by Peter Boehm
A little further inland there was yet more evidence of Somali dilapidation, with the ruins of the old Italian police station from colonial times. The windows and doors were gone, and the roof had collapsed. Not even independent Somalia could afford a police station here.
In the meantime, Abdullahi had managed to free the car, and had brought it to Hurdiye. He claimed he had observed the route very carefully and could remember it. There was just that one spot of deep sand, where we’d got stuck. So we wouldn’t have to take anyone with us to drag us out if need be.
Nuredin was sceptical, and so was I. But the stretch of track we’d walked the night before seemed navigable.
We set off straightaway, in order to be back in Gergore before dusk. However, when we tried to turn, we immediately got stuck in the deep sand in the main road of Hurdiye. Half the village had to help free us.
Abdullahi then shot off again at at least 60mph. This time, however, we were driving on a very windy and unclear stretch. Hadn’t he said the track was clear? We were speeding along simply because we’d need considerable momentum to get across the patches of deep sand – and there were a few of these.
We leapt over bumps, dived into drifts, skidded, and only just managed to keep to the track. Then we immediately accelerated again. We hung on tightly. I felt rather as though I were on a rollercoaster. Only this time, we had a barrel of diesel in the boot. And we weren’t driving on rails, but were terrified that we’d come off the road. And, of course, terrified that we wouldn’t make it.
We didn’t make it. First there was one high drift of sand which slowed us down, and then a second immediately afterwards. Abdullahi turned to me, imploringly – “Where’s the road?!?” – and then we were stuck again.
I couldn’t even look at him, I hated him so much at that moment. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t care at all about Nuredin and me. The energy with which he constantly put himself in danger, however, was simply beyond my understanding.
This time, however, we managed to free ourselves after a couple of attempts. Abdullahi wanted to press on.
This made me yell again. I didn’t do this with the intention of making Abdullahi flinch again, but because I was afraid.
Garibaldi, who I later told about Abdullahi, said that I shouldn’t worry about it. You always had to shout at the young people who had grown up in the civil war. They’d never react to any other tone of voice anyway.
We drove back to Hurdiye at the same breakneck speed at which we’d come. Of course, the villagers laughed when they saw us.
Nuredin and I got out. And Abdullahi and his cousin shot up and down the main street a couple of times, at over 50mph. His ego probably needed this demonstration of his driving skills.
But it would be dark in two hours, and I didn’t want to spend the night in Hurdiye. In fact, I didn’t want to be in Hurdiye at all anymore.
So Nuredin and I negotiated with two local lorry drivers, to get them to accompany us part of the way. They both insisted on an amount which would buy 800 portions of spaghetti at the market in Hurdiye. They knew we were desperate. They could wait. We couldn’t.
I thought back to what I’d learned from Sir Richard Burton’s travelogue a couple of weeks before. In the 19th century, Somali was known to the Arabs as the “country of give-me-something”. Nuredin said, “How disgraceful! I’ll tell everyone in Bosaso about how greedy people in Hurdiye are.” And I once again dug deep into the big rubbish bag, and helped one of the drivers to 300 portions of spaghetti, so that we could escape Hurdiye.
Despite the approaching darkness, the lorry driver found a track without any sand drifts. He drove here almost every day, and knew where you could and couldn’t drive. With his help, we were soon back on the hard track.
We arrived at Gergore at 10pm. In the darkness the huts, cobbled together as they were from planks, rags, plastic sheeting and compacted mud, looked even more impoverished. But when we arrived, I was as happy as I’d have felt if we’d finally reached Xanadu.
We drove up to a hut with a roof of bent tree-trunks, where there seemed to still be a light on. An old woman was crouched beneath the roof, her back bent, motionless in the light of a storm lamp, as though she were part of the inanimate fittings. She immediately offered us tea. And, to my surprise, she said that we could also stay the night there.
