Author Archives: wanderingwelshie95

11/2/22

So my final Friday in Somaliland came round surprisingly quick, and to make the most of it, I had a FULL day out! We (me, Mubarak, plus the usual driver and guard combo) left around 05.30 (after writing my blog til 01.00 – lucky I’m used to the nurse life of not sleeping!), and headed to Berbera, reaching the town around 08.30 where we stopped so the driver could grab breakfast, before driving out of the town along sandy tracks to the furthest beach.

We arrived around 09.30 with a full day ahead of us! Behind us were sloping white sand dunes reaching up to tall rocky peaks, which lined the beach, and in front us was the bluey-turquoise ocean with not a single soul in. The beach was white and pretty clean and frankly, it looked like paradise – it could have been the Maldives or Bora Bora, though if it was, it definitely would have been busier and more exclusive in a sense! The only other people we passed near the beach were living in a few traditional Somali huts, which use sticks for the frame and various pieces of cloth as the covering. When we arrived I could see a group of people further down, past the village with donkeys and a truck – they were there to collect water from the well for the village. The only person we saw on the beach itself was a nomad who was walking to the town. Since being in Somaliland, I have repeatedly had people worry for my safety and so while the nomad was walking past the guard was swimming with the driver both in their pants, and I briefly imagined the headline ‘White Western girl snatched by nomad, while guard was swimming in his underpants!’ (Basically the whole reason a guard has to follow foreigners around here is because Somaliland is a new country, which isn’t even internationally recognised, so any bad news could taint their name and risk them losing any progress on being recognised as an independent country instead causing them to be lumped in with Somalia, their unstable and dangerous neighbour.) The crazy thing about the guard to me, is that by saying to foreigners that you cannot travel without a guard, you are implying that it is not safe, when really, it is safe but they’re just overcautious, perhaps understandably since they’ve been fighting for independence since the 80s – now they are an independent state, with their own government, but are still not internationally recognised as a country!

The pristine beach reminded me of some of the beaches in Myanmar – perfectly white sands and clear, blue waters, but no tourism whatsoever. Here, locals do not regularly go for day trips to visit the beautiful landscapes that Somaliland has to offer. Having visited various impressive tourist sites, as one of only a few visitors each time, Somaliland has so much potential to be a popular tourist destination in the future. Any where else and the beach would be teeming with life, cafes strung along the top of the beach, hawkers going from person-to-person trying to sell their goods, people undercutting the business next door with their sunbed price! One day.

For me, it was good that it was quiet as it meant I could enjoy the beach in my Western attire, without any watchful gazes. We (Mubarak and I) strolled along the beach to the very end, scrambled up the dunes and admired the view out over the bay. Apparently, we were looking out towards Socotra, an island owned by Yemen, which I am determined to go to one day! The beach was teeming with crabs, just basking in the sun on the line where the waves would break on the sand. We also spotted a turtle in the sea, though sadly I do not think it was alive – hopefully, its proof that there are more about though?!

We chilled, sunbathed, swam, played one a side football – lol, and generally I enjoyed my last Friday peacefully, in my own zone of freedom. When we were done, we re-dressed to Somali standards, walked back along the beach towards the car, where some people were enjoying the beach and the dunes. Everyone was of course, covered well, although a few headscarves were off to enjoy the sea breeze! We had a quick coffee and baklava before starting the long drive home again. When we reached the car, our driver Zachariah was digging out another jeep, which had parked on deep sand and was now stuck – it would take them hours probably to be on the move again…

We made it back to the hospital around 21.30 and I went almost immediately to bed! Another fun, but exhausting Friday!!

9/2/22

So today I had breakfast before my 09.30 class, to go and find that once again no-one showed up! I went back to my room, had a coffee and read my book. Then around 12pm, I got ready to go to Las Geel with Mubarak and Asha. We got in the car, but were waiting for the guard, then Mubarak went to chase the guard, and pray while he was waiting. Then Asha went to pray. The guard had still not arrived. Then I decided I was hungry so we went to get food from the falafel stall on site. Then Mubarak returned. Eventually the guard showed up and we left around 12.40!! It was the same guard that had come to Bali-Gubele with me, Asha and Abdulla to do outreach work in a village hospital.

