Time to Pray for Rain in Somalia

[Voltage]

Abdiwahab is right. I did not even know about this until the qaaraan process started to get relief to the people who are suffering a drought.

Ilaahow roob sii. Aamiin.

[AbdiWahab252]

Grant,

To be honest, I like Obama but the forces are too entrenched.

For example, look at his and Hilary's health plans. It basically contracts health insurance out to the HMOs, the same scumbags that are cherry picking and dropping their customers.

If either one had the guts, they would have gone for a single payer system.

The corporatism that is deeply entrenched is going to be the ruin of this nation: oil to defense to health. We are all farming it out to corporations and then wonder why we are in such a mess: high oil prices (read an article somewhere which said 40% of the oil price is pure speculation & hype), foreign wars (cash cows for defense), and coming soon, UNIVERSAL healthcare.

I am a health care voter because of all the issues: getting sick is a guaranteed issue to affect you in your lifetime & a majority of bankruptcies come from medical costs.

[Grant]

AW,

I don't disagree. My ability to go on from day to day depends to a large degree on hope.

Dua, i sii dua badan.

[AbdiWahab252]

Voltage,

Amiin.

Grant,

I am one step ahead of you. Currently exploring immigrating to Canada should McCain win.

[Shirib]

Grant what parts of Somalia have u lived in/been to, I know the Jubba's but anywhere else.

[Grant]

Shirib,

I started at Hargeysa, went to Tallex for a few days. Back to Hargeysa, then south to Hamar, Kismayo and Jilib. On various trips I got to Dhuusamareb, Eyl, Beledweyn, Afgoye, Merka and Barawe.
I got to spend some time in Shingani and Barawe. I got into Kismayo every other week from Jilib.

[Murax]

Grant, how much did it used to rain in Lower Jubba?

[Grant]

Murax,

There was enough rain for a good crop of gelay during Gu, and a good crop of sim-sim during Der. All traffic except on the tarmac road between Kismayo and Jilib stopped. They could not get a plane in or out of the Kismayo airport. It was consistant the two years I was there.

During Jillaal cracks showed up in the black soil six inches wide and so deep you could not see or get a stick to the bottom.

[Murax]

Grant,

Do You know if the Bajuunis and Bantu lived INSIDE the city or outside the city of Kismayo. Also is Jilib a city or a little farming village?

[Grant]

Murax,

Kismayo was said to be a Darood city. The people I dealt with personally were shopkeepers, a banker and a Farsi doctor. We did not discuss qabiil in those days, so I am not sure of the clans, but I will guess that, except for the doctor, they were all Barawanee. One could have been Pakistani. I only ever became familiar with the central area and the port, but I do not ever recall seeing any Gosha. I don't think I could tell Barawanee from Bajuun.

The mayor of Jilib was Gosha. The town, which had a total internal population I am sure was less than 1000, was surrounded by farming clusters and villages on three sides. The fourth side was just badiye. It had previously been the Italian administrative center of the Lower Juba. There was a Leprosarium across the river and apparently a convent somewhere west of town that was associated with it. The west end of town consisted of a brick District Commissioner's Quarters, which had the post office and a room used for a generator on two sides. Across the main street was the police station, and across a street west of that was an area of derelict huts that had once housed police families, and the school, which was of the same period as everything else. There was an "Egyptian School" in town as well as the government school I taught at in the old Italian structures. Even between the two schools, there were probably only about 50 students in town.

There was an Egyptian family with the school, an Italian doctor that occassionally visited the Leprosarium, three households of the mayors family and probably two other Gosha households. The rest were government employees and their families, mostly from the South, but not local. The clans that I knew were Cumar Maxamuud and Ciisman Maxamuud. My landlord had strong family connections in Hamar, and I think was from one of the Hawiye clans.

[Murax]

Grant be honest. Everybody You know in Kismayo, Jilib were Marehan, j/k, lol...


So the Barwanis (Somali Arabs) had a big presence in Kismayo? Were there a lot of Ogadeenis as they claim the city too? I guess the city was just very diverse and no one clan can say they were the originals be they Harti, Marehan or Ogadeen, lol...

[Grant]

Murax,

I got to thinking about your question last night. About Kismayu.

Within the first month of ariving in Jilib I took a trip accompanied by the son of the Mayor of Jilib, who was Gosha. We toured Jamame and then went on to Kismayu and stayed with the PC couple who were then teaching there, in the upstairs of a house they rented from the owner who lived downstairs. They told me the next time I saw them that he must never stay in that house again. I was offended, never did return to that house, and never did establish other than commercial relationships in Kismayu.

In Jilib, Gosha were not able to attend the government school, but could attend the Egyptian school. There was little social integration, but far less tension between the groups than was apparent in Kismayu.

We really didn't discuss qabiil. I knew vaguely of Daroods, Barwanis and Bajunnis, Gosha and Hawiye. Cumar and Ciisman Maxamuud. I had never heard of Marehan, Tunni, Sheikhal or Harti until coming here. The Ogaden were in the Ogaden.