Duruusta Soomaaliya - The Somali Experience : Detlef Palm

The Beach

At dawn I woke up to a booming noise that seemed to be everywhere. I sat up and looked over the dunes to the sea. A black man too beefy to be a Somali set a red torch on the bank to our right; he now jogged along the water towards our left. I intercepted him to ask what was going on.

“Hey buddy! We are having a little exercise. No need to move out. When the tanks are coming in, just stand up and wave your arms, so they don’t roll over you.”

I had signed up as the teamleader with the German Emergency Doctors (GED), in Northern Somalia, in 1982. We had a night on the Beach, when the US Navy decided to🔗impress their new-found Somali friends with a show of force, right at our spot.

Not wanting to be in their way, we moved our belongings beyond the flare and watched the spectacle unfold from the roof of our Landrover. A little later, I spotted the regional head of the Somali army in the distance behind us, on some purpose-built platform. We happened to be standing right between him and the action. Certain that he had trained his binoculars on the German doctors and nurses instead of the marines digging into the sand, we moved a few hundred meters on. The marines drew ever larger circles to come close and waved enthusiastically towards our group, which remained thoroughly unimpressed.

The US Marines on the beach near Berbera, Somalia 1982. Watch the carbon footprint.

The Somalilanders later accused - in accordance with our own observations - the Somali army  leadership of installing a security machinery that allowed for human rights abuses, civilian arrests, detentions, torture and extra-judicial killings starting from 1981.

Northwest Somalia

The Refugees

As a result of the Somali invasion of and defeat in the Ogaden war, many hundred thousand Somalis had fled from the Ogaden Region to Somalia. They subsisted in more than 40 camps, of which eight were in North-West Somalia. 

Setting up a Tuqul - traditional Somali houses, which the refugees brought along.

Three camps were medically looked after by the German Emergency Doctors (GED), comparable to today's Medicines Sans Frontiers. There were also SCF, Oxfam, Worldvision. Everyone supported the  Refugee Health Units (RHU) run by the Somali Ministry of Health.

The iconic Green Book of 1982, issued by the Somali RHU.

In 1983,  WHO and  CDC Atlanta found that “the RHU, in the short time of two and a half years, has built what might be the🔗most successful large primary health care programme in the world.” 

Adhis Adeys Refugee Camp, 1982. The prefabs are the health centers, the white tents housed the GED.

The GED was well funded from private donations and arguably the biggest NGO in the Northwest at the time. The GED was a volunteer organization of doctors and nurses; nobody received any remuneration. Save for a team house in Hargeisa, all members lived in tents in the refugee camps. 

Most volunteers stayed three to six months. Gabi had already been there for one year when I arrived, and together we remained with the GED for another two years.

Feeding Center

At the Feeding Center

Primary Health Training/Messaging in a refugee camp

The GED had its own drilling rig to provide water in the 'GED camps'.

 

Tapstand in a refugee camp

Christian Pflüger, who also joined UNICEF later on, and myself cleaning a borewell.

Hargeisa Hospital

In time, the medical work and supervision in the camps were successfully handed over to the RHU. There was no functioning referral hospital – for example to treat children who suffered burns from rolling into charcoal fires, or anything requiring higher level care. Our team regrouped in Hargeisa, then the capital of the Northwest Region of Somalia, now the capital of Somaliland.

Entrance to Hargeisa General Hospital, 1983

The 400-bed hospital was run down, without beds and mattresses, equipment and medical supplies. There also was a 300 bed Tuberculosis Hospital, which was as much in dire straits.

A visit from GED headquarters, Hargeisa Tuberculosis Hospital

The GED undertook to renovate and reequip the hospital, ensure regular medical supplies and train staff. Some of the few Somali doctors were jailed for organizing self-help campaigns. Gabi took charge of the outpatient clinic; for this, she learned to speak Somali.

Building a new ward for the General Hospital

Patients enjoying a game of cards

Chinese Aid

China had sent a team of surgeons, a gynecologist and an anesthetist, who could only communicate through their minder/ translator. They had their own anesthetics, but the GED helped them with dressings, drugs and equipment. The team rotated every two years, and worked for very little. Their house in Hargeisa did not even have a refrigerator. One surgeon died of a heart-attack in Hargeisa, and was buried there.

The Chinese translator trying to indoctrinate Gabi during a visit to the GED Teamhouse.

The typical western narrative holds that China is maliciously challenging American economic might, deliberately making other countries dependent on its trade and loans, and influencing public opinion in those countries in China's favour. The Chinese, in the early eighties, sent a team of five surgeons and medical specialists to Somalia. The Americans, next to providing food for the refugees, rented the Berbera runway for 40 million USD per year to use it “as an emergency landing for the space shuttle”, extended the port of Berbera for large vessels, and held military exercises on the Somali beach. What would be your narrative for this?

Thinking about a narrative to explain it all

The 'head office' of the German Emergency Doctors in Hargeisa, 1982 - without telephone, internet, telex or radio. 

