The Skin of the Earth

.....but there is no food!

If there were water

And no rock

And also water

And water

A spring

A pool among rock

If there were the sound of water only

….

But there is no water

(T.S. Eliot: Waste Land)

I still remember the day, one of my colleagues told me, she was asked in an interview what type of food she fell in love first in

Somalia

. I tried to digest this question for a long time, to figure out, what I would have said, if I this question had been posed to me.

First, yes, we eat food - almost always. Second, yes, we fall in love. Third, yes, we fall in love with Somalis - sometimes. Fourth, do we fall in love with food? And fifth - do we fall in love with Somali food? I did not find the answer easily. Therefore I tried to encounter the question from different angles: What kind of food do I eat, is this food Somali, do I love it,  what kind of food do Somalis eat, and in which way does the Somali food coincide with the food that I eat and do I love the intersection?

To start with the first question, as a vegetarian I am a little bit limited, so in Borama I mainly ate cornflakes and oats, coming from England and Dubai, with milk from Dubai or Yemen, rice from India, Spaghetti from Italy, boiled with tomatoes from Ethiopia, sometimes with white bread made from wheat probably traded from WFP food aid supplies to Southern Somalia. I calculated that actually every meal I consumed travelled about 50 000 food miles. Then, what do Somalis eat? For breakfast they eat loxo. To explain what it is, some describe it as a Somali injera, but it is not fermented like the Ethiopian injera and therefore not sour, in hotels it is called Somali pancake or crepe, but in the hotels it is also not the same as the home made one. If it is nutritious it is made from sorghum flour, if it is less nutritious, it is made from wheat or maize. Loxo I like very much, but it is almost impossible for foreigners to get hold of it, since preparation takes a long time, is done very early in the morning and therefore is almost exclusively available only within Somali families. Since I was teaching also nutrition, I tried to encourage students to eat a lot of loxo from sorghum and not to be tempted by useless Western food like cornflakes. No need for that, since none of my students had ever seen any cornflake in their life at all. Next question: how do Somalis eat the loxo? Actually the most common way is, to pour very sugary tea on it and cut it into small pieces with a spoon, until it becomes almost a paste. Because there are so high diabetes rates in the country, I told the students not to use so much sugar. There is a rumour, that Somalis get 50 percent of their calorie intake from sugar. I did not believe that, however, after my neighbour told me, for her family of 19 persons she buys monthly 75 kg of sugar, also after I consumed all that tea, about which one of my Somali colleagues joked that it should better be called a syrup, I believe it now. Usually Somalis do not only eat sugar and loxo, they also eat the very tasty Somali rice with raisins, meat from goats and camels, and drink the almost magic "caano geel", the camel milk, which apart from its numerous medical values is said to make you feel happy and free, and which in fact made me feel happy and free. Yes in fact, there is meat in town and sometimes camel milk, imported food and also goat meat and camel meat.

Then, why do Somalis consume so much sugar? Here the food story almost finds its end. The answer is: there is hardly any more meat and milk, especially in the rural areas. There is no food at all. There were three consecutive droughts, people are watching their livestock dying and their water points drying up. Where there were grasses, they are covered by sand dunes now, due to heavy sand storms in the Xagga season, the windy dry season. Where there are still trees, their leaves are old and hard and no more palatable for livestock. Livestock is the food of the nomads, stored as a mobile entity which is fading out more and more with every day without rain. But there is no rain. There is an emergency call by FSAU for the whole country already since June. There are richer people, who can buy some food on the markets, like we expatriates and richer traders, farmers and pastoralists, there are some places in the Northern parts, which have received some rains recently and recovered. The majority of the rural areas has remained dry. . In these areas there is also no food on markets to buy even for wealthier people.

Then, where is the food I could fall in love with?

My Neighbourpoor

My house in Borama was located outside the centre at the edge of the village. My neighbours were the richest ones in the area, owning quite beautiful large villas in Arabic style, which are actually necessary to accommodate the usually large Somali families. Other people in Borama were living in these nomadic-type igloo-like constructs which are partly house, partly tent, built within half a day from wood and old fabrics. When I asked who was living there I was usually told it were Oromo refugees.

People are usually blind, and expatriates are usually blinder than normal people, and maybe I am the blindest of all, but I only realized that such an igloo was directly beside my house after I had been living in Borama for half a year. The fact why I had not discovered it before, was that it was hidden behind a fence in the front side, and that I never had walked at the backside of the house, because I hated to be followed by these SPU policemen who were “protecting” us, therefore I usually did not walk much.

