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You don't like walking around those beautiful narrow cobbled streets, past all those beautiful grand Omani homes ?

Do you get a certain 'urr' when you're there? I remember watching this Channel five travel programme about Zanzibar, apparently they said something like..the only thing African about this place is the 'smell'.

What's the cost a plane from UK to Tanzania? I see that Euro forumers here always travel but no American here leaves his cubicle, I'm guessing travel is hella cheap on the other side.

The claim that Barawaanis have some sort of Portugesse connection is false. There is no recorded history anywhere which proves the Portugesse stuck around long enough to establish settlements along coastal towns in Somalia and sire children. The most noted incidents involved raids that would last 1-3 days and they would run again, taking off to the Indian ocean. This was true in many coastal towns & islands that were part of the Swahili state, even Kilwa which is off the coast of Malindi was burned to the ground by the Portugesse, but they never settled there or left behind any descendents. Mombasa had a fort called Sa'eed Barqash, later called fort Jesus which was very successful at keeping the Portugesse raiders off Mombasa, but they too were infiltrated at a much later time. Reer Baraawe are most likely from Oman and many of them can trace their ancestory to villages in Oman, at least the ones I used to know in Baraawe.

As for reer Xamar, they are a mixed people and come from different backgrounds. They have differences amongst them and probably came about as a result of centuries of trade in Muqdisho. Remember Muqdisho had a very long history as a port city and Ibn Battuta himself chronicled that he met all sorts of people in Muqdisho whom he called locals that spoke fluent Arabic. My suspicion is that reer Xamar probably existed as far back as then. Some of them might be Persians, others could be Yemenis or even from other Arab countries. Ibn Battuta also documented that there were around 300 men who fled persecution in what is today Uzbekistan that also lived in some type of a camp near af-gooye during his visit that he was told of. Nobody knows whatever happened to their descendents.

Enlightened~Sista wrote:You don't like walking around those beautiful narrow cobbled streets, past all those beautiful grand Omani homes ?

I almost got robbed twice!

The first time a swahili butcher looking guy with a machete attempted to rob us We only left the hotel late at evenings thats probably why. No I didn't feel any uur. Maybe I would if it was the first place in africa I landed in.


Monk-of-Mogadishu

I went to Dar es salaam first, from there I went to Zanzibar for a couple of nights, and Arusha for a couple of nights. £500 for UK to Dar, $300 Dar to Arusha return, half that price from Dar to Zanzibar.

Let me also point out that Somalia also had Somalis of Yemeni origin, they had a distinct name and never called themselves reer Xamar. If anything, they hated being lumped with them. Reer Xamar are like gypsies, after the civil war, many of them fled to Yemen and were put in refugee camps, if they were from Yemen or had any recent traces there like the Somali-Yemenis, wouldn't they have received a better reception? All I remember is nobody wanted to be them.

A light skinned Arab Somali mixes with a cushtic Somali...The child looks..Somali?