MAY 3 - HARAR TO SOMALILAND, PART 1
The courtyard is empty. There were no
other guests last night. Hajeera and Khaleeja are visiting family. Alarm-Cat is
off pilfering pizza or engaged in cat things elsewhere. Microbes are gone or
hiding.
Semeera
waves from the kitchen and goes back to rolling out the morning’s pan bread.
Showered, we
leave some clothes to be washed, and stuff everything we’ll take for 5 days in
Somaliland into our tiny day packs. Every trip is a triage. We’re down to a
single change of clothes (top to bottom), liquid laundry detergent to keep the
change fresh, toothbrush and paste, Deet, bathing suits, head scarf, power
cords, toilet paper, guide book, passports, meds, and US cash, which is the
currency of choice in Somaliland. We stash the rest in a back room,
slather the breakfast pancakes with wild honey, down some coffee, pay our bill
to date, say goodbye to Semeera and head out through the metal doors.
It’s 8 am.
Somaliland awaits.
But first we
have to get there. There’s a 2-hour bus ride to Jijiga, then a change to
another 2-hour ride in a minibus or cab to the border town of Wajale, exit
formalities, a walk to Somaliland, entrance formalities, a 1 to 3-hour ride in
some sort of vehicle from the border into Hargeisa, capital city, where we’ll
find a hotel.
Traveler
reports on the internet and blogs all say this is a piece of cake. ‘All’ in
this case equals 3. We’ve had some surreal border crossings, so how bad can
this one be? (Note: see our daily reports from last year’s trip to the 5 Stans
of Central Asia for a refresher. Remember the Refrigerator, pornographic
sketches, and the ‘Hound of the Baskervilles’?).
We walk
uphill to the place where Harar buses congregate. There are of course no signs
in English. Bini has prepared us well. The Jijiga busses are green (so
are all the other busses) are generally ‘over there’. Sit on the left side. The
view is better Say Jijiga with firmness. It works. A crowd of touts leads us to
the next Jijiga bus. People on the bus kindly tell us the ticket is 40Birr
($2). Busses don’t leave until full. We take the last two seats, and they are
on the left side.
Full seats
do not mean full bus. The Bus Stuffer grabs more people, shoves them through
the door. They politely squeeze onto the seats. More stuffing, more squeezing.
Flip down seats appear, flip, are covered, squeezed into. There’s still
room according to the Bus Stuffer, though that is not verifiable by any
scientific procedure.
The Bus
Stuffer might agree that no 2 bodies can occupy the same space at the same
time. But 3 or 4 can. And proves it.
By 8:30 he
is satisfied that one more person would be pushing the limits of even Ethiopian
physics and gives the signal to depart. He remains hanging out the door.
The bus
bounces down the beautiful road. We do not. Movement is impossible. As is any
feeling in our legs.
The view is
spectacular. The Valley of Marvels is a forest of rock spires, many of which
have large boulders balanced tippy toe on their summits. The slightest Richter
Rumble would produce a cascade of large basalt marbles across the landscape.
The possibility of any kind of movement is encouraging.
It takes a
while to unfold and unpack the bus in Jijiga. Atrophied limbs do not cooperate.
They know another bus awaits. The next bus a mini bus and is only 30Birr. That
suggests a shorter trip, which turns out to be true but only as measured by the
clock. Measured by limb death, it’s much longer.
This Bus
Stuffer is summa cum laude graduate in the Maximal Molecular Mashing Major at
Bus Stuffing U. The proof is in the pushing.
We’re
sitting in the last row on slightly elevated seats so can see everyone.
Anywhere else on the planet this bus might hold 25 mashed bodies in maximum
discomfort. We count 39. Then blood flow ceases to our brains.
The border
is chaotic. The blogs are right. We can’t see anything that looks like border
control. Ditto. Don’t worry they’ll find you. Ditto. They do find us. Its easy.
We’re the two guys kissing the ground.
Three guys
grab us offering rides into Hargeisa and steer us into the crowd. Oh well, when
in Rome… We cross a ditch, then a plank and enter an open sided green building
with no sign anywhere on or around it. And there’s Ethiopian Passport Guy, smiling,
stamp in hand. He copies all of our details into a huge ledger by hand, checks
our Ethiopian visa, (multiple entry, good for unlimited stays anytime in the
next two years), satisfied we’ll be legal to cross back into Ethiopia in a few
days, smiles again and waves us out of his country.
Back in the
road we continue eastward through the crowds. Somaliland is one of 5 countries
that prevent Ethiopia from having a coastline and easy access to world trade.
Smuggling is a big business for all 5. We navigate an outdoor Walmart of Dodgy
Goods, all contraband.
