Drought Response - Part 2

One thing I was not aware of, in traveling to the country hours after the election, was that the new president (to be clear, not president-elect) was staying next to our office/guesthouse while he was waiting a little over a week until the official residence is prepared for his arrival. This ended up complicating our access. Interestingly, we have gone through great pains over the past couple of years to move our office/guesthouse from our previous location which was adjacent to the property of a former president. Nothing against him personally, but it seemed that every month our office became more and more inaccessible due to increased barricades, boom gates, armed men, etc. Staff, particularly female staff, would get harassed trying to get to our gate. We moved, only to be confronted with a similar issue now. Thankfully this would be temporary.

The problem was that the road was blocked and teaming with armored personnel carriers, pick-up mounted machine guns and armed soldiers. No one was allowed to pass through. Thankfully, my security guy was able to get authorization for our armored vehicle to pass through on the condition that the armed escort remain out on the main road. That was more than acceptable to us. At about 9am, we loaded up and eased out of our compound and onto the dirt street heading towards the main road. 

Drivers of armored vehicles tend to drive fast. It’s part of their training to move quickly through the city, darting here and there to avoid lingering in any one location for very long. On this occasion, we crept slowly through the gauntlet of military might on both sides of us. Some of the men watched us attentively. Others showed no interest and/or stared at their phones. I was a little creeped out by it but in the end, it wasn’t a problem.

The next hurdle was entering the green zone compound, which is essentially a military base. It’s heavily fortified as you might guess. Once your ID is checked you proceed through a boom gate and into a secure area where passengers and drivers leave their vehicles leaving doors, hoods, trunks, etc. wide open and wait in a nearby shelter while the security check takes place, a couple of guard towers watching in the background. A sniffer dog and a guard inspect every corner of each vehicle. Once the check is completed, you can return to the vehicles, the next boom gate is opened and the cohort can move forward and enter into the base. This time it went smoothly but there are times when it can take almost an hour. The edginess of the military guards seems to ebb and flow according to the overarching security situation at the time and sometimes just the personalities of those manning the gates.

* * *

The meeting with the UN went well. I hadn’t met these two guys before but they were both easy going and the conversation flowed smoothly. At one point I mentioned that I had met the acting head of the USAID Africa Bureau from Washington DC the week before. I mentioned something I told her and the USAID team. The UN guy laughed and said that USAID told him the same thing – they were repeating the same message. Flattering that they took on board something I said (but the didn’t give me credit from what gather).

Afterwards, we headed back to the office. We had to go back through the military gauntlet leading up to our office. It was just as creepy as it was the first time but it was, again, uneventful.

* * *

The following day we were to fly to the interior of the country. We ended up being delayed by a couple hours so we made use of our time in the Mogadishu airport having a coffee, talking about work, Somali politics and people watching. One thing that became apparent is that I was the only white guy in the terminal. You occasionally see expats in he international section, but for domestic flights, it’s quite rare. Not a lot of expatriates have security arrangements that allow them to leave the “green zone” in Mogadishu. Of the few that can, they are generally restricted to using UN flights (which use a separate “terminal” (container). So domestic commercial travel is primarily Somali territory.

few international airports smaller than this one

Eventually, we were able to make our way to Galkacyo, a town that is roughly in the middle of the country from north to south. From east to west, it’s located towards the west near the Ethiopian border. The governor and mayor were waiting for us at the dirt airstrip. The small building (“terminal”) makes reference to it being an international airport. I’ll have to take their word for it. I assume that at some point, the place receives an international flight, though I don’t know where that might be from if it is indeed the case.

After greeting the local dignitaries, we were whisked off to begin visiting projects. Our first stop was a center for women and girls. We support several of these facilities and they are particularly important in the Somalia context. They provide skills training, protection support as well as serving as a an important social resource. We saw tie-dye training, henna tattooing, tailoring as well as the making of various crafts. I do like these centers and I’m glad we support them. However it’s the kind of thing that often falls through the cracks in the donor funding, particularly in a context that experiencing severe drought, verging on famine.

We also visited a couple of camps for those who have been displaced by either the drought or conflict (internally displaced persons or IDPs). IDPs are basically like refugees that don’t cross international borders. The conversations with these people were sobering. The first group seemed to be dominated by people, mostly women and children, who were from a village raided by extremist militants. One woman told us they lost over 600 camels and many of their boys (to be transformed into child soldiers). The look in her eyes was haunting. The incident had only happened a few weeks prior and you could tell she was still coming to grips with the fact that she’d lost everything. Each conversation provided additional insight on the horrors that people experienced in losing their family members and/or their livelihoods (people from the southern part of the country tend to be farmers while people from the northern part tend to be pastoralists).

There was also the inspirational. Some of the villages where we worked had benefited from recently rehabilitated boreholes allowing them to not only be resilient to the ongoing severe drought, but also to serve as a resource for IDPs. In speaking to elders from these villages, they told us that they would have been forced to leave their homes in search of water had we not received our support. It was a tangible example of how lives were changed for the better and a nice balance for the many conversations we had, and things we witnessed, that revealed the desperate situation in the country.

After a long day on dusty, bumpy roads, we returned to the office. Would have been nice to retreat to the guesthouse, have a cup of tea, catch up on emails. Instead, a big spread was laid out for our late lunch/early dinner with staff. While I was certainly hungry, I have to say that I impacted by the conversations we’d had throughout the afternoon. I couldn’t get the images out of my head of people who had so little, who were battling each day to feed themselves. It felt selfish to be sitting in front of platters of goat, rice, camel, etc. knowing the situation people were in only a few kilometers away.

After the meal, we needed to shift buildings to have a meeting with local government officials, including the governor, mayor and their respective deputies. While I’ve met the governor before, this guy was new to the role. As such, it was good to have the opportunity to sit down with these officials, listen to their views on the current drought situation and have them present their requests. They seemed to have plenty of time for us. I don’t know if it was a reflection of how much they have to do or if it had
something to do with the level of expectation they had for potential increases in our support. Either way
, we ended up meeting them twice during the time that we were there, in addition to traveling with some of them to visit project locations.

After the government meeting, it was back to our meeting room for an evening meeting with the team. While it’s not ideal to have evening gatherings, the following day would be a Friday, the first day of the Somali weekend, so staff were keen to stay on to avoid having it the following day.

By around 9pm, we called it a day and I retreated to my room in the guesthouse. I was exhausted from the long day and it was wonderful to put up my feet and not have to talk to anyone until the next day. It wasn’t entirely peaceful given that there are two semi-indoor soccer fields across from our compound. Not only are they loud, they continue until midnight. Thankfully, I was too tired for it to bother me and I was able to fall asleep even with the noise.

The next day would be spent visiting projects and IDP areas. There were more heart-wrenching stories combined with examples of successful projects where we provided water resulting in them being more resilient to the drought. We again traveled long distances on bumpy, dusty roads. It makes me wonder how many thousands of kilometers I’ve traveled over the years in dusty Land Cruisers.

Our third day in Galkacyo, we headed north towards the town of Garowe.