Taking a  break to have a close look at the Berbera Blackhead, the quintessential Somali sheep.  Much of the income of Somaliland is derived from selling camel and sheep to Saudi Arabia for the annual Haj, with as many as 10,000 heads of sheep and goats sold daily and shipped through the port of Berbera. 

Managing the influx of so many livestock into a single port is a major challenge, due to the need for water and feed. The cattle migration to Berbera led to Somalia becoming one of the first countries in Africa to adopt mobile phones in the early 1990s , despite having no government. With telephone lines routinely looted for their copper, cell phones proved to be the only viable way for traders to coordinate their exports.

Logistics

As of 1982, all medical and technical supplies for the refugee camps and the Hargeisa Hospital were sent from Germany to Djibouti, from where we picked them up with our own second-hand M.A.N. truck, once every three to four months.  

 

On a good day, exchanging intelligence about the road conditions with a commercial trader.

For reasons I can no longer explain, the truck had only one music casette, which kept running in continuous loop. Click on the button above, turn the volume up and continue reading while the music is playing.

The distance was less than 300 kilometers, but there was only an offroad track in very poor condition. The mininum time to travel one way was 12 hours, but one would normally expect to drive through the night, for 24 hours. When the rivers were running, the trip could take three days, each way.

Breakdowns were common. Hint: it is always the dirt in the fuel. 

One tends to think of deserts as dry and sandy. Droughts happen. But a desert can also be wet and bottomless.

I often wonder about the perceived excitement that causes UNICEF representatives to meet an airplane carrying UNICEF cargo on the tarmac of some African capital, in the middle of the night. Here, in Djibouti, we are transferring medical supplies from an airlift onto our truck bound for Somalia, in 1982. (The washing powder for the laundry of Hargeisa hospital was bought in a Djibouti supermarket).

Onto Lac Assal 

Once Gabi and I took our Landrover to Djibouti, and we decided to take one day off to circumdrive the Gulf of Tadjourah, on our own. Lac Assal is the deepest point of Africa, with 154 Meter below sea level, deeper than the Death Valley in California. At that time there was only an indistinct trail leading through the most remote, desolate, inhospitable and extremely rocky terrain.

It happened the way it had to. As the night fell, the axle of our battered Landrover broke (for experts: the U-bolts snapped), in the middle of nowwhere, 30 kilometers away from what could be considered a road. 

We managed to fix the damage with the proverbial piece of string, and after an uncomfortable night continued the next morning. The rope was good enough to take us back to civilization.

Getting Married

Gabi had looked after newborn Maryan from her first day. It took five years until the adoption was legalized by a Somali court.

Participatory WASH

Trying to get married, we drove 1600 kilometer from Hargeisa to Mogadishu, siphoning gasoline out of a 200 litre barrel sitting in the back of our Landrover, to find out that the German Ambassador - who was to make it happen - was on vacation. 

During five years living in Somalia, I saw Mogadishu only twice

We later managed to get married in Kenya, but celebrated in Hargeisa.

Wedding party in Hargeisa, Somalia, 1982

Everyone dressed up for the party, and also the Chinese doctors came to celebrate.

Clouds gathering over Nasa Hablod - the two breasts mountain, the landmark of Hargeisa

The GED project was morphing from emergency relief into a development intervention. We managed to reduce our personnel from initially 30 doctors and nurses to four of us supporting the Hargeisa Hospital, which covered the entire NorthWest Region. But the head office told us to shut down.

Money was not the problem. It never is. Rather short-sightedly, the GED headquarters viewed any involvement in development beyond its strategic role and focus.

 

Meanwhile, UNICEF was getting serious about its North-West Integrated Social Development Programme (NWISDP). 

UNICEF and TEMO 

In 1984, UNICEF asked me to temporarily look after the Hargeisa Transport and Equipment Maintenance Organization (TEMO), which was part of the NWISDP. The previous UNICEF official had abandonned his post, insisting that goats were to blame for the destruction of the Somali environment and economy.

A special moment: Exchanging our trusted GED Landrover for the rather new UNICEF Landcruiser. Maryan and Tini, recently born in our home in Hargeisa, were delighted.

The North-West  Integrated Social Development Programme (NWISDP) was a boastful title for an assemblage of discrete projects involving primary health care, nutrition education, water, and sanitation (no education). The level of integration was demonstrated by the UNICEF health officer having ordered Landrovers, the UNICEF water engineers Toyotas and Fiat trucks, the UNICEF administrators Suzukis, and the Italian donors wanted to buy us Pandas.  Together with the existing government fleet of decrepit Landrovers, TEMO was to keep 100 vehicles of all sizes and ages on the road, and to look after all manner of drilling rigs, generators, motorpumps and, most importantly, the UNICEF office photocopier.

Typical scene in TEMO

There was more work to be done than charging batteries or changing spark plugs

Engine overhaul

This is a Landrover-in-the-making

TEMO had about 25 staff, including apprentices and specialists for everything. Everyone took pride in what they were doing. 

Our stock of spare parts was worth more than one million Dollar. UNICEF had just introduced Wang Computers, but not for TEMO. When after six month I was offered a regular contract, which I had to sign in Geneva, I bought myself one of the first available personal computers (an Amstrad with 0.25 MB memory) to digitze the TEMO inventory system. 