She took Nuredin and me into the courtyard of her hut next door. Abdullahi wanted to spend the night by the car. We were each given a prickly mat of platted grass. Nuredin explained that you lie down on the bare earth, and use the mat, with the prickly grass sticking out of it, as a cover. We looked like long, hairy caterpillers.
The night was bitterly cold, in spite of my linen sleeping bag. Half an hour later another lorry even appeared, from the direction of Bosaso. The driver and co-driver also stopped off with the old lady. It turned out that she actually ran some kind of inn here in Gergore.
In the morning we had more tea – the old lady couldn’t offer us anything to eat – and we paid. Three teas in the evening, three in the morning. The overnight accommodation was free. The whole thing cost less than 10 pence.
I hadn’t been to Africa’s easternmost point, but I didn’t think it was a good idea to travel to Cape Casayr. Tenacity is a wonderful characteristic. But in certain circumstances it can also be folly. In any case, my trip across Africa had certainly already begun.
A nation creates a state (Bosasso)
The police in Bosaso won’t be able to stop the Abdullahis of this world. I’ve observed them a couple of times on the main street. It was a joke! At first I thought they were comedians, not policeman carrying out their duties. Then I thought they were policemen who were carrying out their duties but who were hilarious.
But that’s just how it is. A real country in the real world has a real police force. Puntland, which wants to be a real country must, therefore, also have one. Even if it’s a laughing stock.
The four policemen on the main street usually all stood in a group, as though there were safety in numbers. Their headgear reminded me more of modern art than of a beret. These hats were sitting on their heads like frozen pancakes. They’d clearly never seen how berets are actually worn. Their uniform trousers were different colours, and they themselves couldn’t have been more different from one another either. One was incredibly fat, another tall and thin; one was really young, and the fourth ready for retirement. On their white shirts was a small crest showing a weapon and the word “Police”, so that people knew who they were dealing with.
And the four policemen were friendly. They knew a lot of people. They greeted many passersby with a handshake and some small talk, but any one of them could suddenly be seized by a burst of energy – at which point he’d blow his whistle and march off briskly. None of them knew exactly where or why. Perhaps they’d seen this once in an old silent film. But then, sometimes, they’d suddenly freeze again, mid-movement, as though they’d just realised what they actually wanted to do. Then they’d return to the group, remorsefully.
The policemen became really active, however, when the main street was yet again blocked at their pitch. There were a lot of shops here. And drivers often stopped to get provisions, or to wait for their passengers who were busy shopping. Occasionally they even parked slightly to the side of the road. The road wasn’t very wide, however, and a second driver doing the same thing in the other lane would block it. This resulted in long traffic jams. This didn’t concern those parking. But it did concern the police. They walked over, sometimes as a pair, and amicably made the drivers aware of their offence. These responded amicably too. But they didn’t move on. You see, they were still waiting for their passengers. An informal chat then ensued. The tone was always calm and friendly. The policemen made arm gestures. The drivers laughed. They wanted to make it clear that they weren’t annoyed by the policemen’s requests. When their passengers returned, a few minutes later, they drove on again. The policemen returned to their group, clearly satisfied with thei
r success. And the traffic in the main street flowed again.
On the morning of my departure for Garowe, we invited one of the four main street policemen into our car to interview him. He was a cousin of Nuredin’s. In Africa, “brother” usually doesn’t mean a real brother, but a close relative; accordingly, a “cousin” is a more distant relative. The cousin was very fat. His white shirt stretched tightly across his large, round stomach as he made himself comfortable on our back seat. He’d been a policeman in Mogadishu even before the civil war, he said, and he was called back to service in Puntland two years ago.
He begged for understanding for the drivers in Bosaso. Most of them, he said, hadn’t sat behind a wheel until the legal vacuum after the civil war. They’d never taken a driving test. It was only last month that the first test for a long time took place in Bosaso. So you couldn’t impose the regulations with full force immediately.
He certainly couldn’t accept that the police were making themselves a laughing stock on the main street. He told us, indignantly, that the police did arrest drivers too.
