There is no road from Ethiopia into Somaliland; in fact, there is no formal land connection whatsoever. In Djibouti you have dirt tracks impressed by determined four-wheel-drive vehicles, and in Ethiopia you have the same. Except this time the rains came.





Three years of rain began to fall, and the dry green of this semi-arid land turned into a windstorm of water and dust. The haze of the raindrops were being blasted by the wind, the ruts cut deep by Land Rovers were turning into rivers. We began sliding, spinning slightly, and eventually – of course – got stuck.
One half hour lost. One mud-drenched driver. But again we persisted, and I saw massive turtles crawling across the dirt. They were the only ones who didn't seem to mind, although I am sure the nomads were not complaining too much either.





It was here, moving toward the Somali frontier, that the mood truly changed. There was nothing but us and a general direction. And about two hours later, we reached the real border to Somaliland, another stick-and-string checkpoint. The driver stopped. We stared at the old man who sauntered towards us.

His face was nearly a skull: an older man, decked out in a beige uniform, his AK-47 slung over a shoulder and a hat to die for – a tall and official looking cowboy hat with faded letters on the front that spelled "RANGER". The driver explained the usual story of the tourist and the destination, and the string dropped.





Somaliland. Somalia. Whatever you call it, this is not Ethiopia. It hasn't been for over seventy-five kilometres.

The landscape became different: more barren, dry, and somehow surreal. The flat grass shifted into rocky scrub and rolling hills. A dirt track to an ignored republic. An obscure way to an obscure country.








Slowly the nomads began to appear; and then we went through the first town made of brick buildings – all were destroyed. The nomads persisted in their tents, though. Their sheep, all with white bodies and black above their neck, wandered and ate the sparse foliage. The occasional man stared. Old military vehicles, rusted and burned, littered the countryside. And suddenly, two hours after crossing the border: pavement.





A road - and another checkpoint. Four boys dressed as soldiers hopped in the back. The story was told again. We drove in silence to the police station, where we were directed into the city and into immigration. And lo and behold, after a smooth half hour ride, the land dipped into a valley and there lay a large looking town:

Hargeysa. Capital of the country that no one will admit exists. Multitudes of coloured cement houses. Arabic and Somali signs dot the bright yellow and blue buildings. New cars roll by. It is wet, quiet, but still a city. And the capital of this odd, odd country – Somaliland.

Somaliland had never really been a fluid part of Somalia – before 1960 it was its own country, a territory of Britain, while Somalia was a territory of Italy. British Somaliland became independent in 1960- for four days. After that, it was decided by the European powers that be that the two Somalias should become one country, and the capital should be Mogadishu. And of course since it came from the mouth of a white man, it was so.

When the government of Mogadishu collapsed in 1991, Somaliland used the opportunity to declare independence. By no means were things rosy for the new country from the beginning – civil war raged until 1995, but hostilities continued until 1998, and now things are just tense between the west and the east of the country. Those that know the country know that it's safe right now. But so few know the country; the secretary at the Sheraton business centre in Djibouti asked me "Aren't you scared?" when I asked her about Somaliland. No one in Ethiopia really seemed to know about the country either. Ahmed in Djibouti was certain that I would be killed if I tried to enter Somaliland via Loyada – but after he had talked to some of his friends he found out otherwise. Advisories across the world will send conflicting reports about the state of the country, not only because they don't want their citizens to go there, but also because no one has an embassy in the country to confirm what's going on. One fellow I spoke to on the internet actually called it safer than Ethiopia – and the Canadian embassy in Addis Ababa insisted that I come down to their office outside of their usual opening hours to get their advisories about the two countries.





Immigration looked at my passport, and told me to come back at nine in the morning when they were open, and could get the stamps out. Taken to a hotel room for the night, I unloaded my bag and a Somali – Ethiopian who was born in Somalia but had lived in Ethiopia but pretty much the Somali region of Ethiopia(get that?) took me to change money. 200 Ethiopian Birr = 72000 Somaliland Shillings. The largest note is 500 shillings – I was given a fat clump of bills that landed on the moneychanger's table with a thump.

Cafeterias line this road in Hargeysa, and all eyes are on me as throngs of Somalis sit in their plastic chairs and listen to the radios. There are no televisions around. Dinner was three samosas and a Fanta for a whopping US dollar's worth of Shillings. The Somali who led me around, surprisingly, didn't ask for a tip. Just by that gesture I knew he wasn't Ethiopian.
We walked back to the hotel. "May I ask you a question?" he said, and then without waiting for my response, proceeded: "What do you think of Somali people?"
I never had the chance to answer him as we walked to the reception in the hotel and I handed over a wad of money – US$6 for the room; it's a double room.

But if I had answered his question. The Somalis: physically, they are often rather tall, skinny, with slightly distorted facial features like an overbite, long chins, and deep set eyes. My instincts tell me they are odd; if you want one word to describe them and their appearance, use "crazy". It's the single word I've heard the most often in reponse to the Somali people:

"Said is crazy." – Ahmed in Djibouti.
"Crazy man..." – The driver of the Land Cruiser after he spoke to the first Somali checkpoint guard.
"They are a bit crazy." – secretary at business centre of Sheraton Hotel in Djibouti.

The Somalian I met on my first night in Djibouti would often grunt in between sentences and shake his head as if to get rid of something inside of it. Somalis are not intellectuals; Somalis are not entirely rational. I will go out on a limb here and say they rely more on their instincts than the other, more colonialized, African ethnic groups.

The Somalis are the people in Africa who have most abruptly rejected any colonial influence, their anarchy in the east a return to ancient tribal warfare. They are devoutly muslim people. They are African, and harbour no outsider's interference in their destiny.

Crazy indeed. Perhaps. But the Somalis are Africans at their most base. They want to do things their way. They will learn through their own mistakes. They will find a purely African solution to their problems.

.....Or, perhaps, I'm wrong. It will be years, even decades, before we find out. But rest assured on one point, and I am certain of this: rationality as we know it in post-European colonies is nonexistent in the Somali mentality. These people think differently. Sometimes talking to them is like talking to a mental patient. And this renders them and their land unpredictable.

That is my first impression, at least. Let's see if it changes during my desperately short visit to this 'secret' country.




Hargeysa

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