There’s no
sign of anything legal, the immigration office, for instance. Self-appointed
guides, now arguing about who will get to fold and stuff us into the next
vehicle, lead us forwards, then to the right, up some steps and under a
Republic of Somaliland sign into another green building.
‘Welcome,
welcome’ effuse the two young, smiling, spiffily uniformed Passport Guys. They
actually shake our hands before taking our passports. It has been five hours
since we were stuffed into the first bus. Did I mention it’s 35 degrees, (aka
95 degrees in the USA, and in Myanmar, only)? We are so ready for a shower,
some food, and Somaliland.
Passport Guy
checks our passports. Eyebrows head skyward.
'Your visa
is expired….'
MAY 3 HARAR TO SOMALILAND PART 2
Somaliland Passport Guy is sweet, friendly, apologetic,
smiling, and sharp-eyed. He has noticed what we have not.
Our
one-month single entry visa is not good for a 30 day stay in his country (which
is what ‘one month visa’ means in the rest of the world). No, it means the visa
is good only for entry during the 30 days from the date it was issued. This is
a new meaning for ‘one-month‘ visa in our book, but it sticks.
We’re 6 days
too late.
And 6 hours
this side of a return journey to Harar. The Bus Stuffers are practicing
already.
The Passport
Guys are on top of it in a flash. Somaliland Smarts sidetrack this serious
travel booboo/bummer. One Passport Guy calls the Embassy in Addis Ababa and
gets permission to issue us a new visa on the spot. All smiles, he practically
‘whoopees’ as he high 5s and bumps fists with us. Stamps go into the passports.
Sixty dollars go into the cash drawer, all carefully noted and receipted.
These guys
have not been star graduates of the ‘Scowl and Intimidate First, Then Obstruct’
Class at the Passport Academy. They’re wonderful. They suggest a hotel in Hargeisa.
And even check that we’re paying the right price for our minibus ride
onward.
Bravo,
Somaliland.
(Note: the
Passport Guys tell us where only the 6th and 7th people to cross by land
into Somaliland today, and we never see any of the others to compare
notes. We chat with a Kenyan couple in the hotel, people we had met in Mr.
Martin's Cozy Hostel Addis, and they tell us the the Somaliland passport people
at the airport were equally extraordinary. Bravo, indeed.)
Bus Guys
sort it out and we spend the next hour sharing molecular space with a friendly
Somali family and their 3 year old doe-eyed daughter who plays Flirty Girl with
us over her mother’s shoulder.
(For a
fuller description of a minivan ride in the Horn of Africa, see MAY 3 PART
1.)
We pass muster
at 4.5 security checks. They’re all easy. The last one is almost a slam-dunk,
too. Then his daily bushel of chat, local chewable leaf of choice, kicks
in for one of the security guards. He commandeers the inspection, grabs our
passports, and does a little twirl in the road, waving said passports. It’s
raining. He’s oblivious. I see a future with a warped passport and illegible
visas. Less ‘chatty’ folks, still in the mellow fellow phase of chatdom, oozing
laid-back good nature, take over and our passports are rescued from rainy ruin,
returned, and we’re waved on.
The family
is dropped off in a suburb, and the driver continues into the bustle of
downtown Hargeisa. Contrary to all expectations, blood returns to our lower
limbs and our legs unfold into their normal shape.
We make a
fairly dignified stumble into the Oriental Hotel. The on duty manager,
Muhammed, of course, is helpful. Once we get toilet paper, towels, and a
fan all arranged, the hotel is pleasant enough. The drinks are cold. There is
water and the shower is hot.
There are
twin beds and no Bed Stuffers.
MAY 4-SOMALILAND DAY 1 PART 1
At 04:34 the neighborhood mosque launches its first call to
prayer. Aside from that jump start to daily life, Somaliland seems thoroughly
laid back. Our breakfast arrives, in slow motion. Desk Guy, Ahmed, figures our
bill, all in slow motion. I walk out the hotel door and a guy lounging on the
steps looks at me, mutters, ‘taxi?’, accepts my shake of the head, shrugs, and
returns to his morning snooze. Chat chewing and the pounding heat slow things
down. We pass on the first, can’t avoid the second, but get the message. Slow
is good.
Somaliland
gets few tourists, but requires that all tourists who want to travel outside
the capital city hire a car, a driver and an armed guard. That guard may be an
income generating ploy. The country is quite safe, but there’s no way around
the rule.
Ahmed shows
us a menu of itinerary choices. We go for the 3 day two night special, to the
country’s major draw, a mountain with 7 sites containing spectacular paintings
guesstimated at 5,000 to 7,000 years old, then to the seacoast on the Gulf of
Aden, and then up into a different landscape in the cool hills.
