WanderingTrader

Flirting In A Strict Muslim Society: Somaliland (Yes I did it)

Those that know me personally are surely thinking what did I get myself into now?  This of course, was not started by me, I can assure you of that.  Muslim culture is known to be very conservative and any public displays of affection are strictly prohibited.  Male & Female contact should be kept to a minimum, actually, zero.  Even when people swim at the beach, women are fully clothed and there are men that swim with t-shirts on.  They are very conservative, get it?

Whenever I am traveling, I always like to try and fit into the local culture, that is until there is no way of fitting in (practically any place in Africa).  I was traveling from the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, where the extra warm pores in my skin were getting (gladly) accustomed to the tolerable warm days and lovely crisp cool nights.  As I traveled closer and closer to Somaliland my pores were grasping for air, it was getting very warm.

People of Somaliland, kids in Somaliland

Faces of Somaliland: The Cute Carrying a Goat.. NOT RANDOM.

I decided to wear shorts the first day that I arrived in Somaliland and boy was that a mistake.  In addition to the locals not appreciating my very fine, on sale, Old Navy cargo shorts, they didn’t appreciate my David Beckham pony tail either.  I am man enough to admit that David Beckham is my man crush, what’s yours?  If you said you don’t have one then you are obviously still in the “I’m afraid of my manliness” closet.

After I broke off from the white boy wolf pack I decided to try and find the Ethiopian embassy to get a visa back into the country.  As I walked in front of the presidential palace that’s when it happened, a ninja chick grabbed my arm and started saying something in Arabic.

Ninja Chick: Women that cover themselves w/ full Burkas where you can only see their eyes

Ninja Chick & Her Cell Phone

Don’t call me racist, they clearly wear ninja attire! Now I know how to speak Arabic, that’s my embellished way of saying I know how to say basic expressions, and this women was not saying just basic expressions.  Did I mentioned that she grabbed my hand in the process?

I think any women or man would be able to identify the slow, sensual, caress, of another human being.  Even dudes, dudes like to touch other dudes, get over it.  The ninja chick grabbed my hand while she was wearing her ninja attire as both her and her friend turned around and looked me head to toe.  We call that checking someone out where I am from.

Yep You're Right... ZERO RESEMBLANCE

I’m not going to be cocky and say that I was at my best that day because clearly, walking in the sandy streets of Hargeisa (the capital) had turned my skin into sand paper and my hair into finely combed dust.  At the same time I don’t think someone would grab your hand to tell you that you are wearing phenomenally awesome cargo shorts from Old Navy.

Sorry Ambercrombie & Fitch, I clearly prefer to pay $80 less for a pair of shorts.

 This is one of the reasons why you should never judge Somaliland by its cover.  If a ninja chick is hitting on a dusty foreigner, what does that tell you about what goes on behind closed doors?  They clearly offer tea and crumpets that’s what,  Somaliland is the British Somalia you know.

I was surprised and I’ll be honest, I walked with a pep in my step the next day.  I mean I just got hit on by a ninja chick!  Then it happened again, another ninja chick grabbed my arm and the third situation was a little bizarre.  I was being toured around the city by a Somali women that is from Liverpool, pronounced Liva-poo of course.

Clearly a Stank Face

She took me to see the MIG and the sunset at one of the best viewpoints in the city.  Shortly after, we entered the market to buy Somali spices so I could take home and make Somali tea, the stuff is seriously that good.  As we walked to the car I was thinking about what an interesting place Somaliland is. I reached for the door handle and I suddenly felt that funny feeling when someone was watching you.

I turned around and sure enough, full on Stank Face.  Okay it wasn’t a stank face, it was more a face of confusion.  She was a half ninja chick or probably a ninja chick that decided to take off her ninja attire to show me her confusion face.  I was obviously surprised, I backed up and put my back against the car and said words that aren’t appropriate for this website.

My tour guide started to talk with the ninja stalker and she translated the fact that she fancies me, fancy being the weird way the British describe when someone likes you.  The ninja stalker simply didn’t know how to describe it, she obviously should have grabbed my hand like the other two.

So there you have it, if you’re western women acting like a ninja chick you know exactly how to hit on a Muslim.  If you are a western man you obviously will have to wait until a ninja chick grabs your hand. If no one grabs your hand then you are clearly not attractive to ninja chicks, life isn’t fair, get over it.

28 Comments

  1. thats beautiful actually.. kind of reminds me of the u2 video for mysterious ways.. middle eastern women showing their affections to a guy from another world..

  2. Great post! I took my father to Egypt. That’s where my husband is from. My father is a German/Canadian and loves to flirt! We gave him specific orders to not to chat up strange women! LOL! The funny this is no matter where we went (small rural villages and towns) YOUNG NINJA WOMEN were constantly talking to him and laughing with him. It was interesting to see. They certainly were not shy!

  3. Great post! I took my father to Egypt. That’s where my husband is from. My father is a German/Canadian and loves to flirt! We gave him specific orders to not to chat up strange women! LOL! The funny this is no matter where we went (small rural villages and towns) YOUNG NINJA WOMEN were constantly talking to him and laughing with him. It was interesting to see. They certainly were not shy!