We arrived at Las Geel around 14.00, after someone from the ministry of tourism checked some paperwork for me – they charge $25 for tourists but nothing for locals, but Mubarak said they want to change this to charge everyone something, so they can maintain it better. We went down yet another rocky track and then met a guide, who was infinitely better than Hassan! He was peaceful and relaxed, and wanted us to enjoy our experience at Las Geel. Las Geel is a series of caves which people lived in thousands of years ago and where there are ancient painting on the rock. We walked up to each one, admired the views and took some snaps.

After the caves, we thanked the guide, and walked to the top of the hill, above the caves to admire the view. On the way I found some quartz, and Asha found a huge one which she then lugged around for the rest of the walk for Edna. Me and Asha chilled on a rock overlooking the countryside for awhile to admire the view, before we all headed down to the bottom again.

Back at the entrance, everyone washed and then prayed, while I waited next to a whiney, maungy cat. I was mildly shocked that everyone was using bottled water to wash for prayer while water is a commodity and there is a drought on – to me it seems a strange priority, but I guess religious people see this as vital. After prayer, we headed on, towards another steep sided hill. The driver had enjoyed his walk with us, so decided to join us for the next part too! We marched out, until we reached the rock, when we had to navigate through many thorn bushes and scramble up rocks. While this normally would be completely fine, I had worn a long traditional Somali dress for the caves, which was very restrictive to climb in. At some points it completely blocked my view of what was underfoot, and I felt like a C-section patient with a screen between my face and my legs!! This made walking much more hazardous than it otherwise may have been!!

We chilled as close to the top as we could, put some tunes on and waited for sunset. I started with Come on Eileen which did not quite fit the chilled vibe, and as it started I saw the driver pull a face – I got Mubarak to ask the driver if he liked the music – he did not! Afterwards, I changed the music to What a Wonderful World and asked the driver again if the music was better – it was. No 80s pop for Somali mountain tops – as much as I love 80s music, I think I agree to be fair! We continued with chilled chooons after that! While we were sitting on top of the rock, we saw around 50 baboons heading across the savanna to the one and only remaining watering hole in what was left of the river – in monsoon, which is soon, the river will become big and strong again and wildlife will thrive once more! We watched the sunset, which was not the most epic of sunsets, but still pretty nice, before heading down again!

We got emergency biscuits on the way back, before hitting the road and driving to a curry house in Hargeisa. I was a little apprehensive about what a curry house would be like in a place where there are no Indian people, especially given the high standard of curries in Brum so was braced for disappointment. We ordered a few curries to share and to be fair the butter chicken was pretty tasty. Detectable as butter chicken and not at all a bad job – nicely spiced, but not spicy. It was nice to have an Indian, and by the time the food came it was 21.30 so we even had it at an appropriately late time. By the time we got back to the hospital, I was shattered, so I headed straight to bed.

10/2/22

Yesterday apparently wiped me out, so I woke up today at 10am. I considered my options – NICU only had two relatively well babies so did not require my help and we had no teaching and no surgeries on. I headed over to Nomad cafe and messaged Amanda to see if she also fancied a cafe chill. I had coffee and a freshly made doughnut, before ordering fuul for lunch – it was scrummy! We chatted and I also read my book, while Amanda sorted some uni and travel bits. At 13.00, we got kicked out since it was closing time (time for Somali people to eat, pray and nap!) We stopped by the tailors to see if our sheets had been turned into dresses – they had not and our tailor was not there, so we headed back to the hospital.

I spent my afternoon streaming Sophie Tea’s channel 4 documentary ‘Boobs’ and ended up using a weeks worth of data in the process – oooops!! It was an interesting and incredibly empowering show, and it felt all the more wild watching it here, in a super conservative country!! After the show, I got ready for my run. We headed out around 4pm to Masalaha. Amanda stayed behind to watch births, so it was just me and Mubarak – not too much wildlife today – only sheep and camels! I did not do a sub 30 minute 5km, but it was both hot and windy – one day I will make it!! (I did Race for Life when I was around 10 with my friends and got sub 30 mins so surely it has to be possible?!) On the way back, we passed lots of ladies walking.