Nevertheless one day after work we found an old man lying on the street. He was lying there because of weakness, unable to walk to his destination. We took him in our car to bring him home. He actually turned out to be my neighbour, living in that igloo-house directly beside my home. It was obvious that he was merely lacking food. I went home and brought him all the food I had. I am not sure if he even could eat it, because it was mostly tinned and factory-made food from

Dubai

he probably had never seen. Therefore I tried to give him additional money. He rejected. I found about 7 young children sitting opposite in a clay house, obviously his grandchildren, guarded by their grandmother. I tried to give the money to the grandmother. She rejected.

Then there was Eid. The Islamic habit at Eid is to slaughter a goat and to share the meat with poor neighbours. I thought my great hour had come. I would buy a goat – and since I myself am a vegetarian - share it among the watchmen of my house and the poor neighbouring family in that igloo. I told the idea to slaughter a goat and give the meat to my “POOR!!” neighbours to my driver, he was enthusiastic. We bought a goat from one of our SPU, who was running a small livestock husbandry and hired somewhere a man who did the slaughtering. Everything was accomplished within half an hour. Then it came to the point of dividing the meat. I asked my driver to help me with the distribution, especially transferring it to my “POOR!!” neighbour, since I could not speak Somali. “No problem,” he said, “ we will distribute to your neighbour poor!”. Swiftly he prepared various packages of meat for various stakeholders, distributing them to various villas around my house, one richer than the other, especially to his sister opposite. Before he took away the last package I stopped him, and I told him, the meat was mainly meant for my “POOR!!” neighbour, the old man, we once found on the street and his grandchildren. “Yes,” my driver said, “all your neighbourpoor will get a package.” Finally I understood. “Neighbourpoor” was a new word creation by combining the word “neighbourhood” with the word “poor”, allowing all neighbourhood to benefit from the blessings of distribution and redistribution according to the sayings of the Koran. Now I know better. When I want to bring some gift to a poor neighbour, I have to say: “I want to give it to my POOR NEIGHBOURPOOR!”

Radioactivity and Who are Modern Pirates?

Knowing someting and seeing something is different.

I am reading the book "Marie and Blanche" by per Olov Enquist, about Marie Curie and her assistant Blanche. I only just started the book, which says Blance was a beautiful woman, but she ended her life with a body without legs, and without her left arm, which had become the victim of her devotion to research on radioactivity. The book also reports that during that time many cosmetics had been produced with nuclear substances, leading to the deaths of many hundreds of people - caused unknowingly.

It reminded me about the nuclear waste deposits in Somaliland which I heard about, both on the land and in the sea. Usually Somalis justify their profusive pirate attacks by these alleged nuclear deposits, or pesticide deposits. Actually, I am aware that the West is using African countries as a waste deposit, and especially countries without much governmental control like Somalia are especially palatable for these kinds of activities. I just found it a lousy excuse for piracy. I also cannot say I am impressed that pirates seem to create the most job opportunities, which are even announced in the newspapers, I am also not impressed that they even pay taxes from the profits they make, and I am also not impressed that they get the most beautiful women, because they are the richest men.

Then, one day I stepped into one office. The director had a beautiful colonial map about pastoral movements. He said, for three years during the civil war he stayed in a refugee camp in Ethiopia. They did not have any material, so they gave them old documents to wipe their mouths after eating. The colonial map was one of these documents for wiping their mouth, but he put it aside. I really was shocked, I said this map is very valuable. He said, he put other documents aside, of which he showed me some. One was an agreement between some British colonial officers to send ships with nuclear waste to Somaliland, which was signed in the sixties - knowingly. I almost fainted.

Candlelight

Sorry, this is stolen now, but what has to be said, has to be said:

"My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light"

Edna St. Vincent-Millay

Tonight's the Night!!!

