PART 6: VISITING SOMALIA

Road Trip to Baadiyo

Visiting baadiyo or the bush/savanna/rural area - or whatever you want to call it - was the best part of my trip. I absolutely loved it! With my three maternal aunts, some of their children (all couldn't go with us, there's too many!), and maternal grandmother, my family decided to spend a day visiting my cousin and her family. All together, there was 20 of us visiting my mother's niece. We all managed to fit in my second cousin's minibus. Along the way we were stopped at several security checkpoints (where you have to pay to pass through) before we could finally get to my cousin's home which was actually close to the city.

It was just mesmerizing. There was no pavement, just dirt, which was a reddish-brown colour and some patches of grass here and there. My cousin's home was fascinating. It looked like something straight out of a National Geographic magazine. She lived in a small compound that was enclosed by a fence made of tree branches and inside were 3 huts made of wooden branches which each had a thatched roof.  

My cousin's daughters helped her cook and serve us lunch. Her second youngest - who looked about five - was helping her mother by keeping the baby busy. They seemed like the traditional Somali girls my mother always spoke about - hard working and doing the chores at such a young age. In the city, I noticed the women and girls are nothing like the hard-working women and girls my mother always used to tell me about. My mother feels the same way. Many are lazy and don't want to do anything. They gossip a lot as well. But! I'm going off topic here.

Anyways, after lunch we went exploring. Unfortunately, I didn't see any giraffes or elephants but I did see some prairie dogs and a humongous termite nest! I also saw a herd of camels eating leaves from a grove of trees. And there were so many thorns everywhere on the ground. Someone warned us about this before we left that morning so I was wearing my Nikes. The thorns come from the umbrella thorn trees which are everywhere in the African savanna. People in baadiyo use its branches as a protective fence around their properties. From far off, its branches have a canny resemblance to barbed wire. One of my cousin's daughters went exploring with us. She showed us the miswak tree (or mustard tree) - its twigs are used by practically every Muslim as a toothbrush. It was an awesome experience picking my own miswak!

I honestly don't know why Somalis consider baadiyo to be a bad place and the people who live there to be backwards. Calling someone "reer baadiyo" is actually an insult! Baadiyo is an amazing place to live and I would rather live there than in the city despite the lack of electricity. The air was clean and fresh - none of that smog or stench from the city - and there was a clear blue sky. The water from the well tasted normal too. And there was no garbage anywhere. My cousin and her family ate the same foods we did; they didn't have a diet of just cambuulo (red beans), soor (cornmeal), and maxog (cassava) .They even had a washroom on their property (people in baadiyo usually just go behind a tree or wherever). If anything, the people who live in the city are the backwards people!