Ahmed
assigns us to driver Abdi, who packs us into his ancient 4x4, picks up Doud and
his rifle, and bounces us out of town.
Exuberant
Abdi’s English is enthusiastic and essentially incomprehensible. He
throws in an odd Italian word now and then, prefacing it with a full stop, then
the one word, ‘Italiano’, then whatever version of that lovely language pops
into his head.
We have no
idea where all that Italiano influence comes from, but one thing is
frighteningly clear: Abdi is a proponent of the Italian school of driving that
assumes it is possible, preferable even, to do several things at once while
driving, so long as one of them is talking and none of them involve looking at
the road.
When we veer
off the road, we’ll probably survive. The goats will outrun a careening car,
the sparse bushes bend under us and the rocky sand stop us. Occupying the same
spot in the road with one of the huge trucks rushing towards us from the
seacoast would, however, be unfortunate. Abdi seems to have a second
sense about these monsters and we avoid instant death. Frequently.
I prefer to
watch the scenery.
The
landscape is, sand, crumpled with the bumps of rocks, all broiled flat and brownish.
Smooth sandy riverbeds flow across the road every few miles. Yesterday, rain in
the hills leached torrents in a flash flood that stopped traffic in one spot
for 5 hours.
Today we’re
at that spot, sipping tea, waiting, while a road crew scoops enough sand into
the washout to remake the road. Stymied cargo trucks from the coast line are a
great metal snake that disappears over a distant hill. This could be a long
wait...
MAY 4-SOMALILAND DAY 1 PART 2
Abdi grabs some plastic chairs and we hunker down in the
spotty shade of a young acacia tree. It’s young, not yet wise in the ways
of its kind. There’s no leaf-thick and wide spreading umbrella between us and
the sun, just a few tentative branches, spastic gestures, adolescent. They
suffice to blunt the blow of the sun and attract some affable
shade-mates.
One is an
Economics and Political Science major (also named Abdi) who has been working
with the sole woman in the Somaliland legislature on ways to get more women
into public life. ‘If Clinton is the first woman President in America, that
will help us. People will believe it is OK, and possible’. To my point that
there have been women leaders in many countries, including Moslem countries,
Pakistan, Indonesia for instance, he replies: ‘Yes, but if it happens in
America, it’s better. Everybody knows America.’
Road
patched, trucks from the coast start to pass our tree belching, lung-crashing,
eye-burning, black smoke for half an hour.
They have to
go around five guys who pull handfuls of sand from inside a wet and dripping
car, its front smashed in. They tried to drive through yesterday’s flash flood.
Bad idea.
It’s our
side’s turn. We leave new Abdi with good wishes. ‘Inshallah’, he replies.
Old Abdi picks us up and we continue coastward.
The landscape
becomes familiar. We notice life in it. Grazing gazelles blend in, but when
they run through the dust in great leaping sine curves, we can’t miss them.
Dik-diks, smallest of all antelopes, endearing wind-up miniature greyhounds of
that huge family, zoom-bounce by in fully wound up mode. They mate for life and
are always in pairs, thus are named twice, dik-dik. If a partner dies, the survivor
sometimes joins a couple and they manage à trois.
The rock
paintings at Las Geel are a brain roasting, sun struck climb up a hill that is
a pile of granite bonbons melting and stuck together by the heat. The paintings
are worth it.
Five to 7
thousand years old, these may be the best collection of rock paintings in
Africa, it’s certainly the largest in any one spot…. until more people start
looking in other places. They are both gorgeous in color and riveting in their
reduction to essentials. The most common images are cattle, all soaring horns
and great blocky bodies, the essence of cow.
From the paintings
we know that people back then herded such cattle, kept dogs, hunted giraffes
with bow and arrow, danced in groups. The giraffes are long gone. Bullets
replace arrows, dogs are unwelcome in Islam and kept at a distance. Cattle
still remain at the center of life, and that life is lived out in tight knit
clan groups. Maybe they dance.
The breeze
is a blast furnace. The heat is way beyond ‘what the **** am I doing here’,
beyond even ‘what the **** is anybody doing here’, and simmering just short of
‘an ice cube, an ice cube, my children for an ice cube’.
Back at the
car, roly poly Abdi is stretched out and shirtless on his nanometer thick
Mattress by Sealy, Cardboard Series. ‘You lucky come now. Come hot season, very
hot.’ Oh?
The roads
are easy. Just follow the dots, goat-swallowing potholes. From the right height
above, Africa must look gift wrapped in pointillist ribbons, dotted by Seurat.
We follow ours to the coastal town of Berbera, weaving around the dots.
The Gulf of
Aden is warm, the beach littered with squashed plastic bottles, there is no
shade, but the Gulf is wet, and cooler than the air. And there is the mystery
of Yemen just over the horizon.
