by Peter Boehm
So I could understand Dr Mohammed’s cynicism to some extent. What I couldn’t understand was the fact that his jokes weren’t limited to his group, but that he also related them to people who didn’t share his background or experiences.
Later, at the khat session, however, I noticed that Dr Mohammed’s humour made the other doctors uneasy too.
I picked him up at the hospital at lunchtime. Dr Osman came with us. The specialist for internal medicine had just returned from Ethiopia, and was now starting work as a doctor at the hospital in Hargeisa. Just like Dr Mohammed, and many of the other doctors at the khat session, he too had worked for an aid organisation in a refugee camp in Ethiopia, and Dr Osman and Dr Mohammed knew each other from there.
During the 1980s, many people had fled Somaliland for Ethiopia. The east of the neighbouring country was primarily inhabited by Somalis anyway, and the border is only just over 30 miles from Hargeisa.
We were the first to arrive at the khat session, so that Dr Osman could wash and pray before we started. Muslims fall to their knees when they pray, and they press their foreheads firmly to the floor. Dr Mohammed smirked and told me, “He’s praying!”, as though I may not have seen that. I found that embarrassing.
And when we started chewing, it got too much for Dr Osman too. He’d asked Dr Mohammed to show me how to prepare the khat; first you knock the bundle on your hand a couple of times to shake off the bugs, then you pluck off the fresh shoots and the young leaves, and lay them out in front of you in bite-sized portions.
But Dr Mohammed thought that was unnecessary. He muttered that everyone can do it as they like. And at this Dr Osman got angry.
“You never do things as you should. You always make fun of our tradition“, he said, furiously.
And later in the khat session, the hospital’s senior consultant told me, in a conspiratorial tone, Dr Mohammed’s nickname.
Almost every man in Somalia has one. There aren’t very many Arabic first names, and everyone uses their father’s first name as their surname. Which means that a lot of Somalis would have the same name.
The nicknames aren’t usually particularly complimentary. They often refer to a physical deficiency, such as “Fanah” which means “gap tooth”. Garibaldi, in Bosaso, was named after the Italian national hero because he had studied in Italy – the former colonial power.
Dr Mohammed was known as “chilli pepper”. Why? “Because his humour is as fiery as a chilli, and he always causes arguments between his colleagues”, the senior consultant explained.
More doctors now gradually arrived. They’d worked in the hospital during the morning “for free” as Dr Mohammed commented, with a dismissive hand gesture. After the khat session they would then go to their private practices. This was where they earned their money. Dr Mohammed even had a pharmacy in addition to his practice.
We chewed in the senior hospital consultant’s attic rooms. His living rooms were on the first floor, and the ground floor accommodated his private gynaecology practice and a small in-patient clinic.
His attic had been set up especially for the khat sessions. Bright red cushions had been set out on the red carpet, and there were ash trays and jugs of drinking water in the middle. In addition, the senior consultant’s “comfortable chewing clothing” was already laid out – a Somali wraparound skirt and a fresh white t-shirt. And the District Commissioner (more or less the equivalent of our police chief constable) immediately relinquished his pistol to the senior consultant – so that nothing would happen – and undid the top button on his trousers. Presumably because they were rather tight.
Overall there were twenty doctors and health service employees. Some had document files with them so that they could discuss their latest plans during the session. And the senior consultant – who had undertaken to explain to me what was happening during the session – said, “You see, it’s just like colleagues and friends meeting for a beer in the evening where you come from.”
Before the session we’d had a good lunch, which is advisable. We’d got hold of the khat at the market. A bundle of average quality costs about £2.50 in Hargeisa.
I shared one with Dr Mohammed, who doesn’t often chew. The senior consultant, as we later noticed, had two all to himself.
He was in his late thirties. He had a slight paunch, making him look jovial and slightly older, and because of the way he so effusively greeted his colleagues as they arrived, he struck me more as a teenager than as the senior consultant of a major hospital.
I’d decided, this time, to chew enough khat to be able to describe the effects. In Ethiopia, you chew the tips of the twigs and the young leaves. You keep them in your cheek, and only swallow the juice.
They taste fresh, rather like a blade of grass from a well-tended front garden, and they have a slightly spiky sensation in your mouth, making it horribly dry. No-one would chew without plenty of water, lemonade or tea available. And even when we were driving through the desert in Somalia, the chewers used their precious water for enjoying their khat.
You spit out the mush, which has turned bright green in your cheek, once the effect is strong enough. I’d previously thought you shouldn’t swallow this mush because it would harm your stomach. But in Harar, where khat is cultivated, I noticed that it’s just a habit. There, you crush up the fresh shoots in a dish, with some water and sugar, and eat the green mush with a spoon, rather like eating blancmange. The drug is so cheap there that you even see homeless people lying on the streets and succumbing to the addiction of intoxication. And there’s barely a craftsman there who would make a single movement with his hammer or plane before he’d enjoyed his morning khat mixture.
