Somali girl rise from Kenyan refugee camp to success

Dadaab is the world's largest refugee camp with a 270,000 people living in it, and is home to a bright and young Somali girl called Fatuma Omar Ismail who excelled at her school in the refugee camp. Fatuma Omar is a 15 year old Kismayo born girl who immigrated to the camp when she was about 8 year old. Despite her refugee status, difficult teaching and studying conditions of the camp, she succeeded at her study. She achieved a good grade that qualified her for an award of scholarship in a Kenyan elite school reserved only for the best of the Kenyans. Read more...

Somalia's beautiful rare plants

In the last post I directed you to the article of Kevin Belmonte about the beautiful and rare plants in Somalia, and the dangers facing these plants because of negligeance and environmental deterioration. Today, there is another article about some other rare plants, and the dangers of overgrazing, soil erosion and negligeance. With all the negatives and bad news coming from Somalia, we finally have found somebody who talks about some of what's good about Somalia. Read More..

Somalia is a better vacation place than the United States

The economic crisis is hitting on the world so hard, it tarnished the image of the capitalism and brought about socialism. In the old days, the capitalists complained about the welfare system that rewarded the unemployed, the poor and the middle class. The capitalists resisted the application of this faulty system, which they described as the 'redistribution of wealth', and they complained from the fact that the government is getting so big while their hands are tied. That was the time when the capitalist has big ideas, easy money and a perfect paradigm, but now things are different. These ideas don't hold anymore because of the crisis that hit them hard in the heart, their paradigm that resisted the distribution of the wealth, and believed in unlimited and unregulated market has been rendered illogical, outdated. Now, even the capitalist is getting good money, a good welfare money from the government. Therefore, they accepted the big government and the socialism that, they claimed, goes with it.

After all this, people had enough of this socialism, and big governments that overreaches and makes vacations impossible because of the restrictions, taxes, traffic jams, and all these environmental regulations of 'don't do this, and that'. For this reason a lot of people now want to get away from the big governments, its regulations and socialism, and the best place to go, at this moment, is Somalia beaches where freedom of movement is guaranteed by the lack of governmental control and regulations. You can go there without being harassed by the government and its agencies that know only how to tax. In Somalia, your free movement is guaranteed by 'rational self interest' because the country is free of government since 1990. Believe it or not Somalia is the new preferred tourist destination of libertarians who want to see a governmentless state. The below YouTube clip claims that vacation spent in Somalia would be better than one spent in U.S. Life is funny.

Somalia's beautiful rare plants

If you're a SucculentPhile like Kevin Belmonte you'll find that Somalia is blessed with succulent and rare plants such as Pseudolithos Harardheranus, Pseudolithos Eylensis, Pseudolithos cubiformis, Euphorbia columnaris, Euphorbia sepulta, Euphorbia turbiniformis, Pseudolithos caput-viperae, Pseudolithos migiurtinus and Euphorbia phillipsiae. These are rare endemic plants that can regularly be found in Eyl, and Harardhere where problems of piracy are persisting. The whole world is preoccupied at the moment with this endemic piracy problems and Eyl and Harardhere, we're told, are piracy capitals in Somalia. So the world become aware of these two coastal towns as piracy business places. But, what we didn't know is that these two places are homes to these rare and succulent plants.

Pseudolithos Harardheranus (Source:Philstar.com)

I am not going to say more as I want you to read the whole article of Kevin Belemonte which is a very good piece of writing that highlights the good parts of Somalia and these two towns. Furthermore, the author, he claims, will talk in another article about other fascinating species in Somalia wild environments, and will also write about the efforts to preserve these plants. With this never ending civil war, and the fight against the pirates in Somalia these plants, other plants, and the environment has been destroyed, and action maybe needed to preserve the environment. Click Here to read the entire article.

Tourist destination

Djibouti where a fish can slap you in the face while you're on a boat in the red sea

Djibouti is a country in the Horn of Africa neighbouring Somalia, Ethiopia and is known for its geological sites, and Volcanos. The majority of its populations (60%) are of Somali ethnic groups, and therefore speak Somali. In this part of the world the nature is building its own geological work. If you want to learn a bit of Somali while visiting these geological sites, and fight with the sea fishes, then Djibouti is the right place. Rob Crossan of Independent newspaper just did that.Click here for more


O Elmi