Today everybody is sitting at home or praying at Mosque, because today is the day when Mohammed prophet moved from Mecca to Jerusalem.
The real event, however, starts tonight. Tonight the star spica - in Somali language called "dirir" - will be occulted by the moon. The spica is the brightest star of the virgo constellation and has been worshipped for centuries in the Middle East. I am not very familiar about who is who in the sky, but I found out it is a binary star and in Somali culture (some say, some hope) it has almost the significance as the Sirius in the Dogon culture. The occultation of "dirir" is marking the Somali pastoralist New Year, called Dab'shid. This is somewhat derived (according to Lewis: People at the Horn of Africa) from the Persian New Ruz. The problem is, the Dabshid is related to the lunar calendar and changes its date continously about 2 days back from year to year. The Persian New Ruz is fixed on March 21st. I think the Persians corrobated their New Year, and the Somali pastoralists kept its origin. I will discuss this with my Iranian friend here in further detail. Anyway, today is Monday, so this year is a Monday year. So what happens in this Monday year, will also happen in future Monday years - to be expected in 7 or 8 years. Last year was a Saturday year, and Saturday years bring all types of misery. So it is good that it will be over now. The lunar and the solar calendars of the Somali pastoralists are also used for forecasting the weather. For example, if it rains this night, the rainy season will be good. Especially the next 7 Mondays. Then the Monday period will be over and the Tuesday period will begin for another 7 weeks, so what will happen on Tuesday, will be auspicious for the next 6 Tuesdays. It is quite easy, it is Somali regression analysis based on astronomic events. Probably not more unreasonable than our regression analysis, maybe more reasonable. I have understood it all now, how the stellar constellations in the sky are related to things on earth, and how this originated in the science of mathematics. Because the Somali astronomists told me. I have been both disenchanted and fascinated in a new way. So I will try to see Spica winking to me behind the moon tonight. Let's see what good or bad it will bring to me. And I will wink back.
Anyway, because

Isaac, Ismail, Obama?

Another reason why I have been in special conflict with Abraham is because he would have been ready to sacrifice his son, would God not have intervened at last. Which son? The bible says, it was Isaac. Leonard Cohen even made a beautiful song on that: "Story of Isaac", giving due expression to all my feelings: "You who build these altars now to sacrifice these childrens, you must not do it anymore. A scheme is not a vision and you never have been tempted by a demon or a god"--"And if it all came down to dust, I will kill you if I must, I will help you if I can"..For more than thirty years I have been regularly listening to this song, and needless to say, I also fell in love with Leonard Cohen. Coming to Somaliland, however, I came across  new and unexpected perceptions about this case: It was not Isaac whom Abraham was on the way of sacrificing, the Quran says, it was Ismail? Actually, I felt the foundations of my worldview shaking. Maybe Abraham had only one son whom he mistreated and he split his feeling to him in a conscious and an unconscious part according to psychoanalytic theory, or what would Freud and C.G. Jung assumed? I do not know anymore which stories I should trust. Thank God, at least one truth became evident here during the last weeks: Obama is a Somali!

Hajira

In the beginning they could not pronounce my name here. That is why they asked me if they could call me Sahara. I told them, it is a nice name, I like the Sahara desert, it is my favorite place, and Sahara as the wife of Ibrahim, but I would better prefer to be called Hagar. To me the figure of Hagar has always been very close. Already as a child I thought how she must have felt – having born a child to Abraham as long as his wife Sara was barren, then chased away to the desert after Sara had born him Isaac, probably thirsting under the burning sun, driven away by the man she loved, who was so much more powerful than herself, who was the father of her son Ismael.  And my parents wondered why I was running around with a troubled face.  I did not expect my Somali colleagues to know that, because only little space is given her  in the bible, so I was on the way of explaining them.  It was not necessary. When I mentioned the name, they started almost cheering. "Hajira is the one who came from far." I said I came from far, that is why the name suits me.  They said, she came to Bakka. I said, she also came to Beer Sheva and I also came to Beer Sheva, that is why I deserve the name. They told me she suffered from hunger and thirst and she was running up and down seven times two hills, because she saw a Fata Morgana. I said I also saw a Fata Morgana, so I want the name. They said, finally she collapsed beside her son. Then Ismail struck his foot on the ground and all of sudden a spring of water came out of the earth. I did not say anything anymore. The Qu'ran tells that Ibrahim came a couple of times to visit and look after them, so I became somewhat reconciled with him, and as far as I understood, at the place of the spring together with Ismail he built the Kaaba and the temple at Bakka, which is  Mekka now. Looks like the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mekka got its name from Hajira? So the Quran tells the second and obviously the main part of the Hagar story, and it also shows Ibrahim in a little bit more responsible light than the bible. I do not know, if everybody knows that and it is just me who did not know? I checked again the bible, in fact, the bible says that God promised Sara to become the mother of a big nation, but he tells Abraham, Hagar will also be the  mother of a big nation (that is why he should not worry about sending her away). I had forgotten that. So Sara is the mother of the Jews, Hajira the mother of the Muslims, and is that the origin of the relationship between  Jews and Muslims – two jealous women between one patriarch?