We stopped at Guluf Air cafe, the cafe in an abandoned aircraft. We ordered fresh lemon juice and lime juice arrived, which was insaaaaanely tangy!! Even with extra water, it was still tangy!!

We came back to the hospital in time for tea. Amanda had seen a C-section so that was good! The baby was only 1kg though so had to go to NICU – that’s another baby for me to care for next week! After that, I went down to check if there was another C-section as I wanted to see Asha working as a surgeon. Sadly for me, it was cancelled until tomorrow. Luckily for the patient, the baby and the mother were stable, so it was not urgent, but also the surgery could not take place because the husband had still not signed the consent form. YES, women do not get to give consent for their own surgery – if they are not married, their father or brother consents for them – how grim is that?!?! Anyway, no surgery meant it was coffee time, so Mubarak and I chilled until Amanda and then Asha joined us. Asha got called back to work (as she is on-call) and Amanda headed off to bed, while I battled on with this blog! I’ve nearly made it… til tomorrow!

4/2/22

Friday is the best day of the week here in Hargeisa. Thursday night is their Friday night and Friday is the day to chill out or explore wherever you fancy. Since the weekend is only one day here, people do mad road trips so they can travel about and make the most of their day off. Today’s road trip was to a mountain, Gacan Libaax, pronounced ‘Gaan Libah’, which means the hand of the lion.

Our road trip began at 06.30, with our driver arriving at the hospital in his 4×4, the guard with rifle in the front passenger seat and me and Mubarak in the back with bags with of snacks and drinks. You need a solid car in Hargeisa as the roads are pretty terrible, but to go out into the countryside, the roads are either loose gravel, sand or worst of all, rubble with large boulders, trees and thorn bushes to swerve around, so a 4×4 is actually necessary! Another trial when travelling is the lack of signs guiding you in the right direction- there was one signing us off the main road today towards Gacan Libaax and that has been the only one I’ve seen my entire trip!

Anyway, the drive took several hours, in which we drove though many dried up rivers, saw dig-digs, camels, goats, sheep as well as baboons and gazelles, which was very exciting. There were hundreds of baboons together and on the way back we also saw a large group of gazelles – they’re such beautiful animals! We drove through many small villages – I guess they’re probably technically hamlets, with a few traditional Somali huts made of sticks/branches with assorted cloths tied over the top to create shade – each time asking if we were still on track for Gacan Libaax. Each new person waved us on, adding slightly more to the directions each time, as well as adding on their ETA.

After another few hours driving over VERY bumpy ground, we picked up a guide and headed out to Gacan Libaax, first to see the cave and then on to the ridge for beaut views. The cave was small-ish but had two other ‘windows’ up to the sky which let the light pour in. I asked about bats before we went in as everyone knows I do not like flying creatures, least of all bats (and seagulls lol). I was told there were not too many and when we went in they were pretty chill. Of course, when we were coming out by torchlight, the bats were flying were low and close to us through the narrow corridor connecting the main cave to the cave with the ‘windows’. I tried to remain calm and not look at them but I could see there shapes all around me!! From the caves, we were meant to get back in the car and drive to a viewpoint, but after five hours of driving, neither me nor Mubarak were keen on this idea. The guide was bemused that anyone would want to walk, but we set off, the guide Hasan, Mubarak and I, with the guard with his gun trailing behind and the driver following us slowly in the car – it was quite the procession!! Halfway through, the guide stopped suddenly, dropped to his knees in the dust and began praying – again this was interesting to me – behind me was a praying man, to the side of me were a load of goats and in front of me was a guard swinging his gun!!

After 20 minutes of walking (with no suncream – when will I learn?!), we made it to the viewpoint which was breath-taking. I felt like I was in Lion King and I was looking out over the Savannah! The only way it could’ve been better was if there had been some rain, so everything was green (and Circle of Life was playing in the background!) – maybe next time ayyy?!