‘Fresh
grouper’, offers Ali, at Al Xahay Restaurant on the bay, recommended by Lonely
Planet. It’s neither better nor much worse than the same at a below average
fish place in Florida and nowhere near fish we’ve eaten everywhere else in
Africa. The vigilant cats don’t mind.
The
AC in our room is powerful and implacable. Another Muhammed has turned it
on with a remote. The setting is between Antarctic Winter and Springtime on
Pluto, over-cold even for the heat-wasted. While our fingers can still
bend we press every button. None of the images or numbers on the remote have
anything to do with what the device is doing or change it. ‘OFF’ means
nothing.
We’re too
tired to get the latest Mohammed to help. It would also mean going outside,
where lead is melting in the streets. Inside frostbite threatens. If we
go outside, who know what the temperature change will do to our heat-addled
brains. There are quilts. We bundle up. Cattle dance in my dreams.
MAY 5, 2016-SOMALILAND DAY 2
There’s been a town baking on this spot along the Gulf of
Aden for thousands of years. It’s a natural. The Red Sea is off to the left.
The Arabian Sea on the right. Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, Pakistan, India and
all of Asia as well as all of East Africa are just a sea voyage away, much of
it without losing sight of land for long.
Berbera is
the current town, fallen on hard times, depending on local fishing not
international commerce. No one has maintained the substantial buildings built
by the British, Egyptians and Ottoman Turks during their commercial heydays
here. They’re ramshackle or rubble surrounded by mud and thatch houses or
simpler ones of stick, cardboard, tarp, flattened metal cans, anything that
might make part of a roof or wall.
All of it
braises slowly in the scalding, liquid air. There’s not much for us here.
We decide to
leave for the cooler mountains half hour earlier than we had planned. This does
not work. Armed guard Doud throws a major hissy fit on the phone about the
early departure and bails on us. His replacement, Mustafa, bails about 2 hours
later. Abdi says both have been paid, and he is pissed. We think that’s what he
says. He could also be reciting the Gettysburg Address. But, certainly not in
English.
‘I be
guard’. That we get. There’s no gun, which is fine with us. There aren’t many
places in the front seat of a van where you can hold a rifle and not be aiming
it at something critical. Or someone.
The three of
us wind round and round up into the mountains inland and south of the heat sump
that is the coast. By 4 we’re back in the temperate zone and clatter, unsweaty,
into the town of Shaikh.
Abdi is from
this town. He knows a hotel. Six dollars, he says. We know we have
misunderstood him. Based on his past excursions into the world of English
numbers, it’s sixty dollars or sixteen, or maybe thirty-seven fifty, almost
certainly not six. Once we see the colorful, spiffy, and neat one-story
exterior of the Dawaare Hotel, my money is on sixteen or thirty-seven
fifty.
No one is
around. Abdi’s 9-year-old nephew runs up, and we all go for a cold coke down
the road. There are photos of course, and prints while we wait. A few phone
calls scare up someone to show us a room and check us in. For 6 dollars.
(Apologies to Abdi for doubting him.)
We have room
27, with 2 beds. There is also a bare lightbulb. Energysaver. The room is
clean, and against all odds, the electric outlet works, is not falling off the
wall, and accepts our plug adapter tightly and without complaining. We can
recharge our phones, which have become our cameras of choice, and the notebooks
for recording these daily sketches.
Unusual for
hotels at any level in the Horn of Africa, there are hooks for hanging our
clothes.
If we leave
the door open there’s cross ventilation. The air is cool.
The several
cold shower/traditional toilet facilities down the narrow walkway open to the
sky have running water and are spotless. So are the sinks for hand washing and
the tiled troughs for foot washing before prayers.
A young man
comes by and offers the password for wifi. It even works. And is free. Shaikh
is a university town---the veterinary medicine school is here---so wifi is not
surprising, but still... SIX dollars?
The Dawaare
Hotel is a major find, not for everybody perhaps, but it works for
us...especially the wifi and the cool and the clean parts. Lonely Planet and
the Bradt Guide will love it.
Bravo, Abdi!
Your tip has increased.
MAY 6, 2016-SOMALILAND DAY 3
‘Maaaaa’, yells the
kid in the street, and heads for breakfast. She drops to her knees to suck on
Momma Goat’s sagging udders. It’s 7 am in Shaikh and the goats rule the
road.
I have a
front row view in the mountain cool air from the wooden bench on the tile porch
of the Dawaare Hotel. Two latish model sedans and 2 more experienced minivans
(one familiar) almost fill the space between the porch and the road.
