and the operating theaters. Also on the ground floor lies the test-lab and the walk-in clinic.
Here are a few pictures of the floor we live on.
the view from where our room is down the hall
that's clearly Edna's Office!
no need to explain, right?
quite an extensive library, we'll see more of it later
Salomé and my residence; a small entrance, a bed-room and the bath-room.
our own private cabin
up to the 2nd and down to the ground floor
and a Little detail from one of the balconies.
This afternoon we have started discussing with Edna what needs to be done and what WE can contribute. I will get into it as soon as we have more details.
This is it for today. Stay sane. :-)
Liana, many thanks for your stories.
ReplyDeleteLet me say something.
In fact young people have opportunity to study abroad in Russia particularly and Germany as well. I have heard this from Hargeisa guys who have been studying in Moscow. They get scholarship from the goverment and others who dont they have to pay for their education. I dont know the details. Suppose they buy other countries passports (Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia) in the black market. Thus they can get visas and travel for studying. Last year in July i visited Hargeisa. I stayed at Ambassador hotel. Very nice place I should say. A friend of mine took me from the hotel to go around the city. I saw many people in the streets. We were in the market where the lady (I think the same one you took)) sewn a kind of hijab for me. We had dinner in "Endless Summer". It was hard to find a vacant table. It seemed the city never sleeps. But it all disappear when you leave the city centre. Then you see another picture. Lots of garbage, women and children in their dirty clothes, broken buildings, bad quality roads and so many other things we could hardly get along with. And you have so little to do in the evenings. I met a man who worked for UNISEF. The villa was located very close to Ambassador. He was so glad to see a new face there like Robinson Crusoe when he met Friday. All in all i was happy to have new experience. Thank you again for your blog. Irina
Dear Irina
ReplyDeletethanks for your comment. It's very interesting.
I will ask my host about the 'Endless Summmer' and will want to check it out if it still exists.
Kind regards,
Liana
:-)