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]]>Despite the local government’s declaration of independence in 1991, Somaliland is not an internationally recognized country. It is a self-declared republic that has been seeking recognition since.
What makes this most interesting is that, for a brief period of five days in 1960, when Somaliland became independent from the UK, the country existed as an independent state. However, it then agreed to join the rest of Somalia who had been under Italian rule until then to form a greater Somalia.
Somaliland pays one the lowest rates for mobile calls in the world. Furthermore the mobile payments in Somaliland are so important that they are estimated to account for half of the transactions and they are made in US Dollars. Bill Gates even claimed: “Somaliland is a sort of a country and it is sort of not. It is very small, but it is phenomenal. As a percentage of GDP that goes through cellphone-based money they are the highest in the world.” There are 3 reasons why mobile payments are so high in Somaliland.
Firstly, the Somali currency, the Shilling, is constantly devalued and suffers from inflation, so it is less and less valuable every day.
Secondly, the amount of counterfeit Shilling is so high that the World Bank estimates 98% of the currency is fake.
Thirdly, the exchange rate of the Shilling is about 8,000 per US Dollar, so you only need to exchange 100 US Dollar to become an instant millionaire.
I was very confused when it started to pour like crazy and the ground became absolutely drenched and flooded. I thought Somaliland would be similar to Djibouti: desertic and dry. But Somaliland is a bit greener and it does get a lot of rain, even if the soil is not particularly fertile. I have never seen as much rain as my 2nd day in Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland. My shoes were totally wet walking around in 5 centimeter water in the streets and I had to run into a private home to escape the heavy rain.
Cars in Somaliland drive on the right hand side of the road but have the steering wheel on the right. This makes for the very weird situations of the passenger seat being next to the oncoming traffic.
This would probably mean that the cars used are imported from left hand driving countries, of which there aren’t too many, but some of which are neighbors of Somaliland. Here I was in a car with a Somali guy driving on the right hand side with a steering wheel on the right and the driver had no legs. How many of you guys have tried that?
After having eaten crocodile in Zimbabwe and kangaroo in Australia, it was the perfect time to try to eat camel in Somaliland. Why? Of the world’s estimated 14 million camels, Somalia, a country of some 10 million people, has more than seven million – the highest number in the world. A big amount of them can be found in Somaliland, which is one of the best places to try to eat camel.
Camel meat is pretty healthy, it is very greasy, fatty and chewy and not the most pleasant to eat. At least not to me, but it’s an interesting experience. So is a pancake with curry! Somalilanders like interesting food.
You can’t compare the slow internet (close to no wifi) in the east of Ethiopia , where I was feeding wild hyenas with my mouth, with the super fast internet for African standards in Somaliland. I was very surprised to find decent WIFi in most hotels and restaurants in Somaliland. Yes, I lost my phone in Somalia, you can read about that story here, but I did have one day with amazing wifi before I was disconnected a week (with no phone) traveling around Somalia and Eritrea. Perfect, right? No seriously, the wifi is pretty great in Somaliland!
The Government has an annual budget of only 295 million USD dollar. Most infrastructure projects are paid by the Somali community through fundraising. No doubt less than 300 million USD dollar is a very low amount for a self-declared country of 3,5 million people.
Bring cash. Preferably a stack of cold, hard, American dollars. The nation is not hooked into the global financial system in any meaningful way. Cash services are shaping up in Hargeisa, which has just started to launch a series of traditional bank branches and reportedly launched its first two ATMs in 2014. But you still can’t rely on these young banks and ATMs for all your financial needs. Also, Somaliland will try to milk a little money from you as soon as you touch down, charging entry, exit, and security fees at border control, often forcing you to change some dollars to shillings upon entry as well. So remember to bring a good amount of cash to Somaliland, mobile payments are for the locals mostly unfortunately.