Abdi
stretches out of one, cigarette dangling, mumbles ‘good morning’ and shuffles
down to the toilet/washing area. He’s not an early morning person, nor, as it
turns out, a mid-morning person.
Two women
and two tiny kids, human variety, are sweeping the ground, picking up trash,
and collecting white pebbles. It’s a game to the kids, income to their mothers.
Donkeys join
the goats in the road. Heads down, sweet, sad sack faces contemplating the
dust, their dusky bodies are one big sigh, the opposite of all that perky
goatiness prancing around them. Goats are always busy, curious, checking out
their world. Donkeys are always working, plodding. I know which I’d invite to
my parties.
The air is
cool and dry. A few cars clunk by, but the sound world is natural music.
Feathered flurries ruffle the few trees, chirps, almost songs, fluttering out
of the leaves. Chickens babble the morning gossip by the porch step, clucking
disapproval. Distance softens rooster trumpets but they sail, still a bit
raucous, over the mellow ripples of the mourning doves.
White people
are rare here. Overnighters, the stuff of legends. Confusion reigns in police
and immigration officialdom and generates uniformed minions. Morning Somali tea
(half sugar) with Abdi, his handsome recent veterinary college graduate nephew
(for English), the immigration man, and a strapping soldier seem to set the
world aright. Our tea is paid for. ‘Somali hospitality’ says our immigration
man. Then he waves us out of his jurisdiction.
We ride the
Olympic Gold Medal Slalom down the twisting snake road from the cool heights
into Hades. It’s the one hand on wheel, no eyes on the road version, the one that
ignores the rocky face on the left and the piney drop into oblivion on the
right. We hit the flats at Mach 2.
Armed Guard
Number 3, hops in, sans gun. He looks a bit loopy, so sans gun is a good thing.
He, too, jumps ship, making room for Armed Guard Number 4, who is young, neat,
perky, gunless, and sticks with us. We think Abdi tells us that these guys are
paid for the whole trip, but don’t ever do it. Our theory is that the whole
thing is a ploy to get free rides.
The
flatlands are stifling, the air heavy, thick and wet, almost cushiony. We
bounce back northward from pothole to pothole, following the dots to desolate
Berbera on the coast, skim through it, turn south and cover the tracks we made
coming northwards, in reverse. The river crossings are easy, though we
detour around one to avoid the knot of drivers ogling a car stuck in the water,
half on its side, a tunnel for sand and water.
Lunch is a
plate of plain rice and a soup that doubles as a sauce. It’s tasty enough. I
don’t expect a run on restaurants offering Somaliland food any time soon.
As we pull
up midafternoon to the Oriental Hotel, Abdi makes a play for ‘big
baksheesh’ (big tip). He has certainly been good willed and entertaining, and a
skillful driver of the ‘look Ma, no hands’ school. We’ve laughed with him and
arrived safely. He gets his tip.
We’ve outrun
the heat and humidity, left it stuck to the coast. Hargeisa is cool and
comfortable. Big Muhammed tells us he has a very good room for us, and, it is.
It’s huge, with two beds, armchairs, coffee table, closet, and a desk. Big
windows and a balcony overlook the market. The ceiling mounted table fan seems
committed to its job. It’s $30. We shower off the dust and heat of the north.
The noisy activity of the central market is right below but no barrier to a
nap.
Seduced by
an effusive review in Lonely Planet we head for fish at Saba Restaurant, a
Yemeni restaurant and a three-dollar cab ride through back streets, way across
town. The fish is grilled into cardboard dryness, though the cardamom
flavored rice is delicious. Both are improved by two glasses of the fresh
papaya juice.
The return
cabby takes us a more direct, but congested route, down a major avenue, through
a neon lit, high rise section of town, another face of Hargeisa, more affluent,
but a bit generic, and offering less to us than the explosive, noisy market
craziness around the Oriental.
Tomorrow we
join the crushed bodies again on our 3-stage trip back to Harar.
The rock
paintings alone have made this trip worth it.
The heat?
Perhaps not. Maybe it will prepare us for our 4 days in Djibouti, lowest spot
in Africa, third lowest on the planet…and one of the hottest places anywhere on
4-billion-year old Mother Earth.
I hope they
have ice.
MAY 7-SOMALILAND BACK TO HARAR PART 1
May 7 is a four-part soap opera. Stick with it through Part 4
I’m living a
fantasy, wading around and through waist high stacks of money, enough to swim
in. Wiser parts of the brain kick in and I resist the temptation.
Somali money
changers do their business on the street, heaping their wares in great banded
bundles, on tarps, under umbrellas, lounging next to one another in commercial
conviviality, gossiping…. keeping current with their currency, as it
were.
It’s all
legal. Everyone knows the exchange rate is 7,500 Shillings to the dollar.
