Mogadishu, Somalia (AHN) – The sun had just set on the small building cobbled together with corrugated metal sheeting. With its bullet holes and shrapnel slashes, the sheeting formed only the thinnest of barriers between the violence that regularly made its presence known on the streets outside and the transitory tranquility inside where a group of men had gathered.
One of them was Ali Adde, who sat cross-legged on the dirt floor, grasping a bundle of leaves. From time to time, he would move the leaves up to his mouth, bite off a few and chew them for a moment before spitting the leaves and a green juice on to the floor. The other men, who like Ali seemed unusually calm, all held bundles of the leaves and mirrored his movements, leaving the floor carpeted in mangled leaves and blobs of mud.
“What are you feeling?” a visitor asked Adde. “I am feeling [a] happy and active euphoria,” he replied. He chews the leaves, known as khat or qat, he says, to ward off the misery and worry that comes with a country in an abominable and horrendous situation.
Khat is the drug of choice in Somalia, eastern Africa and southern parts of the Arabian Peninsula. It is estimated that 75 percent of adult males use khat, which are the leaves and young shoots of an evergreen shrub. Every town used to have khat rooms, where men would lounge for hours listening to blaring music and chewing wads of green leaves that ooze with saliva and stick between their teeth. But al Shabaab, an Islamist insurgent group in Somalia, imposed a ban on listening to music.
Khat, however, remains legal in much of sub-Saharan Africa and is used throughout the Horn of Africa and in parts of the Middle East, especially in Yemen. It is illegal in several African countries, such as Tanzania and Eritrea, as well as in the United States and across Europe .
Trading khat has spread throughout Somalia over the last 19 years, a period during which the nation has plunged into lawlessness and civil war. Imported daily from Ethiopia, khat has become a major factor in the personal and commercial life of Somalis.
Economic analysts in Somalia say that khat impacts vulnerable Somali social life, which has been in virtually constant turmoil since 1991. Sale of the leaves is believed to be one of the biggest businesses in the region. For Somalis, the plant has been both curse and blessing.
Abukar Mohamed, a Somali economic analyst, explained the problems khat brings: “In view of the appalling conditions in the country, importing khat to Somalia with the aim of trading poses a real threat to the previously devastated and downturn[ed] Somali economy,” adding that its revenues go directly to the exporting countries. Little to none of the profits remain in Somalia.
Khat can have a devastating effect on already vulnerable Somali social life, “There are men working throughout the day, they buy khat with the money they earned [instead] of spending it on their poor family to ward off their starvation,” said Mohamed. “Perhaps they live on less than a single meal a day. The parents may quarrel and disagree because of the bill. Then family disintegration could follow if their scuffle deteriorates.”
Adde, the man in the war-ravaged shed, supports a wife and child as a porter, spending long hours each day carrying rich people’s luggage in his wheelbarrow. About half the money he earns during the day he spends on khat.
To service the habit of Adde and thousands like him, dozens of flights leave Nairobi’s major airports every day, transporting burlap sacks filled with khat to Somalia in a trade that is worth about $300,000 a day, according to Kenya’s National Agency for the Campaign Against Drug Abuse.
During rush hours, khat minibuses carrying the sacks from the airport drive at very high speeds through main streets of the capital city. Inexperienced drivers traversing rough and broken neglected roads often end their trip with a fatal accident.
However, khat traders argue that the life of hundreds of Somali families depends on the khat business.
Hakima Habil, a businesswoman who trades khat in Mogadishu, told AHN that her family life depends on it, emphasizing that she has been trading khat for more than 10 years.
She imports khat from neighboring Kenya every day, adding they encounter many problems including accidents and robbery. Still, she is determined to continue her work because it is lucrative.
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