Voice of Somaliland Diaspora-Ottawa introduces readers to novelist, journalist, essayist, poet. Abdourahman A. Waberi was born in 1965 in Djibouti. “He spent his childhood and adolescence in Northeast Africa. As Djibouti declared its independence from France in 1977, Waberi was just twelve years old, and he was heavily influenced by the upheavals of the time.