Tahreeb

A section of the Bosasso port.

Tahreeb is the Somali word for migration and its migration across the sea what is called illegal migration but the peeps working for a certain agency X call it irregular migration because as I have been told saying illegal migration is de-humanising the people who do Tahreeb.

The first time I heard of Tahreeb was this time we were travelling for work from Garowe to Eyl because my job really is a never ending road trip(I joke) and normally there are not so many people who are walking on foot but this time there was a lot of men walking and I ask the guys who I was with, who these guys are and where they are walking to and they tell me, they are from Ethiopia and are walking to Bosasso, so as to cross the sea into Yemen and then either go to Saudi or decide to walk through the Sahara desert to other places in search of a better life.

I was in recently Bosasso and by recently I mean Jana :-) :-) such a beautiful town and when I was planning to go I said to myself, amongst all the things I will do I will try and find out more about Tahreeb and how it works.I got some information and here goes the Tahreeb story(from talking to one person),first a lot of the people who make the journey are Somali,most of the Ethiopians once they get to Bosasso see how beautiful it is and decide to wing it in Bosasso by doing casual labour at the port mostly.

Goods at the Bossaso port.

 The journey between Bosasso and Yemen is a 12 hour journey and it costs 70USDs.Its big business as there are boats of varying capacities the smallest being one that is able to carry 50 people and the largest is able to carry 200 people and,every night atleast one boat makes the journey.Its a business partnership amongst different individuals:the man who gets the people who want to make the journey,the guy who works at the port who closes his eyes to the boats that make the journey,the boat owner and the guys in Yemen who wait for the boats on the other side.

The people who take this journey include women who have small children so the guy who is responsible for getting 'customers',also buys a a lot of pampers and slippers because apparently they are the best shoes to walk in,if the 'customers' decide to walk  through the Sahara dessert into the promised lands.

All this in search of the elusive happiness that we are all searching for and if there is anything I have learnt happiness is in the small things,never the big things, like me and my mum eating cake and yoghurt at Afia milk and spending crazy amounts of time there because my mum eats slowly!!(and Afia milk is no fancy joint at all) but so much happiness goes on in that place,me finding food at my place that I had forgotten was there :-) and my nieces-Maryam and her charming smile when you walk in the room,Sokor who runs to greet you and her love for her small sister :-). All these you can get without making a journey somewhere else, to the unknown which we all now know is not too good.

A lot of Somalis have relatives living abroad,who probably sell the idea that other countries are better as they provide better education and business opportunities and this has to be why a lot of people take the journey because they want to be able to have these better opportunities and some even sell their property to send their sons abroad.What they don't realise is that they can make it happen without leaving the country,It may take longer but it will eventually happen (atleast I think so).Also the guy mentioned the way Saudi's are haseed(his exact word) and they will deport you back,if they get you and that the Yemen government was really nice and allowed a lot of Somalis to stay there freely.