It is bitter, requires hours of dedicated chewing and leaves less food
on the kids' dinner plates, but khat is the love of nearly every man
throughout the Horn of Africa, Somaliland
included. The reality is that it is less of a love and more of an addiction. Chewing khat provides an amphetamine like high. It's the Prozac of this part of the world. Of course that's not how it is seen in Hargeisa where alcohol is abhorred and hard drugs are non-existent. No, here the men here will try and tell you it is an integral part of life.
Every day at 10am the trucks arrive from Ethiopia where khat is a lucrative cash-crops for farmers living in a country where aid agencies say millions of children are at risk from famine this year. The money involved is phenomenal. It's thought - hard figures are hard to come by - that Somalialand's men spend some $300,000 a day on khat. Given this is one of the most impoverished regions in the world it's hard to work out where the cash comes from. There simply isn't $2,000,000 in weekly lose cash floating around here.
For men, the day revolves around chewing. Government ministries empty at 1pm sharp, so to do private businesses and cafes. The working day is effectively over. Aid workers joke that politicians are at their most productive whilst chewing...this is when the real negotiations take place. For the unemployed khat is a means to escape the drudgery of life and chew their way to an over-stimulated oblivion.
For women khat is the greatest curse and one of the main reasons their husbands don't bother seeking work. Their husbands pathetically argue they chew becasue they have no jobs. It's a convenient excuse that leaves many wives simmering with anger and contempt for their husbands. But they have few alternatives other than to work fifteen hours a day to support the family.
Some scientists say there is a link to impotence - could be the best antidote for polygamy!
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