Every place we’ve been, even sleepy Shaikh way up in the mountains,
quotes prices in dollars, prefers dealing in greenbacks. We get change in
Shillings usually in 500 shilling notes, because people hoard dollars, a more
reliable currency. Ten dollars is 75,000 Shillings. That’s 150 of those 500
Shilling bills, a major wad. There are larger bills but we see them only once,
on the bus. Thus, the immense stacks in front of the moneychangers. And my
temptation.
I ask for
and am granted a nod to take a picture of a sidewalk gajillionaire amidst his
goods. I’m tempted to send a copy to The Trump Person. Surely, he’d abandon his
destructive political game in the USA for another chance to roll in someone
else’s money and then sell them to China. But, these people are too nice, too
decent, and well, human beings. They deserve better than The Trump Person.
Hargeisa
central market surges around and swamps the Oriental Hotel, a sea of stuff, new
and old flotsam and jetsam from all over the world. Just past the electronics
section, the new and used shoe department, the booksellers, luggage, blankets
(!!??), shawls, bikini underwear, is the men’s outer wear section.
I look for a
lightweight, thin, cool hat to replace my heavy, sweat collector. It’s easy to
pass on the sports caps, boasting teams I’ve never heard of. So, I buy a
sarong. I don’t need it, but it’s five dollars, wads up into the day pack, is
typical Somali men’s wear, richly red and green, bigger, brighter, softer than
a photograph, and perfect for…something.
Somaliland
hasn’t yet gotten the hang of the ‘fleece the foreigner’ thing. Like many
people in Ethiopia, people here tell us the right amount to pay. Manager Muhammed
tells us the bus station is close, so only pay $2 for the cab ride, not the
standard anywhere-in-the-city $3. And the ride to Tog Wajale is $6. Even the
taxi driver tells us it’s $6 as he searches in the bus station for the right
bus.
We pull in
our limbs and practice condensing our molecules in anticipation of another
physics challenging squeeze fest back to the border. We are so wrong. The Tod Wajale
route is served by a comfortable bus not a tin suppository. In Bus Number One
we have our very our own seats. No one is in the aisles, or luggage racks, or
our laps. Molecules relax.
The ticket
is, we’ve been told, six dollars. We each hand Ticket Guy a five and a one. He
returns the ones and 15,000 Somali Shillings., two dollars. The trip costs $4,
half of the squeeze-a-thon to get here and without bodily damage. Somaliland
gains another star.
Somaliland
passport control is as fun as it was the last time, with hugs and handshakes
all around. They get about 25 border walkers a day, maybe 5 or 6 Americans.
They remind us to tell everyone that Somaliland is not Somalia. It’s safe and
wants visitors. Will do.
We leap and
side step through the molasses muddy swamp of the road There has been a flood.
The Ethiopian Immigration Office, well-hidden even in the dry season, has
disappeared.
MAY 7-SOMALILAND BACK TO HARAR PART 2
Befuddled farangi bring out the best in the people of Africa.
We’re adopted and led down the road, around and through a cluster of old
buildings to the new Passport Office, hidden, off road, with no sign, and
depending on the kindness of strangers for any business at all. Ethiopian
Passport Guy is polite, very sweet, does his thing, shakes our hands and
welcomes us to his country.
‘So, where
you guys from’? Comes out in perfect English from a head to toe black gown,
black sunglasses, purple black nail polish and a big smile as it adjusts a pile
of contraband filling the front of our Bus Number Two, to Jijiga. The rest of
the minivan is filling rapidly with piles of packages sprouting wildly gesticulating
arms and voices that would not be out of place at one of my Italian family
reunions. We’re talking many, all at once, and loud.
The heaps
begin shedding pampers, shampoo, ‘makaroni’, cookies, pots, pans, packages all
ripped apart, stuff stuffed under and around seats. All this is much more
expensive deeper in Ethiopia, and against the law to import without paying
taxes, contraband all.
We
have been kidnapped by the Jijiga and Harar Ladies’ Smuggling Circle.
Uh, say we,
won’t the police at the checkpoints have a problem with this. Her eyes giggle.
Not for a hundred Birr they won’t. Then she bails, perhaps to find a faster way
back to Atlanta. Or, because, she Knows Something.
I am now
complicit, sharing my seat with pampers, baby clothes, and cookies. The latter
may not survive the trip. A kitchen full of glassware and pots passes over
Dennis head. Two bottles of sunflower oil each big enough to deep fry a cow
sneak in, are passed back. I haven’t seen a cow get on, so I’m not anticipating
Bossie Burgers for lunch. The cookies nudge my leg.
Out my
windows, blessed source of cool air, is another van, destined for great things
in the Annals of Smuggling. Stuff has seeped out and oozes up and over its
roof.
