Faded from the searing sun, snagged on bushes, fences, tumbling on the dusty breeze or lying in clusters across waste ground, the turquoise and pink plastic bags so nicknamed by locals litter the city of Hargeisa.
Their presence in Somaliland's capital is no respecter of rich or poor, uptown or downtown life, though inevitably it is the poorest communities where the worst garbage is to be found.
Daami neighborhood is one such place. In this sprawling slum that is home to some 3500 people, many belong to Somaliland's minority clans, and are among the most marginalized in the region.
"We would like to improve our children's education, improve our houses across Daami village," says Ismail, a local woman summing up the determination that many people feel towards bettering their community despite being dealt a bad hand in the gamble that passes for life here.
Disposal companies have dumped tonnes of
waste in the Daami neighborhood of Hargeisa, leaving children to pick their
way through the waste, above; Concern Worldwide helped set up community
groups so women could start self-sufficiency projects, far right; while many
children have suffered severe ailments because their families have no access
to basic medical facilities Photographs: David Pratt
|
David Pratt - Foreign Editor, Sunday Herald
To understand the problems that face the people of Daami is to first understand
from where they came in Somaliland, a place itself long marginalized as the
world's attention over the years has focused on its headline-making,
conflict-wracked neighbor the Republic of Somalia.
A former British Protectorate which received independence from Britain in June
1960, Somaliland initially united with Italian Somalia to become the Republic
of Somalia. Under the rule of the military dictatorship of Siad Barre between
1969 and 1991, the people of Somaliland felt increasingly marginalized.
Barre's attempt to undermine the power of the dominant clan in the then
northern Somalia led to the formation of the Somali National Movement (SNM).
As the SNM began a guerrilla insurgency against government and military posts
inside Somalia, Barre responded with a military onslaught against northern
towns and villages that killed tens of thousands of Somali civilians and led to
the internal displacement of half a million people, while the same number again
became refugees in Ethiopia.
Such atrocities led to the Somali Civil War and ultimately the downfall of
Barre, with Somaliland in 1991 declaring its independence from the Republic of
Somalia.
Since that time, Somaliland while managing to establish a stable
administration, has still not been internationally accepted as an independent
nation.
Afflicted in recent years by harsh droughts and its cities packed with myriad
rural migrants, landless civil war returnees and families fleeing conflict in neighboring Somalia, the urban neighborhood of Daami in Hargeisa has become
one of many catchment areas for such people as well as those from marginalized clans often culturally discriminated against. It is impossible to downplay the
importance that Somaliland places on its clans as pivotal social units, and the
central role clan membership plays in the country's makeup.
This social and cultural discrimination against minority clans means that few
take much notice that Daami in recent years has literally become a dumping
ground as private refuse disposal companies have taken to mass fly-tipping of
stinking waste alongside the slum huts and tents in which thousands eke out
their lives.
Outside Daami school I watched as children gingerly tip-toed through the heaps
of plastic bags, rotting food scraps and every imaginable kind of solid waste.
 |
Disposal companies have dumped tonnes of
waste in the Daami neighbourhood of Hargeisa, leaving children to pick their
way through the waste, above; Concern Worldwide helped set up community
groups so women could start self-sufficiency projects, far right; while many
children have suffered severe ailments because their families have no access
to basic medical facilities Photographs: David Pratt
|
Nearby, in a large stagnant lake growing daily as
the seasonal rains fall, other youngsters swim and toddlers are bathed by their
mothers, oblivious to the risks they run from disease and infection.
Skin complaints, respiratory conditions, diarrhoea and intestinal problems,
cholera, typhoid, as well as the threat from mosquitoes and malaria all stem
from this seething pool of garbage saturated effluence. In the main it is the
smallest of children under five years old who are the most vulnerable. During
my time moving through the neighbourhood, mothers would constantly confront me
with their children and the many ailments from which they were suffering.
One toddler, a large lump on her spine, had been unable to sleep on her back
almost since birth. Another little girl with a throat and neck infection had
been left with her tongue so badly swollen, she had lost her ability to speak.
A small boy unable to see properly had never had an examination to determine
whether his blindness was permanent or the result of something like cataracts
that could be treated.
 |
Disposal companies have dumped tonnes of
waste in the Daami neighbourhood of Hargeisa, leaving children to pick their
way through the waste, above; Concern Worldwide helped set up community
groups so women could start self-sufficiency projects, far right; while many
children have suffered severe ailments because their families have no access
to basic medical facilities Photographs: David Pratt
|
None of these mothers had the money or access to the medical care needed for
their children.
"In the rainy season our houses collapse or the water and filth rises up
into them", explains Ismail, one of five women sitting before me who have
become part of a Daami community self-help group set up with the support of
humanitarian agency Concern Worldwide.
"In the beginning most of the women here and others in Daami didn't
believe this could be done and thought setting up the group would be a waste of
time", admits Ismail, looking around at other female group members dressed
in colourful hejab headscarfs and nodding in agreement.
In extremely poor communities like Daami, women and the households they come
from have no savings and with no micro-credit services available, most are
dependent on money-lenders and shop owners for credit.
