Any Bloggers Currently in Mogadishu?

Hello fellow bloggers from around the globe. I've recently received a small request from a gentleman seeking to reach out to the Somali blogger community. Below is his message:

"Dear Bloggers - I am currently in Mogadishu and am looking for some local photo-bloggers who may be interested in an exchange project for an NYU Master's project. I will be in town until Monday night and can be reached on +252 699 962 826. Please call me and let us meet and chat. - Levin Born"

If you're in the area or are interested in the project, don't hesitate to contact Levin. Opportunities come knocking when you least expect them.

Somali Blogs Facebook Page

How many Somali bloggers do you think are out there? I'm not talking about blogs where users post/reblog pictures, but actual blogs where users actually write, whether it be a short poem or several paragraphs. A few thousand? A few hundred?

Let's admit it, if you were to count all the bloggers in the world and sort them by nationality/ethnicity, Somalis would probably be among the least, if not the least! We have so many people scattered around the globe, but yet so few bloggers. Why?

Blogging is an excellent and powerful tool that can be used for several reasons, from keeping in touch with family and friends, to promoting your ideas or a business. While a person can do that with Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook or the next big social networking site that comes along, blogging gives gives you your own piece of the internet; a website you can call your own, and best of all it's free. Through blogging and sharing your thoughts and ideas, you have the opportunity to meet amazing people from around the world.

That is why we've decided to create a Facebook page for the blog in an attempt to reach a wider audience and hopefully attract more Somali youth to start creating their own blogs. There are many good writers out there posting stories, notes and poems on social networks, and we hope that some of them will be attracted to the idea of blogging. Without a doubt many people will be exposed to the Somali blogs listed here with the help of the page, but only time will tell how many people start creating their own blogs.

From time to time, we'll also do a blog roundup and promote interesting or useful posts from the blogs and post them both here and on the Facebook page.

For now, we ask you guys to join the page and promote it as much as you can. Here's to hoping this works out and more people take up blogging...

Ciid Wanaagsan - Eid Mubarak

Greetings everyone! May you all have a blessed and joyous Eid with your loved ones.

Nabad iyo caano iyo ciid wanaagsan ku ciida!

A New Era Dawns Upon Somalia

Newly elected President Mohamud. Image credits - Farah Abdi Warsameh/AP

After over 40 years, Somalia has successfully elected a new president in its own soil. The new president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, has won with an outstanding 190 votes against 79 for the outgoing president Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. The victory margin which portrays Mohamud as a clear favorite, also shows that the parliamentarians voted for a change of direction. It sends a strong message that Somalis want to move beyond the days of corrupt, clan-dominated governments to a more effective leadership.

"I congratulate all Somalis. The people are taking a new direction. You are now ending the difficult path and taking a new one," Mohamud said as people cheered around him.

There have been several attempts at electing a Somali president before, each attempt raising people’s hopes that this time things will work out, only to have rival clans and disgruntled factions seek to destabilize the new government for their own interests. The new president will certainly have to fight old and new power interests; people who have spent years and money carving power bases for themselves only to see a fresh face take the highest seat in government. He will have to try to succeed in fighting corruption and piracy where others have failed, and also keep the bigger picture in mind when it comes to dealing with all the foreign interests that have staked so much in Somalia as they try to pull him toward their own causes.

That is why like most Somalis, I am optimistic and pray this time it works out for the good of the nation and its people. But as a realist, I’m also cautious not to put all my hopes in one basket and lose faith with the slightest bump in what is sure to be a rough road for our nation.

But for now, as this new era dawns upon us, there remains a glimmer of hope and we should all try to do our part to improve things, even if it’s as simple as a short prayer.

Eid Mubarak

Image taken at Putrajaya, Malaysia

Dear brothers and sisters. May Allah accept our fasting during this holy month and grant us more. We hope you all have a blessed and joyous Eid with your families and loved ones. Whether you pray and celebrate at convention centers, ceremony halls, hotels, local mosques, or open fields reserved for Eid events, we hope to see pictures of your Eid celebrations on your blogs, so that everyone can get a chance to see how others celebrate.

However, as we celebrate with millions of other Muslims across the world this Eid, let us remember our brothers and sisters back home and in other parts of the world, who find themselves in contrasting realities to ours. Because of the events that are taking place back home in Somalia and the hardships our brethren in places such as Palestine face, our happiness this Eid is not complete in the sense that a great percentage of our Muslim brothers and sisters around the world are not sharing it with us.

Pray for the unfortunate. Greet everyone with a smile. Invite your non-Muslim friends and neighbors on Eid celebrations and expose them to the beauty of it all. And remember to visit the sick in the hospitals and brighten their day.

Here is a little Sunnah reminder.

"Allah’s Apostle never proceeded (for the prayer) on the Day of ‘Id-ul-Fitr unless he had eaten some dates. Anas also narrated: The Prophet used to eat odd number of dates." (Bukhari)

Eid Mubarak.

Somali Proverb

Who can come up with the best translation without losing the meaning...?

The Reason Behind The Move

Hello dear bloggers and readers. Welcome to the new location. There are a few reasons for the move; the main one being the aggregator, or lack thereof. Wordpress, although with a clean and great user interface, lacks the feature we need most: to have the blog list updated each time someone publishes a new post on their blog. This way we can keep track of the latest updates from our fellow bloggers instead of going through the long process of opening each and every blog in hopes of finding an update.

The second reason, albeit not as significant, is simply cosmetic. Wordpress does not allow customization of templates and charges users a fee for the feature. We wanted to have the ability to be able to edit the template in the future if the need arises.

With that out of the way, I'd like to welcome all the new bloggers to the list. The list is over 50 people now and still growing as we are receiving new links each day. There are several Somali blogs marked 'Protected' so we haven't added them. So far we have blogs written in Somali, Arabic, English, and Norwegian. If you know of any other Somali blogs, drop us a line.

But am I the only one that gets this feeling that those aren't the only languages we'll see? I know somewhere out there is a Somali writing a blog in some other language, whether it be French, Portuguese, or Italian. It's just a matter of time.
 

Till then, browse through the list of bloggers and go do some exploring.