Once we’d dropped him off again on the main street, Nuredin defended his cousin. Of course the police arrest drivers if they need to, he said, confidently. If the offence was serious enough that there was the risk of a shoot-out... Admittedly, however, that would have little influence on the offspring of rich parents, as Nuredin had explained earlier. If they run someone down, Daddy just pays compensation.
And it’s the same in Mogadishu, in the south of the country. If someone comes to grief – either during a fight, or in a traffic accident – the elders get together to negotiate the blood money. This is around 100 camels for a dead man.
It’s somehow comforting to know that this sum is not subject to inflation. It was the same when the Prophet Mohammed was alive, almost 1,400 years ago.
In Mogadishu, however, there’s a slight difference compared with Bosaso. There are still various different clans living in the capital. And compensation is paid for a death only if the victim was a member of a powerful clan. Bantus, for instance, who are descended from the slaves brought by the Ottoman sultans to Somalia from Tanzania and Mozambique until the 19th century, could never hope for 100 camels.
Dear old Horst (Bosasso – Garowe)
So the law applies if offences are avenged by it. That’s a truism. But what happens if there’s no – or virtually no – institution designed for this? Does that mean there’s no law?
Then you just have to turn to other mechanisms. That’s what happens in Somalia. The system of government introduced by the colonial powers collapsed during the civil war. And so society reverted to its pre-colonial state – the clan system.
In Bosaso, Garibaldi had advised me not to leave the hotel compound. The European aid organisation employees stuck to this. They would go, unaccompanied, as far as the stationary shop or the phone shop, both of which were within a 50-yard radius of the hotel. With Nuredin beside me, however, I walked all around the town. And I felt safe doing so. But what would it be like if I went to Garowe alone?
Here, again, Nuredin helped me. He met the chauffeurs who drive the stretch to the Puntland seat of government, chose one he knew, and made it clear to him that, from now on, he was responsible for my safety. As I stood there, Nuredin – probably mainly in order to reassure me – noted down the driver’s name, the name of his family and his sub-clan, and made it clear that he would be demanding an explanation if he hadn’t heard from me from Garowe.
In addition, Nuredin made him promise to entrust me to another driver in Garowe only if he knew his family affiliation. If necessary, Nuredin would have been able to give the first driver grief, by contacting the elders of his family or sub-clan. And thus, in theory, even the second driver, via his elders.
Contrary to expectations, however, the drive to Garowe was actually one of the easiest and most pleasant of the whole trip. The tarred road had barely any potholes. Although it had been built before the civil war, it was still lovely and smooth, since there’s only rarely any rain here.
The car – a Japanese combi – was comparatively new, as former inhabitants who fled to Europe, the USA or the Gulf States due to the war are sending a great deal of money back home. And, although a woman had got out en route, the driver didn’t need to pick up anyone else. I’ve been in some minibuses in Africa, in contrast, which have stopped over fifty times in less than 100 miles in order to pick up and drop off passengers.
When it was time for the first afternoon prayers, the driver stopped at some typical Somali roadside services. They usually comprised a roof, with earth as grouting, and resting on crooked branches, beside the road. Beneath the roof were a couple of rough, wobbly tables, and behind it all a couple of huts which were home to the landlord and his family.
There was invariably a large mound of sheep and goats’ bones beside these huts, as lamb or goat meat with spaghetti or rice is really the only thing you can get to eat at inns like this. I usually drank camel’s milk, and did without the goats. I preferred spaghetti or rice just with sauce.
A young man in his early twenties, wearing jeans and reflective sunglasses, sat down at my table. I was pleased about this, as no-one in our minibus had spoken English, and I hoped he might help me with ordering. He introduced himself as John, and immediately asked me which country I was from.
That’s the main question in Africa. I was asked it so many times on my journey that I almost couldn’t bear to hear it any longer. Everyone asked it right at the start, and they were almost all satisfied once I’d answered. Knowing which country I was from gave them certainty.