It took a while – perhaps three quarters of an hour – before I noticed the effects beginning. First my ears became hot, then my whole head. At the same time, I lost the use of my speech and facial muscles. I felt numbed and agitated at the same time, somehow drunk and stoned, but also as though I were on hot coals and about to leap up excitedly to do something.
After two hours, however, a soothing effect took over. I no longer wanted to speak, and nor could I – I just listened as the senior consultant bellowed his theories about the fundamental mistakes of Somali politics into my ear to overcome the session’s noise level.
The worst thing during the afternoon, however, was the effect on my legs. I already knew, from having chewed khat in Nairobi, that my knees would go weak. But this time it was far worse. They may also have gone to sleep as I’d been sitting for so long. After three hours, I certainly had the feeling that they wouldn’t carry me anymore.
I had to make a real effort to obliterate an image which kept recurring in my mind – my legs were buckled like dry grass stalks, and I was lying down, desperately trying to lift my head from the felted red floor to ask someone in the group for help.
I stated to panic. On no account did I want to show myself up in front of this group. Although the senior consultant often hosted khat sessions like this, I had the impression that it had been put on especially for me. Not only was I introduced to each new guest, but I was also told all the stories – at least, at the beginning, when I could still react. If I didn’t mumble agreement, or nod, or if I was listening to someone else, the narrator soon stopped telling his story.
In fact, I was something more, even, than the guest of honour. You see, there was another element to their courting my attention. Even in the hospital I’d had the impression that so many doctors had come flocking to Dr Mohammed’s office because there was a white person to study.
When I was still new to Africa, I’d been amazed by the way white people are so admired there. After a while, however, I came to understand it. For Africans, the world appears divided into two unequal halves. On one side there’s the real world, with skyscrapers, tarmac roads, lots of new cars, and everything else to go with it; on the other side there’s Africa, with its hunger, its wars and its misery. There, military, economic and political power is absolute. Here, there is utter
powerlessness, and constant begging of the real world for help. This suggests to Africans that their continent is inferior to this other world in every way – perhaps with the exceptions of athletics and football – and that Africa needs the real world, but that the real world doesn’t need Africa. This can gnaw at their self-confidence, and not infrequently lead to a significant inferiority complex.
And so if a visitor from the real world then comes to Africa and takes an interest in the Africans, this ennobles every event, and people feel honoured. For a while, everything seems a bit brighter and more cheerful for them, as though their existence suddenly has a meaning. It’s almost as if they’re part of it for a little while, as though the real world has come to visit.
But of course, the doctors’ attitude towards me was also ambiguous. The senior consultant told me, in great detail and for no apparent reason, that there was an aid organisation in Hargeisa stirring up tensions between women and men. “We don’t want that.” He talked himself into a rage. In fact, he even said, “They’ve got to realise that, in our society, it’s the men who dictate what the women have to do.”
I had an interview with an aid worker from this organisation that same evening. It simply gives women small loans. But the senior consultant’s message was clear – you white people want to impose your customs on us.
This showed how little Somali society had changed after all. It was always the principle of British colonial politics in Somaliland to intervene as little as possible with the structure of the nomadic society. And not only did Siad Barre’s attempt to modernise the society fail, but the project also discredited him for years afterwards.
Today, Kenyan Somalis are known as “Sijuis”, the accepted way of driving a car in Somalia is to drive like a madman, and increasing gender equality means creating tension between women and men.
All of that is still the ghost of the traditional way of life – a nomad lives in the desert. His life is a battle, and he gets by with very little. But he’s strong, and prepared to defend himself, and therefore never allows himself to be caught off guard.
This Somali variant of South American machismo has lived on with no break, in the society of the post-civil war vacuum. And people don’t change - even if they have come into contact with science, have learned, studied and even become a senior consultant at a major hospital. They still remain Somali. I knew this now.
So if there was one thing I absolutely did not want to do, it was to present a weakness to this group. I was certain, however, that the doctors would save their mockery until I had left. But I knew exactly what they’d say then – “Haha, that white guy can’t take anything. Did you see the weakling?!”
It may well have looked odd, but before I tried to stand up, I first tested the stability of my legs – I stretched out and lifted first one leg and then the other and then, finally, heaved myself up, supporting myself carefully with my arms against the wall.
The senior consultant’s son had given the signal that the session was over, coming in with a white coat for his father, and a basin for us to wash our hands.
The middle of the floor was now covered ankle-deep with plucked stems. There was almost £100 worth of debris there.
Everything now happened very quickly. Dr Mohammed said he wanted to go back to his practice. I went to the toilet and spat out the plant mush. As we went down the stairs together Dr Mohammed said, reproachfully, as though he’d have preferred to have had me to himself, “We’ve never had that many people at a khat session before.”
We parted coolly and formally when we reached the street. At that point, I wasn’t in a state to be particularly jovial. We were parting forever. I never saw Dr Chilli Pepper again.
A few women, obviously patients, were waiting on a bench outside the senior consultant’s surgery. Most of them were wearing a black hijab and their expressions were dark and inscrutable. At that moment, I could only wonder one thing – did the women know they were being treated by a khat freak?