  4. great post, i enjoyed reading about someone other than people from the diaspora going to visit my homeland and was amused at your little digs about british takes on english since im from Britain. But i noticed you made teh same mistake a few times Arabic is not the language spoken by the overwhelming majority in fact its only known by those educated overseas or religious educated indivuduals who are insignificant in number somali people speak somali. Just thought i’d clear that up

    1. Hakeem thanks for the comments… Somali is an Afro-Asiatic language which includes arabic which is the reason that I mentioned that Somalis spoke Somali Arabic. Thanks for the comments Hakeem!

  5. Three women covered head to toe hit on you, i think thats not true. Maybe one who for some reason wanted that but three. Somaliland/somalia is a black african muslim nation, the differance in religion, skin colour, the horrible history of white colonialism and drone attacks would make a somali woman think twice before approaching a white man so to have three hit on you is just absurd. yes somalis are open, inviting and lovely people i am a somali woman myself but your story seems like complete bull. Oh and term ninja is an offensive way to describe the muslim jilbaab of women and you know that. A somali woman walking around with you and even unveiling herself is surreal, i thought at one point i was reading a fanfiction, it seems your wandering ways have not benefitted yourself and you still view things from a racist one dimension. I think you should leave countries you will never understand alone and travel to places like jamaica if your intrested in black culture because somalia is way over your head for someone as small minded as you.

  6. @Emma, get over yourself. I’m a Muslim man and can say that these women aren’t that much different than western women in terms of pursuing men at times. The hijab doesn’t magically turn women into milk maids. You have a clear bias toward this situation and it seems like one of two things, discrimination or jealousy. Of the approximately 5 million women in Somalia you think a few wouldn’t have the courage to approach a fairly good looking westerner? Come on now. That’s just naive. NOTHING that he stated was racist and I’m of African decent. Maybe you should keep your antiquated western ideas of the poor defenseless African woman to yourself because the rest of us know better and you seem foolish calling this man a liar since he’s proven to not be one time and time again here.

  7. Lool jus remembered this website, jealous of what exactly ? I am a woman jealous of a man wtf ? I am not biased but three is not realistic, most Somalis are not involved with whites like that unless they revert to Islam. A man who describes a religious clothing as ninja is clearly an ignorant fuck an Erick I really think u are a troll, muslim man would have agreed with me on this on. If Somalis do fornicate it’s probably amongst themselves and it is really rare. I have read how expats trash other communities like china, it’s disgusting. Somali women my age I have spoken to prefer muslim men sometimes Arabs muslims as well never non Muslims. Lool jealous, racist white men are soo delusional half the time some of ur women women are shagging Latino and black men, really apart from some whitewashed asian women no one really prefers white men over gorgeous men of colour anyway. Now fuck off before you write another stupid story about getting with beautiful tanned Arabian or Turkish beauties looool this is so funny.

    1. emma,
      you are confused. if you are so patriotic, go live in Somali(l)a(nd)…
      I had that experience with Somali girls, it is real.
      in any tribe, there is a percentage of humans that are not limited-minded like … you.
      smile, don’t cry now…

    2. “revert” to Islam lol….you seem like a very conservative lady, Emma. Nice way to imply your own religion is superior to all the other ones 😉
      Just remember that even if a woman dresses in chador in Somalia (her own choice, or due to social pressure), she is not automatically as prudish as you are!

  8. Haha it’s one amusing story!
    I also admire you for admitting you have a guy crush. Well done to be so comfortable with yourself to admit it. Not many men can do that.
    By the way, my girl crush is Rhianna. Don’t like her music, but think she’s very, very sexy 🙂

  9. Eew. Get over yourself. I doubt the women were “flirting” with you. Maybe she was going to ask you something, or maybe even wanted to warn you about something. Who knows. But I doubt she’d grab your arm to flirt. No one does that. Not even “ninja chicks.” And judging from your profile pic you’re no supermodel or anything special. So don’t get ahead of yourself. I think you were hoping for someone to flirt or maybe check you out, but that’s the closest you got. You’re a fool.

    1. When there were a group of Somali’s with me that saw the same thing and were very surprised about the transgressions I would have to disagree. She was definitely flirting.

  10. “Somalis speak Somali-Arabic”, absurdly ignorant statement. Yes, Somali like Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic and many other languages belong to the Afro-asiatic super family but they are not the same language, nor are they mutually intelligible. It’s like saying French and Italian are the same language because they are both Latin languages! Please get your facts straight and stop equating our Muslim-ness with Arab-ness. There Arabic loan words in Somali just like there are Hindi, English, Farsi and many more.

      1. Hi Marcello. I really liked your article about Somaliland. But most Somalis don’t speak Arabic and some people are sensitive about lumping us with Arabs. I think this has something to do with Somalia’s history being equal to Arabs while others where enslaved. Keeping our culture, tradions and language while northern Africa became Arabs. But we do consider Arabic as second language because of Islam even though most people don’t speak it.

  11. i was reading ur article n have expirenced the same thing im from hargeysa and live there in the past and just wanted to let u kno that the girls in the niiqab most of em dont wear it out of religon but they cover there face becuase they use whitigning cream to make thereselves lighter so they cover there face so they dont get dark but they are sum freaks and often holla @ men but somaliland aint to strict like arab countries and its easy to holla @ girls

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