IT IS ELEVEN years on, over a decade since the collapse of government. Over five years since all attempts at reconciliation from international organizations failed: Somalia. The country, and people, have been abandoned by the world. Our headlines have moved on to other things, as if perhaps by ignoring the problem would make it go away.

For the most part it hasn't. And yet, in the north of the country, something odd has occurred: a government has formed.

A meager infrastructure has begun to take shape. It's being created under the guise of a new country, a place called Somaliland. I had heard rumours that it was reasonably safe to visit this new republic, which no one will admit exists - and which no country will formally recognize. This place in the "black hole" that Kofi Annan called Somalia is a calm bastion in the factional anarchic storm - the only way which the world has known Somalia for over a decade.

I HAD BEEN told that to enter Somaliland by vehicle, a town called Jijiga in northeastern Ethiopia was the entry point. Hargeisa is the capital of this self-declared state, and Boorama is a larger town just near the border. Reaching one or the other would be my goal.

Desperately early in the morning we took off from Addis Ababa to Dire Dawa, a reasonably busy Ethiopian town graced with a paved runway and new terminal. We were asked to deplane while they refuelled. A curious middle-aged British woman approached me.

"Hi. Who are you working with?"

She was nearly flabbergasted to hear that I was a tourist: a tourist out here, heading for Jijiga, the apparent aid coordination centre of Ethiopia.

Upon arrival in Jijiga: no paved runway. Two tin shacks. Many military men standing around. She offered to get me a lift into town with the people she was meeting.

Jijjga is a reasonably large town for this part of the world, although camels wandering through the town centre are common, and much of the place is made up of dirt road and shacks. The entire area was surprisingly green. "We have been getting rain for the past few weeks," one of the local aid workers told me.

I was taken back to their office with the lady and three local workers. "Only a tourist," I said, as we sat, drinking soda water, chatting; them wondering what I was doing in Jijiga, sort of curious but very friendly.

I was assigned not one but two locals to deal with my itinerary: to the immigration office and get stamped out, but only if I can get back in. And then find a bus to Boorama or Hargeisa. Whisked away in their spiffy Land Rover to the immigration office, I got to talking with one of the men. "This town is where all of the aid groups are centred," he said, "and also where the people come to get food."

"Is there enough for everyone?" I asked, expecting the usual African optimism.

"I don't know."

And I still wonder.

THE BUS TO Boorama had left an hour ago; the only one of the day, which I found quite odd. We went back to their office. "So, I guess you're in Jijiga for today?" one of the men asked.

"Well, perhaps. Let's wait and see if there is another way to get to Boorama or Hargeisa today." And the thought must have clicked in his head, because he suggested that I go to Hartishek, where it was easy to connect to Hargeisa. Before I knew it, I was in a tiny bus screaming across the muddy road to the halfway point between Jijiga and Hargeisa: Hartishek.

Rolling across green fields, it was easy to see that many nomads were going back out to the countryside with their herds and beginning life again. The desert here swallows rain fast and graciously; the plains around Jijiga are rolling green now, when only a few years ago they were fodder for the news as endless tracts of dust.

Before Hartishek, still deep in Ethiopian territory, the bus passed through the first Somali roadblock. Of course, it does not actually block the road: it is merely two sticks on either side of the dirt road with a string hooked across. No one paid any attention to me. But I knew from the features of the people in the bus that I was far from Ethiopia already: these people were almost all Somali.

Hartishek is a refugee camp, surrounded by mounds of garbage. In that garbage children play, and African vultures twice the size of the children scavenge. Thousands of plastic bags have been tied onto the whithered bushes; the dirt road turns into deep mud ruts, and crowds of women sit on the side clutching large tin cans bearing the EU symbol. The dirt, the dust, the garbage, and the multitudes of people in such a tiny, desperate town; thousands upon thousands of little white huts that look like bubbles across the rolling plains: this is Hartishek.

A small boy, the conductor for the bus I was on, led me to a Land Cruiser that was loading up for Hargeisa. I met an older African man there: A bit tired in the eyes, with white hair and beard, he spoke with honest-sounding English. He said he was a refugee. "I don't know why God created the black man," he confided in me, "all he does is suffer. And they are rude. How many African countries have you visited? Are any of them without suffering?"

He was certainly pessimistic. He also offered the idea that I pay for all of the seats on the vehicle so it could go immediately.

Usually, I don't do this; and the price was high. However, I only had a few days at the most to see Somaliland, and every minute counts at this point. Unfortunately. I have often said to myself that a little time in a place is far better than no time at all, and have had many great experiences this way. So with scant regard for budget I paid the high price - although for the simple fact that it was better security as I was about to enter what is essentially a rogue state, I think it was a smart move.