Meanwhile,
back inside, at Walmart on Wheels, much Sturm und Drang ensues. The driver
tries to collect fares. Even I can figure out the women don’t want to pay
for the space their loot occupies. They won’t budge. Guess who wins?
The women
all seem to be carrying something on their backs, under their shawls. Usually
it’s babies. I am no expert on babies, but I don’t remember them coming
with right angles and sharp edges. Just saying.
Its 1:30.
We’ve been sitting here an hour. This could take time.
Pampers fly
to the roof, then descend, then invade the bus. If we ever get moving, at least
we’ll have airbags.
We move
forward at 1:45, crunching and grinding. Fifteen feet. ‘I don’t think he has
second gear’ offers Dennis. Yes, or no, the driver doesn’t care and pulls
up twenty more feet to fill up with petrol. We’ve seen this before. The drivers
don’t fuel up until they have a full load of paying guests. He obviously hasn’t
been paying attention to the Ladies in back
A few
minutes later we hit the Checkpoint. The bus empties. IDS, please. We get a lot
of attention. While some guys rifle through the bus Our Guy rifles through our
passports and Dennis’ wallet, counts the money, hands it back, sends us back to
the bus. No one’s goodies seem any the worse. Our Walmart on Wheels
creaks down the road, still loaded.
Five minutes
later we’re pulled into Checkpoint Number 2, empty the bus, show IDs, climb
back in. No cash counting this time.
My window is
open, passing in a cool breeze…and also a thump-thump-thump sound from the rear
left wheel. We stop. Bus Guys pulls out a lug wrench and a long pole, runs
around to the offending wheel and attacks it with grunts and gusto. Lots of
lefting and righting and jumping on the long pole don’t seem to have any effect
on the tire. It doesn’t look flat. Well, not too flat. Flattish, perhaps, but
more roundish. Shrugs replace grunts, poles and lug wrench stowed, and we head
off again. Thumping. The rear wheel is wobbling.
I look for
the camera crew. Surely, we have stumbled onto a movie set. The Harar and
Jijiga Ladies’ Smuggling Circle’s Excellent Misadventure, or, perhaps,
Nightmare on Wheels.
The Ladies
are not happy. And when Momma’s not happy, ain’t nobody happy. Especially Bus
Guy, who tries to collect his fares again. He starts with us. We’re easy. No
bundles taking up space, no extra charges, but whatever fare he had in mind for
us is subverted by Purple Lady 1 who flashes me 3 fingers over his head, thirty
Birr. Purple Lady 2 dittoes. He accepts our thirty each.
Lines have
been drawn. The Ladies are not on the side of the bus crew. I should have
warned him. He tries to collect fares from the women, refuses the 30 Birr per
Lady each shoves at him. BIG mistake. A wave of indignation spews from
every corner of the bus, propelled by whirling arms, the whites of eyes, thrust
lips shaking heads. The decibels are in full array. Bus Guy pales. This is what
the Christians in the Coliseum must have felt like.
Bus Guy is
saved from a ripping of garments and a rending of flesh. The bus thumps to a
stop.
Its
Checkpoint Number 3. Or as we come to call it, The Bad One...
MAY 7-SOMALILAND BACK TO HARAR PART 3
Purple Lady 1, clearly Madame President of the Circle, leads
out of the bus, turns to make sure we’re with the program, then gestures for us
to follow her up the road. Gum chewing Purple Lady 2, nods approval...of us,
not what’s happening on the road.
In front of
our bus are ten others in various states of disarray. Armed Checkers are
throwing the roof stuff into piles in the dust. Road Guys slice the bales and
packages with knives. Marked as ‘seeds’, most of it is clothing. New shirts,
pants, skirts…Walmart eviscerated…cover the road.
People are
less muddled. We’re all lined up by gender. A female uniform searches the
women. Guys go through an airport security putdown with a young recruit.
Dennis’ Bluetooth printer stops him in his tracks, is tossed aside for review.
Cohort steps in, understands the word ‘printer’ and gives it a pass.
First
Checker empties our day packs onto the road. We save space by rolling and
rubberbanding our clothes. The long cloth wrapped tube that is our extra pair
of pants freaks him out and he unrolls it carefully, eyeing us with deep
interest.
But, Africa
comes to the rescue of the farangi. A voice over my shoulder says something to
First Checker, then tells us in English that he has explained, and First
Checker believes us. But our day pack still gets emptied onto the road. FC does
try to repack it; I’ll give him that. Thanks to Rescuer abound. In our last
view of him as we walk further down the road his arms are in the air and he is
being frisked.
