SOMALIA: The war-torn country, ruled by clan chieftains, has the highest percentage of users of this narcotic in the world, writes Emily Wax in Wajid
Before Somalia's government collapsed in 1991, Maryann Ali was an elementary schoolteacher who spent her days giving fifth-graders geography and maths lessons.
Now she earns a living dealing khat, a narcotic plant that when chewed yields a jittery high and feelings of invincibility that later melt into a lethargic stupor.
Educated Somali women such as Ali dominate the khat trade, a profession that is both admired and scorned here, and that offers one of the few remaining job opportunities in the country's moribund economy.
"If the country was ever normal, I'd quit and return to teaching," said Ali (40), who guards her stash with an AK-47 and has a gold tooth that she says makes her appear tough. "What else can I do to survive?"
Somalia, a country of more than eight million ruled by warlords, has the highest percentage of khat users in the world, researchers say.
Scarred by violence and raised in anarchy, a generation of young Somalis say King Khat, or miracle miraa, as the drug is known, helps ease the pain.
Researchers estimate that 75 per cent of adult males use the drug. Every town has khat rooms, where men lounge for hours listening to blaring music and chewing wads of green leaves that ooze saliva and stick between their teeth.
The consumption of alcohol and most drugs is socially unacceptable in this Muslim country, but chewing and dealing khat are considered gray areas.
So Ali, a mother of 10, peddles the narcotic, which she said enables her to earn money and abide by the philosophy of Somalia's tight-knit clans: "Above all, provide and protect."
Khat is legal in much of sub-Saharan Africa and enjoyed throughout the Horn of Africa and in parts of the Middle East, especially in Yemen. It is illegal in several African countries, the United States and across Europe.
In 1980, the World Health Organization declared khat a highly addictive drug, and east African leaders have campaigned against it, saying chronic use leads to high divorce rates, wife beatings and job loss. In Somalia, opponents call the habit a national epidemic and say men who use it neglect their families by spending huge amounts of cash and time on the drug.
Khat crops have flourished in neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia, where farmers started uprooting their coffee plants and growing the leafy green plant when the world coffee market crashed in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Today, Kenya exports about $250 million of khat annually, beating out tea exports as one of the county's most lucrative exports, according to the Kenyan government.
Warlords control the khat trade and use the proceeds to buy weapons, according to a 2003 report of the United Nations Panel of Experts on Somalia.
"Several major factions and authorities have a direct stake in the business, either through partnership with khat importers or by levying charges and taxes at points of entry," the report said.
Khat chewing had long been a urban habit, with most rural farmers typically too poor to buy it, but humanitarian workers say that men moving from the farms to towns are starting to pick up the pastime, borrowing money to support a habit that also suppresses appetite.
"Every meeting we have with the Somali community, khat is identified as a major problem that's getting worse," said Regine Kopplow, a project officer in health nutrition with the UN Children's Fund in Somalia.
"People don't know what to do. There is drought. There is no feeling of safety. There is real depression. It ends up hurting their children, who lose out on school and food."
Ali gets her daily supply of khat from her clan's warlord, one of two who control khat in Wajid, a dusty town 322km (200 miles) northwest of the capital, Mogadishu, that has drawn thousands of villagers because of the drought.
"I just don't see a better way," she said in a raspy voice as she sat in line with other female sellers under a thatched roof market.
Ali's best khat sells for $15 (€12) a bundle. She usually sells 20 bundles a day and keeps about 20 per cent of the profit, a hefty sum in a place where many people survive on less than $1 a day. "I feel tortured by this sometimes," she said, rubbing her temples. "My relatives always tell me to quit, but I can't."
Ali's journey to this sweltering market in Wajid followed from the events of her country's downfall. She was born in northern Somalia, but her father, a high-ranking soldier, later moved the family south to Wajid. She became a teacher and married a fellow educator.
"I liked studying the children, seeing how you could learn different human behaviours from them," she said. "Some children were happy and some unhappy. It's actually helped me with this khat work. You have to always watch people and determine their moods."
When Gen Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991, warlords began carving up the country, schools closed and she was instantly out of work.
She and other women she knew took "any job we could find, and khat was it. And it seemed better than becoming a fighter or taking food handouts. I was an educated woman, I couldn't do that."