Before I’d spent time living in Africa I’d always considered this constant questioning about my country of origin to be simply curiosity. But I soon realised that there was more to it than that. In Europe, if you had to choose one single question by which to find out as much as possible about someone, everyone would ask about their job. In Africa, however, you ask about someone’s ethnic group, as so much depends on this – is someone a herdsman or a farmer, a trader or a soldier? Is he in favour of the government or the opposition? And, not infrequently, is he a friend or a foe?
In Africa, it wasn’t only the ordinary people who thought in terms of ethnic categories, but also many of those who were well educated. They simply carry this over to white people too. In their view, African ethnic groups are equivalent to European nationalities. And this was why I was asked this question so frequently.
I told John my nationality. “What? You’re German?”, he said, as though he’d just been told he’d won the lottery. “Wow, then of course you must know Horst.”
Horst? No, I said, I didn’t know him.
“Oh, but then you’re bound to know Thomas”, he continued, excitedly. He was confused. He seemed entirely unable to understand that I wouldn’t immediately say that yes, of course I knew them both.
You see, John thought that he’d finally found someone who could help him. He was from Belet Huen, the town in central Somalia where the German army had completed its first real UN mission in the early 90s. Both Horst and Thomas, John now told me, were German soldiers taking part in this mission. They’d both sent John to the market to go shopping for them. John didn’t know their surnames. Neither did he know where in Germany they lived. “I was still so young at the time”, he said, sadly. He can’t have been more than 10 years old back then. And he added, tenderly and softly, as though it was just yesterday and he was now again remembering the pain he had felt at their departure, “I was terribly upset when they left.” He put his hand in his breast pocket. “We’ve still got Horst’s photo.” He’d left it at home. It immediately made me think of how Nuredin had taken me to a photographer in Bosaso that morning to get a picture of us together. “We wanted to write to him, but we didn’t know his address.”
John seemed unconcerned by the fact that there are over 80 million people in Germany, and probably a few thousand Horsts, and he seemed unable to imagine that it wasn’t like Africa,
where you could find someone simply through knowing their first name and having a vague idea of where they live. Everything I knew about Horst – that he was a professional soldier, that he’d volunteered for the mission and that he was called Horst, of all names, didn’t exactly give me a positive impression of this man. And the way John spoke of him as one would of a first great love alienated me entirely.
But that’s how it is. Africans see white people as extremely strange beings – far more so than the other way around. White people are always on time. They have a lot of money, and enjoy spending it. They get agitated if something doesn’t work. They’re simply impenetrable. But they’re all the same as each other. Only very few Africans differentiate any further.
Whenever I arrived in a new town in Africa, the locals always informed me that “my brothers” were here – usually aid organisation employees, and quite often Germans. And they were often utterly astonished that not only were all white people not necessarily brothers, but that they didn’t even come from the same tribe.
A travel guide in Mopti just couldn’t believe that a German and a Swiss traveller didn’t want me to join them on a river trip on the Niger – “What? White people don’t get on with each other? Who’d have imagined that?!” And, as a travel guide, he was someone who actually had first-hand experience of white people.
Among kidnappers (Garowe – Hargeisa)
In Garowe, the driver who had brought me from Bosaso picked me up at the hotel. He’d dropped me off here the day before, and I hadn’t left it at all.
“I’m afraid we’ve got a problem”, he now told me. He said there wasn’t a minibus to Hargeisa today, and he couldn’t be sure whether there’d be one in the next few days either. The only way of getting to the Somali capital quickly would be to go first to Las Anod, and then to get a bus from there to Hargeisa.
But changing in Las Anod really was a problem. That was because I’d been warned about the town, which was a good 60 miles west of here. It’s in an area contested by the autonomous region of Puntland and the Republic of Somaliland. This means, or so I still thought at the time, that there isn’t a regulated government system there.