Their means of communication reminds one of history lessons. Perhaps you will find it hard to believe that there are people who still communicate through messengers, smoke signals and even blowing whistles and horns.

This is the way of life in the rural areas of Somalia. The community uses messengers to communicate between groups of herders. All those who want to send messages to relatives in other areas recite them to the messenger at night. Then in the morning the messenger sets off a journey to the pastoral group whose messages he bears. It is possible that the journey will last for days and the messenger has to keep even the words of the message.

The messages often communicated are rain, good grazing land, war, famine, wedding, funeral, etc. The community gives the messenger something in return. They give him food and other necessities for his journey. In addition, they take care of his livestock in return for his services.   

But ICT has changed the life of Somali herders. Through radios, telephones and, in some cases, the internet the life of a Somali pastoralist has changed remarkably in the past one decade. The pastoralists now use computers and mobile phones to communicate within themselves and their family members abroad.

The pastoralists who are mostly illiterate take the help of telecenter operators, friend or family member. That person who is computer-literate often operates the computer, composes the message for the pastoralist. If message is received, the same pastoralists go through the same process and ask his/her friends to read that message for them.