Coming home

As I hinted at in my previous post I've decided to take off from Africa and head on back to America. I could stick around until May and travel somewhere other than Somaliland but I'm a bit burned out right now and the thought of dealing with any more headaches here doesn't do my soul well.

Being back in Ethiopia is doing me some good. They've got good beer here, much better food, actual trees, fewer regulations on what I do, and I feel a hell of a lot less of a gulf between the locals and me. Harar has some of the friendliest people I've come across in my travels and it's difficult to wander for more than a half hour without being invited into someone's house. History has written unkind works about the hospitality of the Hararis but I have almost nothing but glowing things to say about them. Staying there for a few days really helped calm me down from the red blotches that I was constantly seeing from my time in Somaliland.

There's still a chance I might head back to Somaliland in the future but at this point it looks pretty improbable. there's nothing to suggest that I'll have it any easier in a year or longer if I come back. My travel bug hasn't necessarily disappeared but for now my love of being in Africa is diminished enough that, at the very least, I'm not already planning my next trip here. I think I'll write one last post on this blog in a few days when I've determined what my next move is.

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Speaking of terrorism, an on a final note on this post, I read yesterday in the Star Tribune that Suleman Ahmed, Leader of the SSC militia in eastern Somaliland, is being questioned by Federal authorities in his home of Columbus, Ohio. (Columbus has the biggest Somali population in America next to Minneapolis.) All I can say is: it's about damn time. It's the SSC that is responsible for a number of high-profile political assassinations in Somaliland, armed attacks against government institutions, and a general lock-down of a large swath of territory that is suffering from drought and desperately needs the aid that the SSC is, whether inadvertently or not, not allowing in.

It's his group that is mostly responsible for me not being able to get into the regions I was trying to get to and it's very possible - though I don't think I'll ever know for sure - that it's the SSC who threatened me when I was trying to make my way into the east a month ago.

If you read the article his words betray his guilt and only show he has learned buzz words for the American media, such as blaming his recent arrest on "African politics." He tries to act like a moderate being blamed for the extremist actions of others in America when in fact he is among the very worst people we have in our country. And finally, he doesn't raise money for "families in the SSC region" as he claims, he raises it to fund his militia. Period.

The SSC is not designated a terrorist organization by the United States but it sure should be.