The water I am drinking

I was never a person too much concerned about the quality of the food I am eating, actually I do not like very much to stay with people who are worrying all the time about the kinds of poison they might have in their meals. I always thought, the most dangerous poison is a poisonous thought. Therefore, why I care about environment is not because I worry about my nutrition but  because I like environmentalists. I like people who care about the consequences of their actions, I like people who consider nature as sacred, I like people who care about global equity and environmental justice.

But after I bought my weekly portion of bottled drinking water yesterday, and I had nothing else to read  but reading the bottles, I must say I was surprised. The nitrate content of my bottled water - the probably best quality I can get in this - well not quite pristine, but nevertheless somewhat rural -place was 80 mg/l, meaning 30 mg/l more than would be allowed in Germany! And I remembered of times when my attitude was different. That was after my eldest daughter was born and our forest were dying of acid rain. Then I was scared how my daughter could breathe without a forest, I took information, and the solution which was suggested was to lime the forests. Liming on the other hand, I was reading, would lead to an increased mineralization of organic substance, which would end up as increased loads of nitrate in our drinking water. Nitrate is not a very nice ion, it can cause cancer, and before becoming nitrate, however, the soil born nitrogen becomes nitrite and under certain conditions stays as such for a longer time than normal. These were the time when several babies suffocated from too much nitrite in the water. Sudden child death. Then I panickedly ran to my daugter's bed, she still was alive, and I continued reading articles by articles how to avoid too high rates of nitrate and nitrite in drinking water. There did not seem to be a way out. Then I wrote a thesis on nitrate in groundwater. These were the times when daily about 50 scientific articles were published on nitrate in drinking water. By and by the Germans and all Europeans managed to reduce their nitrate loads to their groundwater - I am afraid even without consulting my thesis.

But here, I do not know, who would care. I think the reason is the high livestock population and uncontrolled manure lying around everywhere. Then I told my Dean that I was worried about cancer in their societies. But the Dean answered, there is hardly any cancer, despite those high nitrate contents in the water, nobody would be aware of anyway. He said, because they have extended families and are always surrounded by many of their beloved ones. I think he is right. Beloved ones around reduce the risks caused by high rates of nitrates, I am sure. 

Gandhi, me, poverty and peace

I always wanted to live in poverty like Gandhi did, as long as I had a lot of money. I must say, I used to be somewhat in love with Gandhi and actually, inspired by the Ethiopian extended family principles where the wealthier ones care for the more needy ones, I also was always open to share my resources with families I used to live with.

Working once for a reduced salary, however, I changed my mind about Gandhi. Gandhi was not really poor. According to nobelist Amartya Sen, somebody who has a freedom of choice is not poor. So Gandhi was not poor, he had chosen to live in poverty, what is different, since he had the whole congress behind him, he came from a merchant caste, his father was a governor and he had chosen the lifestyle he lived. According to what is reported about him, even his Ashram was not economically sustainable and they secretely subsidized him. So, if he only would have had to establish his ashram on the returns of the sales of their spinnings, or if someone would have forced him to work for a low salary, would he have accepted? I doubt. He always used to travel with a 4th class ticket through India, but when they denied him a first class ticket in South Africa as a coloured person, he started his political movement. Also Jesus was not poor, actually, doesn’t he have a very rich father? And Buddha was a prince. Mohammed, well, was not that wealthy, but didn’t he marry a rich woman? So they all were not poor, as well as somebody who is fasting is not a hungry person. And moreover, they did not have families, or neglected them a little bit, like Gandhi did. So why did they tell the world we have to live in poverty? Nobdoy can start a social revolution from the position of poverty. Nevertheless, since I started to join the Ramadan fasting, I became reconciled with all of them. Although fasting with the opportunity to get any food you want during night time or whenever you want is not the same suffering as having no food and no idea of when to get something. Nevertheless, there is also some suffering and some purification in voluntary fasting - so the Koran considers it as an act of solidarity with the hungry ones and also as an act of equity since the King is fasting as well as the beggar, and actually I admire that the whole Muslim society does it uniformly. So, I think it is the same with in voluntary poverty, because there is a lot of beauty not to exploit one’s opportunities of living a wealthy life if one could. Then I read the blog of Satish Kumar’s homepage, who said, that it was love, that made Gandhi the Mahatma, Gotama the Buddha, Jesus the Christ, and Sister Theresa the Mother and I think he is right. So what obviously makes the difference, is the love within somebody. But love is also the product of freedom and internal richness. Therefore, if someone wants to realize principles of Gandhi, Christ or whoever, there is only a chance to impose it on oneself, never on someone else.