We wanted to continue walking (we’d only done 4500 steps) so we headed along the ridge, guide in tow. The guide was not best pleased with our ‘extended walk’, but we explained to him that we had not driven 5 hours for a half hour tour!! We told him he could go back, but for some reason he was keen to come despite not being keen on walking! At every path junction, he tried to choose the path winding back to where we came from and became annoyed when we said we wanted to continue on. Eventually, Mubarak asked him to be quiet and let us pick where we wanted to walk, as we would only be here once, whereas he could come whenever he liked! He understood! Surprisingly to me, there were no established routes, nor particular paths that were maintained – if Gacan Libaax was in a different country, it would be a national park with an entry fee and a tourist office, cafe and the rest! I hope that IN THE FUTURE (which seems to be a common phrase here!), this will happen. The guide Hassan mentioned that a tiger had been seen about Gacan Libaax in the last few days, which is very cool, but also a little alarming when you are freely walking and the guide said he was not prepared for the tiger!

When we returned from our walk, we had a final coffee looking over the plains, taking in the view. A load of students came from University of Hargeisa, who were studying law. They were chilled, but friendly and there was a badass girl in a pink silky dress (long of course) with a hijab to match, who ran to the edge of the cliff for pictures. I told her I thought she was cool and we had a selfie on my request!! (Most of the other girls were much more cautious as was I!) One of the guys had brought a Somaliland flag, which is red, white and green like the Welsh one – ay, ayyyy – so they had a group pic and we jumped in a few too!

Then we headed home. We were taking a short cut home which required a guide to navigate, but luckily one of the workers was going home that way anyway and joined us in the car. Thankfully the journey didn’t take another five hours, but the ‘road’ back was pretty insane! The road was very steep and twisted round the mountain, with a cliff drop to one side and huge boulders to the other – it made my palms sweat and I think I may have held my breath at points, especially when I looked at the driver to find that neither hand was on the wheel, since he fancied some water! Mubarak said he was leaning away from the cliff too. The local guy also was not bothered! Craaaazy! I was pretty glad when we made it off the mountain side! The rest of the journey was uneventful apart from seeing a Somali ostrich, which has a short neck. We made it home in time for dinner – winning!

In Somaliland they work six days a week, with Friday being their one day off as its the most important prayer day. Despite the fact that a six day week sounds pretty intense, most people work six hour shifts, normally in the morning unless you work in healthcare and do the shift life. Although the work week is not as long as it seems, for the past two days, I seem to have been slacking!!

3/2/22

After lunch I headed out to the market with Mubarak, who was driving us, Amanda, who is a new volunteer who wants to train to be a midwife and Becca, an American midwife who is working out here long term and wanted to show Amanda around the market and advise on the best clothes to buy for Somaliland. We set out and had a much more focused market trip than when I had previously been, skipping the raw meat section with various furry legs and hooves on the floor – possibly a good move for a vegetarian!! We bought some fabrics – I got a super fun yellow and pink one which I want to get made into a two piece so I can wear it at home – and then the others took theirs to be tailored. I wanted to wait for Asha, my friend, to come back from, Djibouti to help with my complicated requests for tailoring!!

Shortly after our market trip, we headed out again to show Amanda our usual walk/run spot in Masalaha. She enjoyed seeing camels and dig-digs again, and we all enjoyed a stretch and a chit-chat. After dinner, I watched a shitty romcom with Mubarak – his taste in films is just as bad as mine (if not worse)!!

I first wrote a travel blog about around 8 year ago, when I ventured to India on my first time travelling without my parents! I went with three uni friends to a city in Punjab for a nursing elective and wrote about all of my observations and experiences nearly every day. Every trip since then I’ve journalled, but now I’m travelling about for the foreseeable (I hoping to be gallivanting til July), I figured its time to re-start a travel blog!