Laas Geel, meaning ‘source of water for camels’, is a complex of cave paintings located 55 kilometers (34 miles) northeast of Hargeisa, Somaliland. They contain some of the earliest known cave paintings in Africa. Weird combination of cows in ceremonial robes that are accompanied by a giraffe, domesticated dogs, and humans. Laas Geel’s rock art is estimated to date to somewhere between 9,000 and 3,000 years BC.
Somaliland will be the first country to use Biometric Iris scanning voting system for elections, the most advanced voting register system in the world. A very progressive and innovative nation!
I hope you learned something new about Somaliland after reading these 10 weird, but interesting facts. How many of these did you know before reading this article? Let me know!
Goodbye Somaliland! Can’t wait to come back here again one day..
Gustav
gus1thego.com
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]]>A perfect day in Somaliland was coming to an end, which I had spend with local friends, whom I got in contact with through my phone which is 80% the way I get in contact with people. We went out on a roof top restaurant in the evening with views over Hargeisa and I ate camel for the first time in my life, which wasn’t as good as crocodile to be fair, but indeed good! A day with so many cool experiences and memories never to forget. We agreed to do some cool stuff the next day and would just text each other about meeting up somewhere in the city, using Whatsapp as I always use when I’m traveling, so I was really excited.. Everything was just fine..
I went to bed in my fairly small $6 luxury penthouse suite in Hirad Hotel, Hargeisa in Somaliland thinking, “what an incredible day it has been..” What I didn’t know was the next day was going to be the worst day I can remember in a long time!
I woke up super early next day around 5 am and wanted to check my phone (IPhone X), and when I checked for a few seconds the Apps started to close down and my IPhone completely shut down within seconds. Damn, what was that?! I was in tears, how could I get in contact with Lianura and my friends here in Somaliland, how could I plan the rest of my Somalia and Eritrea trip (had around a week left) and how about my videos and pictures? I knew it was a while a go I did a back-up – and yes, I did lose a lot of files after having trying 24 hours to bring back my phone to life without any success at all! All I could see was a Apple-Logo shining bright on the screen. I was completely devastated and the next days all I could think about was, “why didn’t I back-up my phone properly?!” But lucky for me still have evidence from each country I’ve been to, but would honestly rather lose all of my stuff instead of videos/pictures from traveling. Remember to back-up your phone really often guys – I learned it the hard way!
It was really tough to see my phone die, especially when you’re in Somalia and Eritrea and can’t contact your family for a week! What were they thinking, would they start an investigation, because they couldn’t get in contact with me? How could I now plan anything moving from Somalia to Eritrea, all the thoughts were running through my head.. Even all the important documents is on my phone, but now there was no other way than finding a way in these tough regions! I guess most people couldn’t do a week without their phone, I had to do a week without mine in Somalia and Eritrea and to be fair it was an eye-opener for me.
No one spoke English of the persons I met in Somalia and Eritrea (after I left Lionora and her friends), but I had to be much more social and was 110% in the moment, which was actually beautiful to experience in a World where the phone takes away a lot of our time unfortunately. I think I learned a lesson from this experience, maybe it was destiny, a sign from above, even though I don’t believe much in stuff like that..
I was really sad about what happened with my phone, but I started to put things into perspective. How many people can’t see, how many people can’t walk, how many people have bad health, and I’m healthy and complaining about not having my phone? Come on, man.. Move on Gustav, you’re wrong, make this possible without your phone.. And I did!
We grow from the challenges we face. We grow from the bad days and experiences, because that’s when we learn to appreciate things and that’s when we learn how to live with gratitude. You can’t have sunshine without a little rain, and even though you might be really sad right now about something, time will with guarantee heal you and you just have to move on and be grateful for what you have and enjoy the journey. Don’t let anything stop you from reaching your goals.
Somalia and Eritrea, thanks for this adventure!
Gustav
gus1thego.com
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]]>The post People Ask Me Why I Love Africa So Much? – This Is My Answer! appeared first on gus1thego.
]]>Appreciation of life (perspective): In my country and in many Western countries people love to complain. Life is sooo challenging, we don’t get the small pay rise we obviously deserve from our boss, why do we absolutely need to pay so much in tax, if I don’t live in the middle of Copenhagen I can’t live anywhere, tonight we’re having fish “badhrrr, I hate fish..” The list go on..
