Somalia - Nuts and Bolts

Somalia is flat hot place wrapped around Ethiopia like a bandage. The north has hills 3,000-7,000 feet (900-2,100 meters). The rest is a wasteland of dirt. Located in the Horn of Africa, British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland formed independent Somalia in 1960. The population is 9.3 million with a 12 percent mortality rate. Somalia covers 637,655 square kilometers (246,199 square miles). Best time to go? Well the term hot as hell would be the phrase of choice describing the climate most of the year. June-September is hot with cool evenings. October-May hot enough to give cockroach heatstroke. If you like your heat wet, head to Mog, where the humidity is a constant 80 percent, with the occasional breeze.

Somalia is not really set up to be the next big tourist attraction in Africa. Its long coastline has some of the nicest sand beaches on the continent, but the waters are infested with sharks and there is little shade. Believe it or not, there is a tourist office in Mogadishu. Let the phone ring a long time (if you can get through). Most journos stay at the Sahafi Hotel in Mogadishu.

Somalia National Agency for Tourism

Box 533

Mogadishu, Somalia

Tel.: 3850 or 3479

March to June and September to December are the rainy seasons. Nomadic grazing is the name of the game here, with temperatures hot and landscape arid. The country is 100 percent Sunni Muslim; the entire population is ethnic Somali. English is widely spoken, and Italian is popular in the south. Somali is a difficult language and uses the Roman alphabet. Somali has been a written language only since 1972 so understandably just 24 percent of the country is literate. Things like telephones (country code 252) electricity (220), gas or food are in short supply, so look for a hotel with a roof and a generator.

Money is the Somali shilling broken down into 100 centesimi. The money is a little funky since Aideed reprints new money with the old 1996 date. The new Somali shilling is worth less than Old Somali shillings. Hotels run about 45 shillings a day. Depending on which region you are in most of the city folk speak Arabic, Italian or English. For the latest in Africa currency exchange rates check out:

http://www.mbendi.co.za/cyexch.htm

Somalis like to be called by their nicknames. The slender Somali frame creates a lot of nicknames like Ato (thin) or Dheere (tall).

Somali has some very benign pockets where you can find pay satphones ($1 a minute outside the country, free inside), banks and other niceties.

Contacts

For more information contact:

Australia

(represented by its embassy in Kenya)

P.O. Box 39341

Riverside Drive (just off Chiromo Road)

Nairobi, Kenya

Tel.: [254] (2) 445-034

Fax: [254] (2) 444-617

Canada

(represented by its high commission in Kenya)

Comcraft House

Haile Selassie Avenue, Box 30481

Nairobi, Kenya

Tel.: [254] 221-4804

Fax: 254-226-987

British Embassy

Waddada Xasan Geedd Abtoow 7/8

P.O. Box 1036, Mogadishu, Somalia

Tel.: 20288.

United States (represented in Kenya)

U.S. Liaison Office for Somalia

U.S. Embassy

Moi and Haile Selassie Avenues

Nairobi, Kenya

Tel.: [254] (2) 334141, FAX: (2) 340838.

Mailing address: P.O. Box 30137, Nairobi, or Unit 64100, APO AE 09831

Somalia News Update

Department of Cultural Anthropology

Uppsala University

Tradgardsgatan 18

S-753 09 Uppsala, Sweden

E-mail: Bernhard.Helander@antro.uu.se

Web Resources

There is absolutely nothing that is up-to-date on Somalia and even less that is accurate. The web is a good starting point for recent news reports. Most of these sites all link back to the same places.

NomadNet

http://www.ixpres.com/netnomad

Virtual Library (links)

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indiv/area/Africa/Somalia.html

SomaliNet

http://somalinet.com/

State Department info on Somalia/

Area Handbook

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/sotoc.html

http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/so.html

Arab Net

http://www.arab.net/somalia/somalia_contents.html

Mbendi Country Profile

http://www.mbendi.co.za/cysocy.htm

Greater Horn Initiative

http://www.info.usaid.gov/regions/afr/ghai/