So 28 days is a pretty long time to write about in one post and I definitely should’ve started sooner, but to be honest, for the first week I was pretty culture shocked!! Time flew by and I feel like I couldn’t really catch my breath. If I had time to myself, I didn’t really want to relive and reflect on my experiences, I just wanted to watch Emily in Paris (sorry not sorry!!) But hey, 28 days later, I’m raring to go and tell you guys (anyone that is interested) about my time so far in Somaliland! I figure I’d start with my last few days and then go back to the start!!

2/2/22

In the morning, I was told that extending my visa was going to be possible but that I needed $87, two passport photos and my passport for Abdilahi (the logistics guy) to take to the government. I asked my mate Mubarak to run me to the ATM and then got everything ready.

I headed over the road (from the hospital) to Nomad cafe for coffee with an American guy, whos family is Somali, who I matched on tinder, to get a Western/local perspective of Hargeisa. (I was bored and mildly curious one night and decided to download tinder to see if it was a thing that people did here, given that society is much more conservative than home! It seems it is ‘done’ by a small number of people, and perhaps unsurprisingly, a fair percentage of them are expats and Westerners on holidays.) I met Kenny and we had a coffee and chatted before he got me hooked up with internet and Zaad, which plays the role of Google Pay. This was super useful as now I am free to roam as I please while still being connected up to the world, and being able to pay for things, without the great hunt by any business for change!!

We then got a Zaad across Hargeisa to the downtown area, which is the busiest part of the city. There’s lots of malls, with shops and cafes, some hotels and fancy restaurants too. We went to a beaut restaurant in a hotel for food – I had ‘fish sizzling’ which was super tasty and Kenny told me about his time in Hargeisa – he’s been here since mid November. Then we went to the rooftop for a Frappuccino!! Afterwards, I ordered my own taxi (Uber equivalent) and communicated enough to be able to get home to the hospital. I paid with my Zaad and felt like a free woman!! I could get about of my own accord!! YAAAAS!

I got back, checked in with Edna, who was apparently worried about me as she had not seen me at lunch and had missed me at breakfast, before meeting Amanda, an American girl who has come to volunteer here for 2 months. She hopes to train as a nurse and midwife in the states and has travelled around loads of places teaching English including Kenya and Venezuala! It was really nice to talk with her as another Western gal and share the odd travel story – surprising how much you can miss these small things!

I went straight back out after that, walking with Mubarak. We like to head out to Masalaha which is a big rural area with a beautiful tarmac road going right through the middle – if you saw how insaaaane the roads were here with all the potholes and dust, you’d appreciate it! Whereas normally we stride out along this said road, today I fancied going off piste. We walked into the bush, through empty plots, past termite hills and rural homes. Along the way, we were held up by a long procession of camels and sheep being shepherded past a rural house with their own livestock. It took a considerable amount of care to ensure the two groups of livestock did not mix and was pretty impressive to watch. I filmed the debacle, and predictably the woman shouted at me for taking a photo! It turns out she was joking with me, and luckily Mubarak translated for me. He told her that these jokes stressed me out and she said ‘hoiyo, hoiyo’, meaning ‘I’m like your mother’! While this was going on, a small boy was chasing a baby camel (around 1 month old). They wanted the camel within their camp area to keep it separate from the mother, so they could milk it. The baby camel was having none of it and returned to its mother. The lady waved us over to the camels and let us stroke the baby – it had fluffy fur and felt quite like wool!! When then thanked them, headed on our way, while the boy returned to rounding up the baby camel.

I then returned to dinner before heading out again with my Kenyan friends Richard and David as well as Amanda, the new American volunteer, for a ‘top secret’ live music outing (with the potential of dancing)! We went to Ali Jirde, a local fancy hotel, which had decked out the car park with lights, tables and chairs, a stage and a sound system for the occasion. As is always the way here, we were told to get there for 8pm at the latest, while noone else (aside from a few groups with white people in them) got there til 9/9.30pm! The live music started around then, with a traditional guitar called a cuud, a single drum and singers, swapping in and out every few songs. Very excitingly, there was a young female singer, who had a fab voice and also danced about a bit. Food and drinks arrived (I had a chicken wrap – my fourth meal of the day – and a bottle of Sprite) and we tucked in. It was 15 degrees, which is seen as cold here, so fleece blankets were handed out – I held out for a good few hours before finally caving. Almost as soon as I was wrapped in my blanket, a guy came over and asked where I was from and why I was wrapped up! He was a Somali from Slough and basically said I should be more hardy, which is fair!! There was also a traditional dance group, who always seem to be at these events who danced. Bizarrely, at one point about 10 police went on stage with them and danced – when we asked the people on the next table what was going on, they explained it was a national police day so they were celebrating. The police left shortly after the dance and a recognition speech and then a few headscarfs came off, the lights were dimmed and the dancing began!! Energy levels were high!!

