Ciao Hargeisa

As I walk towards my plane, to head to Dubai, I feel pretty emotional. My six weeks in Hargeisa have been filled with colour, heat, dust, smiles, lots of sugar, religion, but most importantly friends. I’m nit quite sure how I was expecting my time here to play out, but I don’t think I could’ve predicted how it did. I’ve met some fab people – Mubarak, Asha, Amanda and Kenny, who have absolutely made my time here, as well as Richard and David who welcomed me so warmly and took me out on day one, as well as to see live Somali music for the first time! I also feel so lucky to have met so many strong women here from Dr Shukri, a surgery queeeen, Nora, the head nurse in theatre, to Emily and Becca, two US nurses that have somehow managed to navigate Somali culture for a prolonged time to enable them to work here long-term, to Edna’s nieces, who run a tight ship to in both the hospital and the university, to of course the powerhouse, the iron lady, Mother of Somaliland, Edna herself, who works long and hard for her country, even now at the age of 83! Sadly, I didn’t get to say goodbye to her, since she was in state business in London and the Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), as a government official, Special Advisor for Somaliland. I am so pleased to have met one of my heroes and will never forget my time here!

15/2/22

As with all of my time here, my last day was filled with ups and downs!! We woke up early and had a quick breakfast, since it was outreach day! Then we loaded our supplies into a minibus along with the student nurses, dentists, medical and public health students. We left late after waiting for three students that never appeared, in a separate car (Dr Asha, Dr Abdulahi, a third Dr, Amanda and me) following the bus. Not long down the road, there was quite a commotion. A bus and a car had collided with the car at right angles to the bus!! The two male doctors got out to see what was going on, and I was wondering why, until we realised that it was in fact, our students’ bus!! A great start to the day!! Since accidents here are common and all the cars are battered, noone seems to bother with logging accidents so both drivers merely inspected the damage before heading on their way again!

After reaching the outskirts of Hargeisa, we rang Thomas at the school for directions. Asha handed me the phone since it was a little complicated!! We had to pass the Kuwait charity school, go off the tarmac road, back onto the tarmac road, past a green and white stripey half built petrol station, off the tarmac road once more, and then turn left at the next pile of rubble – there were many!! We made it to the school eventually after realising we had gone past too many piles of rubble nd turning around!

The school had a big outdoor space and 3 classrooms as well as a loo block, kitchen and store rooms. We were to use three rooms for our clinic. Asha did a reccy while I divvied up the students between the rooms, before explaining their different roles and assisting with obs and student flow in one of the rooms. The kids were all pretty adorable. They had been separated into groups to go round in, with each group having a team leader, most of which were girls! 💪🏾 There was one girl who was in charge of two very anxious children, one of which was her brother, and between her and the teachers, we were able to assess these nervy kids too!

Amazingly, we finished all our assessments just about on time – the obs, heights and weights, visual checks and doctors advice as well as running an exercise programme to teach kids about resting heart rates vs post exercise heart rates. Since exercise is not too much of a thing here, some of the kids were huffing and puffing a lot after their three runs back and for to the wall, but they seemed to enjoy it! We played some football with some of the kids – one girl was very good, quicker and more skilled than all the boys – what a queen!

The kids went home and we (the Dr’s, us and the students) had lunch with the school teachers before we were meant to go home. After nearly two hours, the bus which brought the students had still not arrived, and we were wawin the hot sun with no water. Needless to say I was not a happy bunny. Prone to fainting, I do not like to push myself on the how long can you go without water before collapsing game!! I had brought some water to the school, but my two bottles had either been thrown away or drunk by someone else. There was no shop anywhere near and I pondered why such a basic need as water can be so hard to come by here. Welcome to a country of droughts! After awhile Thomas appeared with some filtered water on Asha’s request. Eventually, after waiting in the car in the heat for a long time, I went in search of Asha, who was praying in the shade. Throughout my stay in Hargeisa, I am constantly surprised by just how much of the day is taken up by prayer, waiting for prayer before you can go and do what you want to and ensuring you can be in a suitable place to prayer at the set times. (Since 99% of the population here follows these strict rituals, this is the norm, and everyone else finds my view much stranger!!) Anyway, after prayer, we eventually set off back to Hargeisa. Asha felt bad for making us ‘sunny and thirsty’ and I told her it’d be fine when we had a drink! We went through downtown and I asked Abdilahi if he could drop us near the malls so we could get a drink – I needed sugar and ice!! He obliged and me, Asha and Amanda got out and escaped to a private shaded veranda on a breezy rooftop. I ordered a caramel frappacino with a hugeeee caramel cheesecake, which provided me with more than enough ice and sugar! Balance was restored. We chilled, chatted, Asha took a zoom call from Warwick, since she is hoping to study an obs and gynae masters there, and the Internet played up as is always the way for these things! Then we headed back, and I napped before Mubarak’s finale for my final night!

We left the hospital around 18.30 – Mubarak, Asha, Amanda and me with a traditional Somali guitar in tow. Mubarak had promised me a night of live music and a bonfire but none of us knew what to expect. We stopped to order pizza on the way, before picking up a singer on the way and heading to a gated field. Much to our surprise, a bonfire was already up and running, the flames dancing under a starlit sky with a bright white moon.

Another man, our musician for the evening, had got there early to set up the fire for us! He was a lovely man, and a passionate musician. His whole body breathed music when he strummed the guitar and sang. He was a friend of the singer, who was a friend of Mubarak’s. There had brought a big speaker, and they played various different backing beats, and played and sang over the top. It was divine. I felt very lucky to have my favourite people around me for my last night! We ate pizza, wiggled on our mat and enjoyed the tunes and the stars.

After awhile, the singer dropped Amanda back at the hospital as she had an interview for midwifery on US time. The main musician played some more and I asked him about his life. He had played his guitar for over 25 years. He had never played professionally and preferred to keep it as a hobby. He worked in the government, in the anti-terrorism department and was currently living in Hargeisa alone as his wife and kids had emigrated to Australia, but he had not been able to go with them at the same time as his mother had been sick, so he had stayed to care for her. He absolutely loved his wife and was keen to get to her in Aus. Inshallah, she would return to Hargeisa in May and they would go back to Australia together. A lovely man. It was so nice to see a passionate musician doing it purely for the love of it.

At the end, we put out the fire, with the musician absolutely ensuring there was not a single hot ember left. Then we headed home and I turned my attention to blogging while having coffee and homemade cake (thanks Mubarak), then packing.