Hafsa Omer uses a software to record the content of old tapes containing traditional songs and poetry from Somaliland as she adds them to a digital archive at Somaliland Centre for African Studies in Hargeisa, on November 10, 2024. Since 2021, Hafsa Omer has been painstakingly archiving and digitising a collection of some 14,000 cassettes. Bought back, found, or donated, these tapes contain more than half a century of the daily, musical, cultural, and political life of the region.  Nomadic shepherds, Somalis have an oral culture, and what is now Somaliland has long been an epicentre of music and poetry -- an art that plays a crucial, even political, role in this corner of Africa. (Photo by LUIS TATO / AFP) (Photo by LUIS TATO/AFP via Getty Images)