Mohamed, our store manager. We did not loose any spare parts, nor any workshop tools.

UNICEF paid a basic local salary (a tiny fraction of the UN General Service scale) and would not even provide workwear. So I organized our TEMO T-shirts on my own.

TEMO forced regular preventive inspections on the cars of all reluctant colleagues and officals, and 'created evidence', as it is known today. Much to the chagrin of our british UNICEF colleagues, we established that a Landrover  consumed several times more spare parts than a Landcruiser.

Our daughter Tini inspects a waterpump that received a new engine.

Security was not good. A UN vehicle with bullet holes.

Pitiful Monuments

The 'integrated' programme made slow progress. Experience from elsewhere in the world was not easily transferred to Somalia.

Near the Ethiopean border. For more than two years, UNICEF and Abdul Awal tried to find water by drilling close to 300 Meter deep.

Tini checking progress at Balli Ahmed, which was meant to become an artificial lake fed by rainwater run-off. It is not clear whether it ever functioned as planned.

Around 1986, auditors endeared themselves to me when they recorded - confirming my private observations - that the result of UNICEF's three-year sanitation program were three unused VIP latrines in a single village resembling "pitiful monuments".

Staff outing at a nearby oasis, on the occasion of a visit by Stewart McNab. It remained the only visit by a UNICEF Mogadishu official in three years. Cognoscenti may recognize Stewart McNab, Chris Bentley, Jim Patton, Phyllis ?, Christian Pflüger and Hussein 'Supply' Issa. 

Life in Hargeisa

The economic and security situation in North West Somalia continued to deteriorate.

Our house in the middle of Hargeisa. Soon the water supply stopped and we built the pictured concrete tank, which was filled once every three months. Over time, electricity was only available for three hours a day, at 70 instead of 220 volts. At night we could see the light bulb, but nothing else.

Checkpoints sprung up everywhere, manned by drug-crazed, Kalashnikov-wielding youngsters with bloodshot eyes. One night - though she claims not to remember it - Gabi demanded in Somali that on-comers be addressed more politely, leaving the youth bewildered but accommodating. 

The vultures used to sit menacingly in the eucalyptus tree in front of our house, watching over the almost nightly gunfights between the army and gangs for control of the lucrative khat trade. Khat is a mild drug that makes people more talkative, causes euphoria and delusions and, above all, is a grandiose waste of money. 

Josi was born in our home in Hargeisa when the town was in the grip of a Cholera epidemic and completely quarantined for three months. We managed to smuggle our aunt into town for the event, who as a retired midwife was coming to help.

The green folder is the 1986 version of the UNICEF Programme Policy and Procedure Manual - also known as the Book D. I suspect that I was the only staffmember reading it, as nobody ever complained when I kept it at home. 

I found that the manual had little relevance to the management of UNICEF interventions. One example were the required vehicle loan agreements, that only served to muddle up ownership of the programmes, removed accountability and let to the abuse that they were meant to control. I therefore proposed a clean handing over, and designed a template for the logo that was meant to be applied. Tini was fascinated.  

Going to a party

In mid 1987, TEMO was ready to be handed over to the Government, and so it happened.  Exactly on the day, five years after I arrived in Somalia - and six years after Gabi had come - we quietly left Hargeisa for Djibouti, on the tracks we knew so well. 

Somalia was rushing towards the abyss, and the story towards its end. Civil unrest broke out; Hargeisa was bombed in early 1988. The UNICEF office was evacuated. TEMO was destroyed and looted, the staff dispersed.

Our next stop was Khartoum, which in comparison to Hargeisa we considered cosmopolitan; and where we soon after got to crank up 🔗Operation Lifeline Sudan.

Post Scriptum: Somaliland has declared its independence from Somalia in 1991 and has since enjoyed relative peace and stability. In 2017, the Economist considered Somaliland to be 🔗east Africa's strongest democracy. Another successful election took place in 2021. Still, Somaliland's independence remains unrecognized by any member state of the U.N. or any other international organisation. Widely used mobile money was introduced in 2009, well before Kenya's M-PESA. The port of Berbera has been upgraded with the help of the U.A.E.. It has become one of the most successful ports of sub-Saharan Africa. I recently discussed the role of the UN in Somalia with Dr. M. Warsame - one of the architects of the Somalia RHU and Primary Health Care system in the '80s. Asking about the key drivers of development in Somaliland, his response was unequivocal: the private sector.

*****

Other photo-stories by Detlef:

• Lunae Montes - a journey to the source of the Nile, in 1980
• Operation Lifeline Sudan, the first years in pictures
• New York - A Walk on the Wild Side
• Into the Midnight Sun (Journey to the North Cape)
• The Door to Hell and the Path to Health (Turkmenistan)
• Magic South (Southern Africa)
• Azhdahak (from Germany to Armenia, by road)
• Top of Mexico
• At the edge of the bog - where we live
• Rudaki, a Wedding and Proto-Urban Sarazm (Tajikistan)

More Insights from Outside the Bubble, by Detlef Palm

Detlef can be contacted via detlefpalm55@gmail.com