It’s sweltering
in Trou-aux-Biches, the kind of heat that melts the ice cubes in your
caramel macchiato faster than you can say, Kardashian. I am holed up in
my room on Laval Road watching Leonardo DiCaprio’s new movie, The
Revenant when suddenly… Knock Knock!
Roda Ahmed is checking if we’re still meeting. Forget the meeting at Le
Pescatore, a restaurant on Coastal Road; let’s just have it here.
Roda prefers to tell her story in chronological order. So she starts by
giving me the lowdown about her country. She comes from Somaliland.
Officially known as the Republic of Somaliland. It is a self-declared state
which lies in the north-western part of Somalia on the South Coast of the
Gulf of Aden. It has about 3.5 million residents. The fact that it has not
yet been recognized internationally agitates Roda and she plans to do
something about it. “My first major target in life is to see my country
being recognised, and for people stop asking me impertinent questions
about Somaliland: where is Somaliland? Is it another name for Somalia?”
she says.
I’m curious. So I pop the question, what do you think could help solve this
problem? Her reply, “I think having young leaders in the government
could help make the process of being recognised easier. I noticed that the
older generation tends not to learn from mistakes. Somaliland proclaimed
her independence in 1991 but was not recognized. It has been 24 years
now, and still we’re not recognised as a country. If our leaders had known
what they’re missing, I’m sure we would have been recognised already.
That’s why I think we need new young leaders with new approaches to
tackle such issues.”
Roda grew up in Hargeisa, the capital and largest city in Somaliland with
about one million people. Despite being an urban space, girls are highly
underestimated in the society. It is taken as Gospel that girls are not
supposed to go to school or work in the tertiary sector. “They think a girl
is born to take care of her husband and children. This is absurd!” she
exclaimed. “In school, when any opportunity arises, boys are the only ones
who get selected even when there is a girl who tops the class. Teachers tell
us because we’re going to get married, we don’t need great success in other
areas,” she adds.