Anyhow, I am not a Gandhi or someone like that, and thanks to God I also do not have to be, and if I would start a walk to Berbera with Somali friends to produce our own salt, as my dear brother suggested to tease me, I do not think anybody would internationally recognize Somaliland, but that is also a pity on the other hand. 

But what I have in common with Gandhi is our problem with security guards. Gandhi did not want security guards and I do not want to have security guards, but he had and I have. The difference is, Gandhi’s security guards were dressed as Dalits when he left his Ashram for his political work, so he is said not to have known that security guards were around him. Because having security guards means violating the principles of non-violence. And actually, his end shows, that they even were of no use. As for me, I am forced to accept having two policemen as security guards in my compounds. Not only that, also two watchmen in addition. In the first month here, I did not sleep even one night, because I was so scared. I was not scared of being killed or kidnapped by Somali pirates, I was afraid of my guards. In Hargeisa I asked some security specialists for help me how to get rid of the security guards. The guy said: “Actually I thought you want to know how to increase your security, now you ask me how to get rid of them”, then I told him I believe security problems can only be solved through communication and not through arms, then he said: “But you cannot communicate with a wall.” I liked the guy, but I do not think Somalis are a wall, and now, since I got to know my neighbors with all their kids and know more words of Somali language so that I could start communicating with the guards I am no more afraid. But I am awfully ashamed of having all that guards, and whenever I go out to some place and they have to follow either walking 20 m behind me or, if going by car they have to follow in another car, I feel so embarrassed about the picture I might give, and I always wonder what local people might think about me, if I am the reincarnation of colonialism or the richest person in town or the foreign minister of my country or –worst of all, that I think they all are murderers, kidnappers or criminals? ….and I would prefer to hide myself in the ground, but thanks to Allah, I have to wear a veil, so I if not below ground at least I can hide myself under that veil. And then I think I would like to go to cinema Thursday nights, and I imagine one policeman sitting on my right side and one on my left side to protect me and what kind of Thursday night fever would that be?

Topsoils, Elephants and Small-Scale Farmers

Actually, I do not know how many books have been written about the breakdown of civilizations due to the loss of topsoils, starting from the Babylonians and Assyrians and their salinization problems due to irrigation, over Phoenicians, Greek, Romans, etc. for everyone you can find resources that their fall is related to the loss of topsoil. I wonder about Somaliland, which problem was first, the governmental collapse or the loss of topsoil. I will find it out soon, especially if I would have aerial photos from the 40s, I think the British must have. What I was told at least is that they had 40 000 elephants living in Somalia around 1980, and all elephants ran away to Kenya due to the war. So probably the topsoil did the same. Anyway, now we all are related to topsoils all around the world. The topsoils which Somalis presently access are actually the topsoils which the Somali diaspora accesses in England, Netherlands or US, and the goods they access in these countries are based on access to topsoils in India, France and South America etc.. So in the age of globalization we all are dependent on all topsoils of the world. So we should care about them. Because the decline of topoils is considered as one of the greatest current threats to mankind, almost or even more than climate change. However, we don’t do. As the International Agricultural Assessment has shown, it is mostly the small-scale farmers with the highest productivity, who also care mostly for their topsoils. Most people, however, do not want to be small-scale farmers. I am not a small scale farmer, although I am an agriculturalist, but I prefer to work at a University. Others have different professions. Most farmers in Western countries are large-scale farmers. I think the problem with the finding that the small scale farmers are the most useful in combating the world food crisis is, that being a small scale farmer requires to reconcile oneself living on a very small income base. It also requires to give up realizing all other talents one has except the agricultural ones – although agriculture requires a lot of talents. I think the best idea in regard to agriculture was given by Gandhi – that one should work half a day as an agriculturalist and half a day as a lawyer, teacher, postman or whatever. Anyway, should I start every afternoon restoring the gully beside my house and removing the Parthenia weeds?