We have endless problems! This is why you can learn so much when traveling around Africa..
Travel Africa and you feel like a massive douche bag complaining about some of these luxury problems.. All people have tough periods indeed, but some of the problems we create in the Western World aren’t really problems. In most African countries if you don’t have a job, the Government won’t pay you anything and you have two options: Find a job quickly/be an artists/create an income or go begging on the streets or die.
Appreciation is everything: The appreciation I’ve been privileged to witness in Africa over more than 15 months of travel on the continent is authentic, honest and incredibly powerful in the way it constructs most African people’s life. I have learned to be much more grateful for the small things and I guess the saying: “you don’t see the rich people dancing on the streets” is a very powerful statement. Those people you see dancing on the streets are the ones who have appreciation of life. The happy ones. There are those that live in extreme poverty yes, and in the face of a large stereotype- there are also those that don’t. Not one of them is deprived of an appreciation of life that we may never understand or care to look for.
Happiness: Most people I know are constantly searching for happiness in day to day life. The perfect career, the perfect relationship, the perfect car, the dream house.. If we have a Ferrari, we want a helicopter next! We keep wanting more and more stuff! People are yearning for the next event on the weekend that will distract them from their studies or uninspiring 9-5 job. But we forget living life right now! To be in the moment.. I thrive getting away from this environment here and there, to explore the World and the different mindsets that exists. I like to surround myself with people who value happiness as a rich part of life. The smiles, laughs and joy in Africa can be about the simplest things and sometimes we really don’t need to complicate things too much! Happiness can never be huge amounts of material stuff which limit us!
Generosity: Not generosity like buying our friends a drink, or buying them a meal, but generosity of the heart. Generosity that is not of monetary value, but consists of love, support, encouragement and respect. I witnessed children in kindergarten for those from underprivileged families in Arusha, Tanzania, literally share their food with those who didn’t have any at lunch time. Children, 3 or 4 years old, breaking up their own food, and genuinely passing it to those kids whose family could not provide them food this day. This generosity does not stem from privilege, it stems from values. It stems from understanding what it means to not have anything at all, either from your own experience or from that of people you are close to, and understanding the warmth received from passing on your kindness. I get a little emotional thinking about this kind of stuff, but there are a lot of lessons to be learned about generosity from all over Africa.
A big challenge for me was getting a ride 1 hour in England from outside Portsmouth to London, because I was stuck there for hours with plenty of cars passing by. But when I arrived to Bissau, Guinea-Bissau with no idea where to go or stay, I was immediately welcomed as a complete stranger inside of a family’s house. They didn’t have anything, but offered me everything they had. I wanted to pay for it all, but they rejected me every time. Real generosity! Sometimes I had the most from the people who had the least.
Yes, cultural shock may confront most people on arrival, and you’ll for sure meet good and bad people like anywhere else in the World, but once you understand the heart of Africa, you’ll never look back.
Gustav
gus1thego.com
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]]>Somaliland, officially the Republic of Somaliland, is a self-declared state, but is internationally considered to be an autonomous region of Somalia. Somaliland is officially a part of Somalia on the UN-List, even though they consider themselves to be just Somaliland and not Somalia. It’s a bit of a weird case, because in 1991 there was a declaration of independence, but only Somaliland agreed on this independence decision. The breakaway state of Somaliland has just recently celebrated 28 years since it declared independence from Somalia, but still no country recognizes Somaliland as a sovereign nation.
I left Harar, Ethiopia, after an once-in-a-lifetime experience the evening before, feeding wild hyenas with my mouth. The most scary part was actually to meet a bunch of these hungry fellas alone by the city walls later in the night. Were they still hungry?! You never know!
Adrenaline still pumping the whole day after, so it was the perfect time to go to Somaliland.. Or was it?!