My day was over. I wandered through the streets, feeling as though my head was encased in polystyrene. It was only now that I noticed what violent tempers there had been in the khat session, and how pleasantly calm it was out here in comparison.
The following morning I fought with the first after-effects. All my confidence had drained away, all my vigour had been sucked out of me. I sat as though in a deep hole, and debated raising my head above the parapet. What would be awaiting me there?
The entire morning had passed before I was able to work up the courage to leave the hotel. But by the evening I’d already discovered that my khat experiment had been a success. I’d learnt something for the future. I felt a lot better if I steered clear of khat.
Short khat glossary (Hargeisa)
Khat (Catha Edulis) was already known around the Red Sea in ancient times. Its leaves were possibly already enjoyed there before coffee, and the plant still grows there in the wild.
Khat flourishes best in the uplands. Its leaves are a gleaming bright green, and they sometimes also have a reddish tint. If the plants aren’t pruned, they grow into small trees. In the plantations, however, they are kept as bushes slightly taller than a man, so that they can spend their energy producing shoots, not on growing a trunk. The more slowly the shoots can grow, the more active substance they contain, and so a higher price can be demanded for the khat.
The shrub’s shoots and fresh leaves contain the psycho-active agents Cathinone and the weaker Chatine. The pharmacological effect of Chatinone is very similar to that of amphetamines. If it isn’t cooled, the active substance builds up in the plucked parts of the plant within 48 hours. This is why it has to be enjoyed fresh.
Traditionally, khat is chewed predominantly in Yemen, Somalia and Djibouti. Now, however, it has also become popular throughout the East African region, as Muslims consider it to be a permissible alternative to the alcohol their religion bans.
The largest cultivation areas are in Yemen, around Harar in eastern Ethiopia, and around Meru in Kenya, on the eastern slopes of Mount Kenya.
Planes with cargoes of khat leave the cultivation areas on a daily basis, for Europe, the USA, the Gulf States – in fact, for anywhere with enough Somali and Yemeni immigrants.
Khat trade and use is illegal in some parts of Europe, but this doesn’t stop a few thousand kilos of the drug from being imported each year.
In Somalia, the khat trade is firmly in the hands of women, as they don’t chew it themselves and so can earn a little extra from it.
All the chests from which the women in Hargeisa sell khat, kept fresh in damp bags, come from Awaday, about 10 miles north of Harar. Trade in northern Somalia, Djibouti and the Somali areas of Ethiopia is organised from this small town at the heart of the cultivation area in eastern Ethiopia.
Khat of the cheapest quality is selected for northern Somalia from the khat market in Awaday. When I was there, the wholesalers were tossing the bunches into the air with a spin to determine how densely the farmers had packed them. They’d then smell them and say, “That’s no longer completely fresh – that can go to Somalia.” The most expensive usually went to Djibouti. That’s the place with the highest purchasing power in the region.
The wholesalers would pay up to £500 for a very good bunch which could be made into half a dozen bundles.
The khat is transported to Hargeisa overnight by lorry, and to Djibouti by plane the following morning.
• The Somali Film IV (Hargeisa – Grenze)
Just a couple of miles outside Hargeisa we got a flat tyre. We passengers waited, and the driver took the SUV back to the city to get the tyre patched.
Then something strange happened. The two women had already walked on ahead. I was waiting with the five men in the shade of a roof of branches and planks at the edge of the road.
There was nothing special about these men. One of them was wearing a tall turban and a long white robe. His eyes weren’t quite symmetrical, giving him a devious grin. The others were wear
ing trousers and shirts, perhaps slightly worn – but otherwise there was nothing unusual about them.
The only one I trusted slightly was an elderly man with a walking stick. None of the passengers spoke English, but he had winked at me a couple of times, in a friendly way, and had groaned just as I had when we’d got the puncture so soon after leaving the town.
The passenger with the turban and the devious grin now took the elderly man aside and spoke to him. In fact, I’d thought that the pair didn't knew each other. What were they talking about now?
The Turban placed his hands on the elderly man’s shoulders, in a confidential way, as though he required all his powers of persuasion, and he repeatedly made hasty, dismissive gestures with his hands. He was really going for it. The other passengers stayed with me and continued to chew khat.
I was uneasy about the whole thing. Why had The Turban taken the elderly man aside? He was certainly up to something. And why the elderly man in particular? What did they have to discuss that we shouldn’t hear?
There was only one conclusion to be drawn from this – The Turban was trying to persuade the elderly man to keep quiet after my murder! There was no other explanation. The elderly man was the only one who was against it. The khat chewers would probably not only hold their tongues, but they’d probably take part in it too.
At this point, I was so convinced of the conspiracy against me that I’d already identified a wooden club on the ground. If necessary, I’d pick it up and flail it around wildly. I’d make it as hard as possible for my murderers. I wouldn’t resign myself to my fate without putting up a fight. That was definite.
I put the piece of paper, on which I’d written the registration number of our minibus as a precaution, in a small and well-hidden pocket in my trousers. The perpetrators wouldn’t find it easily. But it would set the investigators on their tracks.