Puntland: Home away from home

Beloved ones,

It is now almost a year ago that I´d set out with my ‘development gear’ to the Puntland State of Somalia, full of incalculable enthusiasm and passion. I wanted to have a first hand taste of the land i could never have known and for the opportunity to exercise the skills and competences i had been trained in as a humanitarian worker. I’d set out to ‘help my people’ and in my own way contribute to the process and pace of the Development discourse.

In that one year much has happened; I grew both personally and professionally in many ways than one. I have met so many wonderful people especially Somali iron-women whose deeply-anchored desire and passion for social change still ring echoes of comfort and hope to my ears and heart.

In that one year much has happened and I visited many towns like Galkacyo, Garowe, Bossasso and Qhardo. In the picturs below and in the previous articles (berichten)you will find some of my impressions of the landscape,the people and bio-diversity.

But I also became homesick for the land I am still willing to remember
The land I hope to have lived in, the land where falseness did not exist
And where people trusted each other
I am homesick for the place that was full of laughter
Of clinking coffee cups and spoons made of silver

I miss to drink hot chocolate milk and chamomile tea from my happy mug
I miss to be engrossed in my 300 books and ride on my old bike
I miss to be enveloped with the scenes that I love so well
I miss to hear the birds joyously sing my name

I miss the love and warmth of my family and friends
I am homesick for the eyes and the look I knew so well
I am homesick for hands that stroked my face and put braids and ribbons in my hair

I am homesick for the stories
Told to me at night by my nieces and nephews telling me
Of the soup and pancakes they cooked at school
And the paintings they drew of flowers and old cheese
And listening while wrapped in a blanket
To the story of how the chicken wrestled the elephant
And how the chicken had to run and buy butter to do that

I am homesick for listening to the news on the radio
In languages that I understood
And that did not worry me or made me anxious
To Dutch humor that sometimes made me laugh
I am homesick for theater and comedies and commercials
Instead of smoke, suicide bombs and dead children
And grinning politicians saying we need the war

I am homesick for the time when we loved each other
Without thinking of being used
I am homesick for the time when I wanted life to move faster
I am homesick for the time
When I was too innocent to see the signs of betrayal
For the time when I did not see the signs
Of what is bound to happen sooner or later
I am homesick for the time when I had not seen it all before

I am homesick for peace, carelessness and warmth

Sahro