Another roadblock was not far from the town and a Somali with an AK-47 slung behind him disappeared with my passport and driver into a shed. The old man was still in the Land Cruiser with me. "Perhaps you need a translator," he said. "I could translate for you."

I offered him a modest sum in Ethiopian currency to come with me. "But I will return immediately, and I need to buy the bus back." "As you like," I said with a friendly smile. He quietly slipped out the back door and disappeared.

The Somali with the gun came out of the shed and up to my window, one hand holding the end of his AK-47 behind his neck, and grunted at me. He didn't make eye contact, but merely looked in the truck quickly to see if there was anything illegal or valuable he might want. And then, we were on our way.

THERE IS NO road from Ethiopia into Somaliland; in fact, there is no formal land connection whatsoever. In Djibouti you have dirt tracks impressed by determined four-wheel-drive vehicles, and in Ethiopia you have the same. Except this time the rains came.

Three years of rain began to fall, and the dry green of this semi-arid land turned into a mudstorm of water and dust. The haze of the raindrops was blasted by the wind, and the ruts cut deep by Land Rovers were turning into rivers. We began sliding, spinning slightly, and eventually - of course - got stuck.

One half hour lost. One mud-drenched driver. But we persisted, and I saw massive turtles crawling across the dirt. They were the only ones who didn't seem to mind, although I am sure the nomads were not complaining too much either.

It was here, moving toward the Somali frontier, that the mood truly changed. There was nothing but us and a general direction. And about two hours later, we reached the real border of Somaliland, another stick-and-string checkpoint. The driver stopped. We stared at the old man who sauntered towards us.

His face was nearly a skull: an older man, decked out in a beige uniform, his AK-47 slung over a shoulder and a hat to die for - a tall and official looking cowboy hat with faded letters on the front that spelled RANGER. The driver explained the usual story of the tourist and the destination, and the string dropped.

Somaliland. Somalia. Whatever you call it, this was not Ethiopia. It hadn't been for over seventy-five kilometres.

The landscape became different: more barren, dry, and somehow surreal. The flat grass shifted into rocky scrub and rolling hills. A dirt track to an ignored republic. An obscure way to an obscure country.

Slowly the nomads began to appear, and then we went through the first town with brick buildings. All were destroyed. The nomads persisted in their tents, though. Their sheep, all with white bodies and black above their neck, wandered and ate the sparse foliage. Old military vehicles, rusted and burned, littered the countryside. And suddenly, two hours after crossing the border: pavement.

A road - and another checkpoint. Four boys dressed as soldiers hopped in the back of our vehicle. The story was told again. We drove in silence to the police station, where we were directed into the city and into immigration. And behold, after a smooth half hour ride, the land dipped into a valley and there lay a large looking town:

Hargeisa. Capital of the country that no one will admit exists. Multitudes of coloured cement houses. Arabic and Somali signs dot the bright yellow and blue buildings. New cars roll by. It is wet, quiet, but it's a city. And the capital of this odd, odd country - Somaliland.

SOMALILAND HAD NEVER really been a fluid part of colonial Somalia - before 1960 it was its own country, a territory of Britain, while Somalia was a territory of Italy. British Somaliland became independent in 1960 - for four days. After that, it was decided by the European powers-that-be that the two Somalias should become one country, and the capital should be Mogadishu. And of course since it came from the mouth of a white man, it was so.

When the government of Mogadishu collapsed in 1991, Somaliland used the opportunity to declare independence. By no means were things rosy for the new country from the beginning - civil war raged until 1995, but hostilities continued until 1998, and now things are just tense between the west and the east of the country. Those that know the country know that it's safe right now. But so few know the country; no one in Ethiopia really seemed to know anything about it.

A guide in Djibouti was certain that I would be killed if I tried to enter Somaliland via their border - but after he had talked to some of his friends he found out otherwise. Advisories across the world send conflicting reports about the state of the country, not only because they don't want their citizens to go there, but also because no one has an embassy in the country to confirm what's going on. One fellow I spoke to on the internet actually said it was safer than Ethiopia - and yet the Canadian embassy in Addis Ababa insisted that I come down to their office outside of their usual opening hours to get their advisories about the two countries.

Immigration looked at my passport, and told me to come back at nine in the morning when they were open, and could get the stamps out. Taken to a hotel room for the night, I unloaded my bag and a Somali-Ethiopian who was born in Somalia but had lived in Ethiopia but pretty much the Somali region of Ethiopia (get that?) took me to change money. One US Dollar = 3000 Somaliland Shillings. The largest note is 500 shillings - I was given a fat clump of bills that landed on the moneychanger's table with a thump.

Cafeterias lined this road in Hargeisa, and all eyes were on me as throngs of Somalis sat in their plastic chairs and listened to the radios. There were no televisions around. Dinner was three samosas and a Fanta for a whopping US dollar's worth of Shillings. The Somali who led me around, surprisingly, didn't ask for a tip. Just by that gesture I knew he wasn't Ethiopian.