5/2/22

Yesterday, I had a bit of a lie-in because Fridays always make me super tired and then there’s no weekend left to relax! I went to NICU for the ward round around 09.00 to find that two of the babies were going to be discharged – one, Moxamed, came in with a seizure secondary to a subdural haematoma, which was surgically managed with two drains and the other, Farixya, had meconium aspiration when it was born, so initially went into respiratory distress. Dr Shukri was explaining to the mother of Moxamed, that although he could go home, he needed to be allowed to rest, only lying flat, or being held still. No rocking or shaking, as there was still a small collection remaining. Farixya was ready to rock and her mother was thrilled!

I went to teach by 10.15 (since everyone is late, there’s no point being on time for 10.00!) I waited, and waited and yet, not a single soul turned up!! It seems common for people here to be flakey about lectures here – we were looking at an article today about medication non-adherence and the factors affecting it and perhaps there are many more things that affect people here which mean they cannot make it to uni – who knows?! I think that might be being generous! Anyway, I messaged the guy who set me up with the class to tell him and then left to grab a coffee with Mubarak before heading to theatre as I knew there was some cool surgeries going on.

Surgery

Queeeeen Dr Shukri was working hard, having already finished the first case (another hydrocephalus baby requiring a shunt) and had started on the second which was a baby with spinal bifida. Dr Shukri was carefully isolating the nerves that had come out of the spinal column and was trying to poke them back through the vertebrae without damaging them. It was a delicate procedure, but after she isolated them from the other tissue, which was basically a lump on the back, she got them back in the right place pretty quick. Nursing anaesthetists are common here and anaesthetic students commonly manage patients in theatre, only calling their senior if required. Sulieman, who has attended over 100 operations and is the most hard working student in his cohort, was on duty and was explaining the calculations for intravenous fluids hourly rate for babies! Shukri, Sulieman and another student Mohamed were making some jokes too! Everyone else left the theatre after the case was finished and Sulieman asked me to help with the care of the baby in recovery – basically monitoring, fluids and paracetamol. Babies are a nightmare because they always take all the monitoring equipment off all the time, so I basically specialled the baby!

The next case on the list I was really excited for – a skin graft for a burns patient. The patient was a young girl, who I estimated to be ten, but it turned out she was only five, but a lanky five year old!! She had been trying to cook and had fallen in the fire!! Her abdomen looked awful and Dr Shukri wanted to take grafts from donor sites on her thigh – ideally only one, as the donor site is pretty painful afterwards, since they’ve effectively shaved off the top layer of skin. There was a fancy machine to do the shaving to ensure you get a continuous roll of skin, but it was playing up a little! Once it got going, two nurses pulled the thigh tight to ensure there was a flat surface to shave off the skin. Then one nurse had to preserve the skin in saline and then roll them out again. They were then put through a machine which punctures lots of holes in them, meaning the skin can be stretched to cover more of the wound site. It is this procedure that make skin grafts look like chicken skin – who knew?! Dr Shukri then clipped them all on to the burn site, dressed the thigh, and bam, they were done!

After lunch, I prepped for my English class for nurses – I was a little nervous as I was going to have Amanda join me. This was a good thing overall, but pretty intimidating to a nurse (not a teacher) to have a teacher watch your teaching skills! To be fair, when we went to class it all worked out well and Amanda jumped in naturally and made the class more interactive and worked in some tips for how to answer impossible questions which at least half of the OET questions seem to be!! We played games at the end involving racing and everyone enjoyed it. We had seven students, which was the most I’d ever had!