Now, here’s
the scoop. There is no tax on imports in Somaliland. Ships enter the country’s
ports and dump the world’s products. Things are very cheap. The same things are
very expensive in Ethiopia. A used car that costs, $5000 in Somaliland costs
over $50,000 in Ethiopia. For electronics the difference isn’t that huge, but
we get the idea. There’s a lot of motivation to smuggle. Thus, the Harar and
Jijiga Ladies’ Smuggling Circle and the checkpoints. But why so many
checkpoints? It’s because the smugglers use camels, donkeys and 4x4s to carry
contraband across the desert and beyond checkpoints. The government sets up
checkpoints at random to catch these guys.
What happens
to the seized contraband? It’s supposed to be burned. Put the wink anywhere you
want in that sentence.
Back on the
road, our bus pulls up. People climb in... then out. Purple Lady 2 catches our
eye, holds up her hand, flips it sideways and down, eloquently signing that our
bus is dead. Oh, goodie! We get it, she laughs, then gestures us to
follow. (The phrase ‘Up Shit’s Creek without a paddle’ springs to
mind.)
Our paddle
turns out to be another bus, all ready to take us on. Bus Number 3 is already
filled with passengers. In the world of Physics-Immune Bus Riding this is no
problem. In the Real World, it’s a very big problem, but we are not in the Real
World. Folded, not stapled, but verging on mutilated we all pile in. Not all of
us, actually. Later we hear that some people will stay with their confiscated
goodies in hopes of coming to some tearful arrangement with the Checkers. The
Purples get on the bus, but I can’t believe that Purple Lady 1, especially,
does not have a contingency plan.
As we
approach Checkpoint Number Four Bus Number Three starts to moan in sympathy….
or transmission failure. Driver downshifts. The moan becomes an empty whirr.
Our paddle is a sieve.
MAY 7-SOMALILAND BACK TO HARAR PART 4
Tools come out. Banging begins in the nether regions of Bus
Number Three. It gives in. We limp on.
Checkpoint
Number Four is a nonevent.
At
Checkpoint Number Five everybody but us and 2 women are offloaded, checked,
reloaded.
A tall turbaned
man with the most amazing face gets on. His face is beyond handsome both full
frontal and profile, sculpted in character and charisma, raw material for
friezes, coins, worship. We watch this face as he responds to what must be the
women’s retelling of the Harar and Jijiga Ladies’ (Smuggling) Club Day of
Infamy. His eyes bulge, his jaw drops, his head shakes. The ladies have their
audience---and what an audience it is---and they are in full diva mode. All of
them. At once.
(Note: If
this were a video it could be his screen test. Remake of Clark Gable in Gone with
The Wind. Check. Harrison Ford in Raiders. Check. Sean Connery as 007. Yes,
indeedy. Rudolf Valentino in The Sheik. Double Check. Just ask the divas, or
anyone with a pair of eyes.)
Nobody notices
or minds that we…are…limping…along…at…slightly…below…the…speed. …of…a…brisk…donkey…trot.
We get to
Jijiga at 5:30. There are still buses going to Harar, two hours away.
Adding the
two of us to Bus Number Four makes the Bus Guy happy, but it takes a while to
get enough people for him to be happy enough to head off.
At
Checkpoint Number 6 we’re offloaded, but nobody is checked.
Not even
that happens at Checkpoint Numbers 7 and 8. It’s dark, there are no lights. We
stop, get waved on, lurch into the dark
At 8:30 Bus
Number Four lands in Harar. Lunch was a handful of peanuts hours ago. We catch
a tuk-tuk to Harar Gate, tummies and taste buds so ready for Samosa Lady’s
wares. Alas, she is gone, or never was, this semi-rainy night. Above is one of
our balconies. Beer assuages our disappointment, but we’re still hungry.
Frateera waits 15 minutes away.
Frateera Guy
recognizes us, knows what we want, waves us upstairs. And there we run into Hanif
and Khadija, an Indian couple from Kenya who we met at Mr. Martin’s in Addis,
and shared a long chat with in Somaliland. Chairs drawn up we’re deep
into custard apple drinks and hot fateera when…. up runs Abdela. The man must
have us in his GPS. He charms Hanif and Khadija as he has us.
Hanif and
Khadija are also staying at our guesthouse. Hajeera and Company welcome us back
with smiles and point us to our old digs, aka The Sick Room.
Bob and
Dennis’ Excellent Misadventure is not quite the Misadventure that the Harar and
Jijiga Ladies Smuggling Circle had. It ends with a return home, good food,
friends, a lot of laughs, deep sleep and may turn out to be an excellent story,
better in the telling than the living...and I have managed to sneak my
contraband Somaliland sarong past 8 Checkpoints.
The Purple
Ladies would be proud.
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