Somalia is confusing

Since I was ill with the swine flu for so long, and missed quite a bit of my volunteer hours at the high school, I am doing a short research paper on Somalia. It is completely up to me what aspect of Somalia I write about. (oh, I am writing about Somalia because that is where most of the students that I am tutoring are from) Unfortunately I am almost completely ignorant of anything happening in East Africa. Here are the facts that I already knew: Somalia gained independence from Britain and Italy in 1960, they speak English in the North, Italian in the South, and Somali and Arabic everywhere, they currently have a president, the country is somewhat in turmoil or has been for the last 15 years at least, and they have pirates. That last little bit I am actually quite knowledgeable in. I find modern day pirates fascinating. They are not the romanticized pirates of the past, but simply criminals on boats who get away with many many crimes and make a lot of money doing it. I have just started reading more on the history of Somalia, and am trying to understand just exactly what has happened politically there over the last fifty years. It is extremely confusing, and I can't even begin to explain it except to say that Anarchy has been a huge problem. That can't be fun. Anarchy AND pirates?! But seriously, these people that I have been working with so closely for the last two months have been through some really scary things in their home country. They are blessed to be here, and I know some of them actually want to go back and try to put some order to their country. This is inspiring me to learn more about Somalia. These kids know so much about their history, and they have learned so much about our history as well. I would love to be able to share in that knowledge.