After class, I headed out for a quick stomp up to the mosque at the top of the hill, enjoyed the sun setting before getting a cha (Somali tea) and heading up to the roof to chill with some tunes and a very pretty sunset. I came down for dinner in Edna’s dining room, where all international staff and Edna eat every day and then me and Amanda headed out for ice-cream. Its been a longggg time since I had ice-cream and I had a super green, but very tasty pistachio one. We chatted a bit about various things including Western vs. Somali culture before heading back!

6/2/22

Today, I woke up at 07.30 and decided to sleep more – my first class was not til 10.00 so I could relax. Then I had my usual Somali pancake breakfast with PB and banana and honey, and as close to Somali tea as I can make. Somali tea is a combination of tea, sugar, powdered milk, and spices including ginger and cinnamon. Its pretty nice!! I read my book at little after breakfast and then received a call asking where I was. It was 10.08. Considering the day before, the whole class had stood me up, I was a little taken aback, but I rushed over anyway. One girl, Fatma was there and raring to go. Bless her, she was a hardcore midwife and had just finished a night shift. We did the class, going through English reading comprehension questions as well as just some conversation. At the end, she asked if the class could be earlier as she would always be coming off a night so wanted to get to bed quicker after. I like Fatma because she likes to be on time! I have to be ready for bang on 09.00 tomorrow as she’s a ten minute early person!

After class and before lunch I did a quick workout. Then I ate lunch with a solid bunch of women – Edna, Dr Asha who is FINALLY back from Djibouti (YAAAAS) with a passport (YAAAAS), Amanda, Muna who is the boss of the university and has taken Amanda under her wing and Dr Amal who is boss of the hospital and is cool but also a bit scary! They were talking about an outreach programme in which hospital staff and students will go to a school where a lot of the kids are malnourished and educate the kids along with their parents on nutrition, health and dental care. After lunch, me and Amanda then needed to lesson plan before heading to class.

Our class turned out pretty well, though everyone was late again, even for a later start!! We worked them hard and played some games, so lets see if they come back tomorrow. One of the earlier students Amal said that some people had said that the class the day before had made them achey and tired because of the team games and running! Most people never exercise here – it is an uncommon thing for people to enjoy, but Amal is keen on her home workouts, because she wants a flat tummy – why not?! I feel like I’ve been fighting against the Somali tummy the entire time I’ve been here because the diet is packed full of sugar and exercise is limited! I was starving by the end of our lesson, so me and Amanda went to try out falafel from a little stall on campus – it was surprisingly good and absolutely rammed full of girls ordering cha, doughnuts and falafel! Most of the on campus places seem to be populated with girls because outside of campus most of the cafes are male-only zones, apart from the more expensive Western ones. A tea at a regular cafe is around $0.10 whereas at the Western cafes its around $1.50!

I took my falafel sandwich on a walk. I walked past one of the ladies I buy chapati from who smiled and waved at me, before deciding that I was going to do a different route from usual. I headed towards ‘downtown’, which is the busiest bit of town with the market and a few malls and cafes. I headed down the dusty road, trying not to kick dust onto my toes, while also not getting hit by any cars, when a guy started speaking to me. He spoke to me in English and I replied where I could in Somali. I said I was going for a walk to a hotel and back and that maybe I would get a tea. He said I could get tea from the stall he was sat at, so I joined him. He was called Saaed, was from Hargeisa, but had spent some time living in London, before heading back to Hargeisa three years ago. He sounded like a proper Londoner at times!! After my tea, I tried to pay but he said it was on him, so I thanked him and left.

I returned in time for tea and ate with the same guys as lunch. Then it was time for our next bake. I first started baking here after trying a cake from a stall, which was BAD and since then Mubarak has been hooked! When the cake runs out, we have to bake again! Today we made carrot and ginger cake with cream cheese icing and it tastes delicious! Making cake here is a bit of a trial since we have no weighing scales, no sieve, no measuring jug, no self-raising flour and no loaf tin, so when the cake turns out relatively well, its always a win!!