I talked to my Ethiopian friend about different behaviors of Ethiopians and Somali people, (of course it was from his Ethiopian point of view), but I did however experience a bit of truth in some of the things he said. First of all he said Somali people speak more loud (and a bit more aggressive,) and secondly he said: “Things are just different there, be careful!”
I kept Joel’s words in the back of my head, but as always I wanted to make my own impression of a new place, so I arrived to the border of Somaliland with an open mind, because we should all try to avoid being judgemental on the unknown. Then afterwards we can easily judge a place when it’s known to us.
I took a full mini bus from Harar to Jigjiga in the east of Ethiopia, where most people laughed (or smiled) of me in a kind way, guess it wasn’t usual for them to see a white dude in the local bus in these areas. I met an interesting Somali guy, Abdi, on my second ride from Jigjiga to Wuchale (border of Ethiopia/Somaliland.) He sat in front of me and our mini bus was totally packed again. We started to small talk a bit, he was from Mogadishu, Somalia, but he had lived a long time in Somaliland. Friendly guy and everything seemed fine until now, but we of course didn’t enter Somaliland yet!
Hello Somaliland! The autonomous region of Somalia, my country number 121. The XE-app didn’t even have the local Somaliland Shillings in it, but I really had the feeling of Somaliland being its own country, when being greeted several times with: “Welcome to Somaliland!” No mention of Somalia whatsoever…
Abdi and I jumped in a new car making our way to Hargeisa, and once we had waited for 10 min, Abdi started to get irritated and began to scream of the driver and pretended that we were going to leave the car. After some loud discussions, the driver came back and we were off to Hargeisa immediately. I could’ve really used this Somali guy in West Africa, (the hours I haven’t waited for busses and shared cars when going solo from Senegal to Togo with no motorbike or own car!) Arrrrrhg, why didn’t I know Ahmed there?!
Anyway the saying from my Ethiopean friend about ‘Somali people shouting loudly and aggressively was pretty much on point right here with these two guys. Ha ha, let’s see after 4 days..
I knew beforehand that Somaliland is religiously more conservative than Ethiopia and Somalia, but still the change was remarkable. After 20 min drive everybody went out of the car and had to go to the mosque and pray, so in the meanwhile I took a little desert walk out in nowhere in Somaliland.
We drove again! Ahmed started to spray himself with a really strong perfume and then afterwards spraying it on me, not knowing I have perfume allergy, which made the ride even longer with scratchy eyes and a nose running.. A little after he took out one of my Airpods (headphones) and wanted to hear what I was listening to.. Didn’t know this guy 2 hours ago, so I honestly found it a bit weird, but I could feel he was a kind person. But just imagine, sitting in the bus in your country with someone you don’t know and they first spray super strong perfume on you and then take one of your Airpods and put in their ear.. A bit straight-forward, right?!
The border crossing went pretty smooth, but I could feel that all eyes were on me now in Hargeisa. I didn’t see any other white person when crossing or walking around in the capital, Hargeisa, but I was just being me as always.. If I don’t feel like covering my hair, I don’t, and if I want to wear normal clothing for me, I do.. No matter where I am. Of course I respect other cultures, but an important thing in this World is to be allowed and accepted to be who you are – I know it’s not usual to see a tall, blond, blue-eyed man with a weird t-shirt print in Somaliland, but why should I hide that? Anyways..
It’s been a crazy first day in Somaliland, and to finish it all I went out for dinner and couldn’t understand why there were only females in the restaurant.. Apparently many of the restaurants are divided with areas for men and for women. It was a bit embarrassing standing there looking like an idiot the first 2 minutes before I realized that.
I’m happy to have 4 more days here and the welcome I had today in Somaliland was so extremely awesome and a big part of my crazy 1st day in Somaliland. Felt like a Rockstar! I’ve been greeted everywhere in a very kind way, people asking for high fives, pictures and all on eyes starring on that weirdo white guy who wears what he wants.. A bit overwhelming, but also very cool! Can’t wait for the next days here..
Have you been to Somaliland? How was it?
Gustav
gus1thego.com
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