We walked back to the hotel. "May I ask you a question?" he said, and then without waiting for my response, proceeded: "What do you think of Somali people?"

I never had the chance to answer him as we walked to the reception in the hotel and I handed over a wad of money to pay for my room.

But if I had answered his question... The Somalis: physically, they are often rather tall, skinny, with slightly distorted facial features like an overbite, long chins, and deep set eyes. My instincts tell me they are odd; more unpredictable than other African societies, more in tune with ancient associations to clan and tribe than other Africans who have accepted the westernization of their societies. I will go out on a limb here and say they rely more on their instincts than the other, more colonialized, African ethnic groups.

The Somalis are the people in Africa who have most abruptly rejected any colonial influence, with the anarchy in the east a sort of return to ancient tribal warfare. They are a devoutly Muslim people. They are African, and harbour no outsider's interference in their destiny.

Crazy? Perhaps. But the Somalis are Africans at their most base. They want to do things their way. They will learn through their own mistakes. And they will find a purely African solution to their problems.

HARGEISA IS A busy town when it's not raining, with a few of those Arabesque attractions a tourist brochure might put in when there isn't really anything of interest: a few mosques, a market, a main street. Buildings appropriated by government. But like most of Africa, it's far more interesting than it looks.

On my way to immigration a babbling man on the street began to follow me, holding his arms out. "Five hundred years ago the slave ships began their way across the ocean," he shouted, "and the chains of west Africa still burn on my wrist!" I gave him a curious look, and he was eventually called aside by some older men, who probably told him not to bug the white man like that. A few minutes later a group of women began to follow me; I felt a pinch on my shoulder. They had thrown a rock at me.

"Have you ever been in a war?" the officer at immigration asked me. His boss wasn't there yet to stamp me in; he was supposed to arrive at nine, and now it's ten thirty. I told the officer I was talking to that I had never been in a war, or at least, not my own. And I've certainly never fought in one. "It's not good," he replied. "But in 1988 - we had to fight."

Tensions were escalating in 1988 - the regime down in Mogadishu had ordered several thousand people killed in Hargeisa. Even now war damage is one of the most prevalent sights in the city.

The officers were all decked out in army uniforms, nicely pressed, with clean black berets on their scalps. The officer I had been speaking to grinned. I asked him about the fact that no country recognized Somaliland. He grinned again. "It makes no difference to us. If they want to recognize us, then let them recognize us. If they don't want to recognize us, then they don't recognize us."

He continued. "We are nomads, you know? Life is simple here. You wake up, eat, chew Qat, tend the animals, eat, and sleep. Political things matter little. If people want to fight us, then they will lose, because we have nothing to lose."

I finally received my entry stamp, and departed the office. I had met a doctor earlier in the day who was looking for a western reference, as Africans often are (no matter that they're also looking to make some cash by helping out foreigners). He invited me for tea after I ran into him a few hours later, and we chatted. He was very interested in studying his PhD abroad, so I offered to mail him a university catalog. He gave me a tour of his hospital: clean but bare, and no sign of any patients or medical supplies. He then offered to arrange me a private car to Boorama, for cheap. But first, there was the matter of lunch.

The doctor, a friend of his and I wandered over to a large open restaurant, with dirt floors and a dingy, dark indoor room. We sat outside. Mango juice, water, a dish of spaghetti with sauce, and a large dish with rice and two loins of goat meat; and also some very awful tasting "animal" soup. All fine and dandy you say. And yes, it was all fine, except that you have to eat all of this with your fingers. And yes, people wash their hands before and after meals. He and his friend directed me toward the private taxi stand after our lunch.

Soon we became surrounded by men - shouting, pulling, pushing, surrounding us. I was asked to sit down while he negotiated. Five minutes later I got up and moved through the throng into a taxi, shrugging off hands pulling at me, always mindful of my bag. The taxi was stuck, we locked the doors as the crowd persisted. One man reached through an open window and tried to unlock my door; I pressed against the lock quickly as the taxi finally sped off. We stopped several blocks away to negotiate a price.

We settled on a sum that was extremely expensive for the region, but my time constraints forced me to accept it. The doctor took down his car number, his name, his tribe's name, his grandfather's name, and the make of his car and threatened to throw him in jail if anything happened to me. Yet another example of how an African does not trust his fellow African.

Off I went to Boorama. I gave the doctor some cash for his help. The taxi driver's cut was such a large amount of bills that he had to stuff several stacks of them in his glove compartment - here, people have an incredible skill which is flipping through dozens upon dozens of bills very quickly using their thumb and forefinger. I never did get the hang of it.

Source: http://www.diacritica.com/sobaka/2003/somaliland.html/

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