With the creation of the self-help group, that has changed. Ismail says the
women are now totally committed to the scheme that helps them generate income
collectively to start and support other small livelihood projects selling items
or running small stalls providing them with a degree of food security to
prevent their families going hungry. It also helps improve the process of
social inclusion for those discriminated against.
"Now our morale is good and we are using money from the group. Who knows,
we could become big business people in the future," Ismail jokes.
Along with the self-help groups, Concern has also focused attention on the
provision of sanitation and clean water. Most households in Daami have no
latrines and open defecation is widespread. Even if available, piped water is
way beyond what the poorest here can possibly afford.
As we walk past the tiny huts and tents in which most people here cram and on
along the shoreline of Daami's garbage-polluted lake, I begin to fully realise
the problem the community faces with its shortage of fresh water.
 |
Disposal companies have dumped tonnes of
waste in the Daami neighbourhood of Hargeisa, leaving children to pick their
way through the waste, above; Concern Worldwide helped set up community
groups so women could start self-sufficiency projects, far right; while many
children have suffered severe ailments because their families have no access
to basic medical facilities Photographs: David Pratt
|
Most people in Daami survive on $1 a day; water from piped sources would cost
at $0.40 per 20 litre jerry can. That means a bill of $36 per month for a
family of six using only 60 litres of water a day. Faced with this, the poorest
in the community are left with the option of accessing water from an earthen
dam. Free, it might be, but being tainted with solid waste means they run the
risk of sickness and possibly death.
Many of those who have set up in Daami are of course rural migrants from Somaliland's
countryside where water is also a crucial issue for the majority of people
there who are agro-pastoralists and farmers.
In this region almost everything depends on rainfall which can be friend and
enemy. When not suffering drought, much of the arable land here is often swept
away leaving gullies up to 20 feet deep. Not surprisingly, this massive loss of
rich farmland has meant that productivity is often low and the community
plunged into poverty as a result.
Nasir Abiib was one of those who, as a result of drought and failed crops, was
forced to head for the city to make a little money and feed his family.
Five years ago, an exceptional days wages hauling a wheelbarrow with goods in
Hargeisa city amounted to $5 a day.
A meal rather than money was often all he was given, leaving nothing to send
back to his family still struggling on their small patch of land some hours'
drive outside of the capital.
That, however, was rare, and more often than not Nasir made nothing at the
hands of unscrupulous hire-and-fire bosses.
"Come back tomorrow and we will pay you, they would tell me and other men
from the countryside, but sometimes they never paid up," he recalls.
"You cannot go to the police, you cannot fight back; they have
money," Nasir complains with a shrug.
It was one of Concern's agricultural support projects that gave Nasir the
chance to rebuild his life in a way he least expected. "I was a casual
labourer on one of the projects they had provided for other farmers, but I
watched, learned then began to do things for myself," he says proudly as
we sit in the shade of a tree on the 1.5 hectares of land on which he now
grows, maize, tomatoes and water melon, resulting in him being hailed by locals
as the best farmer and an "innovator" in the district.
I asked him what difference this had made to his life and that of his family?
"I have a reputation in the community before that I was in debt, always
debt, credit and borrowing," the 48-year-old says glancing in the
direction of his family nearby, who were working around their huts and
livestock pens.
Most important of all, Nasir explains, is the way Concern's influence and
support helped him in the long-term ensure that he had the capacity to feed his
family.
"We now have enough food for four or five months," he says.
In such a harsh environment, with farmland vulnerable to the vagaries of
nature, including drought, floods, pestilence and soil erosion, that is no mean
feat.
In the district around Nasir's land I was to see for myself the water course
and small gully dams projects that ensured flooding would have a limited effect
on arable land.
In the Gabiley region I met and talked with other agro-pastoralist communities
who told how before Concern's involvement, people and livestock were sharing
water supplies. The improvement in health and their living environment was
considerable, they assured me
In the village of Haji-daahi, locals told how they would like to see more
hygiene and wash facilities along with soil bank-building and training to
manage the water around which life here in this semi-arid landscape so depends
more than most places on the planet.
"Five years from now we will be the people who are supporting the poorer
members of our community," insisted village chief Abdi Daahi.
This, of course, is what real aid aims to achieve, enabling people to look
after themselves and have the capacity to then support those still at risk
within the community.
In Somaliland, such communities have traditionally shown a great deal of
resilience and have cared for disadvantaged groups through use of diaspora,
religious, community and clan-based coping strategies and systems.
But even with these mechanisms, that perfect storm of crop failure, poor
rainfall, and outbreaks of disease regularly test those coping mechanisms to
breaking point and beyond.
Somaliland and Somalia hewn from the same land-mass, culture and shared
history, are today in some respects quite different places.
The former, fairly stable politically, the latter, increasingly so but still
twisting in the winds of a conflict that has lasted decades.
In the two weeks that I spent moving around both regions, I met slum dwellers
in Hargeisa and Mogadishu, and subsistence farmers in Gabiley, all with hopes,
aspirations and a determination to make their lives better.
If there is a real common denominator in their lives, it is the perpetual
threat of crippling poverty. But, as I was also to witness, with the right will
and resources, that same poverty can be tackled and overcome.
David Pratt - Foreign Editor, Sunday Herald
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