I'm from Hargeisa and I never really understood how they make those deals, as a child my father use to take me there but all I saw was them shaking hands aggressively and laughing.

It's quiet fascinating system.

Some people say before the settlement of Hargeisa, it was simply a camel market, Hargeisa is no more than 100 years old. Before Hargeisa the Somaliland capital was Sheekh, then it was moved to Berbera, then the main ruler of Sheekh town called Sheikh Madar moved to Hargeisa, the British provided him with camel corps (then Somaliland army) to protect him from the Ethiopians, Mad Mullah, etc.

They also say the name Hargeysa (Hargeisa) is drived from the Somali word Harag (meaning animal hide) and the other word gee (to take), so basically it means Harag-geeysa (which can be translated to place where they took the animal hides) ---> a camel market.

Animal hide was always profitable business, to find out how profitable just find Indhadeero Group company, who owns more than 8 business chains from livestock export, transport, hotels, shipment to fuel stations in Somaliland. He made all the money from animal hides. He use to export Somalia's (when Somaliland and Somalia were one) animal hides to Arabia. He made millions.

Hargeisa is the camel market like no other.

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