Stories from the Horn #151
Happy Ramadan to all who are celebrating this month of fasting! See some photos here.
This weekend we drove out to the Grand Bara and enjoyed an exciting and exhausting day of sand sailing with La Maison des Randoneurs. I was most definitely the worst one at managing my sailing kart but we had a fantastic time. We felt like we were on the planet of Tataouine, getting sand-blasted and sunburned.
Djibouti
Check out BikeSkill Djibouti for all your biking needs!
Djibouti hosted a track and field championship
Djibouti ministry of health launches polio vaccination campaign
East Africa wrestles with a new climate “normal”
US $55 million for developing energy in Djibouti
Apparently Egypt and Djibouti now have a direct flight connection. Egypt is also building (yet) another hospital. Fine, thank you everyone in the world for building hospitals here. Can you please now staff them? Keep the equipment up to date? Keep them clean and stocked? Please? It is disconcerting to watch my husband get stitches in his face (yes, last week), while a wild cat walks past, mosquitoes swarm, and the staff where torn hospital uniforms that look like they have never been washed. At the best hospital in town. He did get excellent stitches, so there’s that. It will make a lovely Harry Potter-style scar.
Somalia and Somaliland
Massive fire destroys Hargeisa market in Somaliland
Kidnap survivor reflects on finding herself after being released from Somali pirates
Al-Shabaab gunmen attack Mogadishu airport
Somali women entrepreneurs trying to change Somalia
Somalia’s worst drought in decades worsens
More on the drought, including photos
Highlighting the beauty of Somalia through vintage family photos
Somalia tackles leprosy (I will never forget asking a medical worker in Djibouti about a white spot on my arm. She touched it, asked me if I felt anything, and said, “Well, it isn’t leprosy.” I burst out in shocked laughter, having not been aware that was her suspicion)
Ethiopia
Ethiopia declares humanitarian truce in Tigray
Africa
Russia had a colony in Africa? For a month. In the Horn.
The war in Ukraine worsens the drought emergency in east Africa
Diaspora
Minneapolis city council recognizes Ramadan for the first time
AfroDeli again makes the list of best food in Minneapolis (they hosted my Stronger than Death book launch party!)
Have a great week!
Belated thanks for this fantastic account of your sand sailing adventure - love the Grand Bara-Tatooine comparison ;) - and excellent collection of articles! I found especially interesting the article about women entrepreneurs in Somalia and possible strategies for helping them have greater success, especially as these are based in successes that women entrepreneurs in other African countries have had. And I loved the article about the running competition, both for its content as well as for the author's delightful and abundant use of adjectives (for example in the opening sentence: "What a blessed day in office for the Ugandan sprinter Tom Dradiga...", and later "Dradiga is simply unstoppable, formidable, precise, and strong in the race") :)