Back to Baidoa

(November)

Much of the last quarter of 2022 has been spent in Somalia. It’s understandable given the unfolding severe drought. Some of these visits are normal monitoring trips, overseeing our response on the ground. Others are to accompany media. Some are to travel with internal visitors from within the organization. All of this is time consuming but necessary.

In early November I traveled back to Baidoa with on of our senior vice presidents. I had met with him nearly a year ago so we already knew each other going into the trip. But this would be his first time to Somalia and he hadn’t spent much time in Africa previously. I sensed at least some degree of apprehension going into the visit.

Admittedly, this sort of travel is unpredictable and has some risk to it. You do all the necessary preparations, contingencies, etc. and then you just hope for the best. 

 

Mogadishu

We traveled together from Somalia to Mogadishu in the normal way. The 4am taxi to the airport. Arriving in Mogadishu at the beginning of the workday. Navigating immigration (much easier for me as a resident).

navigating the streets of Mogadishu

Generally, my visits to Mogadishu are conducted in the first half of the day. Statistically, there is less insecurity. The health facilities are teaming with people, making it much easier to get an idea of the work being done. And you avoid the afternoon heat.

We went straight from the airport out to visit activities. I’ve visited hundreds of clinics in my life but when you do this with someone who hasn’t done this much, it’s important to step back and picture how this might be viewed. We’ve had visitors who have struggled a bit. One woman earlier this year had to step out of the clinic because the sight of extremely malnourished children was too upsetting. It’s not easy sometimes but I think it’s important for people to recognize the dire circumstances some people are facing.

By early afternoon, the visits were drawing to a close and it was time for lunch. I always want to go to the lido area for lunch when we have visitors, but I’m always aware that it’s subject to the prevailing security situation. On this day, we received the green light by my security guy and off we went.  

Seriously, these lunches have been some of the highlights of my time in Somalia. Not only is it a wonderful place to have lunch, it’s important for outsiders to see how beautiful the country is and tweak the narrative of “fragile state” rife with drought and violence. It’s more complicated than what usually is presented in the news. Obviously, it’s tough to circulate beach photos when there is so much suffering going on so one needs to find some balance.

The lunch was so late that we didn’t get back to the office until late afternoon. There was time for a brief meeting with staff before the end of the workday.

 

Baidoa

The next day, we would have an early start back to the airport to catch out plane for Baidoa. There was a massive delay but at least the flight happened – something that is never a certainty. We had a short 2-night/3-day window for the trip so we couldn’t afford to have any cancellations. We both had board dinner to attend in Nairobi on Wednesday evening and meetings the following day.

The Baidoa visit would proceed in a similar fashion. Straight from the airstrip out to visit activities followed by a meeting with staff. In this case, we wouldn’t even have time for a meal until dinner.

As I mentioned in the earlier blog about Baidoa, it’s the more or less the epicenter of the drought response in the country, not only for us but for the international community. It’s by far the most expansive humanitarian crisis I’ve ever witnessed. I’ve worked in massive refugee camps with tens of thousands of refugees and this is measured in hundreds of thousands. It’s hard to comprehend unless you’ve seen it. Even then, it’s still hard to comprehend.

I was able to speak with some of those who have been impacted, including a camp leader who I met previously. He was able to share with me how support we’ve been providing had made a difference and then I could see it with my own eyes. A massive area of makeshift tents now had latrines and a covered area where we were conducting nutrition screening for malnourished children. Massive bladders were set up to provide water. Things are happening, though not nearly at the pace needed to stave off famine. We’re also not sure how long the water, used to fill these bladders, is going to last.

We visited a couple of different locations before heading back to the office. We had our meeting with staff and then retreated to the hotel. I’ve never stayed in a hotel in Baidoa since we have our guesthouse. But due the surge team supporting our drought response, we were relegated to a hotel in a secure zone near the airport.

I had a headache. I generally limit my water intake while in the field so as to avoid being caught needing a men’s room with no opportunity to do so. We also hadn’t eaten which made it worse. Though I certainly can’t compare my skipping a couple of meals to those facing severe food insecurity, it does serve in sending signals of deprivation – sort of a “just imagine what these people are going through”.

The next morning, we would make our way through the layers of security to get to the tiny airport. I was able to make some acquaintances in the “VIP” room. There were four Southwest State government ministers traveling to Mogadishu on our flight which gave me a certain confidence that the flight would happen and it might be reasonably on time. The main thing for me was that, given that we would be connecting in Mogadishu to a flight taking us back to Nairobi, we just couldn’t miss our connection.

As we disembarked in Mogadishu, a couple of the ministers motioned us to follow them to the VIP section of the airport. This isn’t something I normally get to do in Mogadishu. In fact, I’ve only done this once in six years when I was traveling with a friend of mine who worked in the office of the Prime Minister. I felt a bit justified in this case given that my traveling companion on this occasion was an SVP.

I will say, there isn’t a huge advantage to being in the VIP wing. There’s no free food and the chairs aren’t any more comfortable. The one thing that’s cool is that there’s a guy that comes to retrieve your documents and returns later with your stamped passport and your boarding passes while you’re sitting and having a drink.

After a couple-hour delay, we would be on our way back to Nairobi. The 5pm landing would thrust us into rush-hour traffic. While annoying, I would take advantage of the time in the taxi to catch up on emails and a few phone calls. I would get home in time to have a cup of tea before heading out to a board dinner. As exhausted as I was, I was happy that we’d pulled off a successful trip with an important visitor and such a tight schedule. Always satisfying.