Mogadishu

Mogadishu, Somalia – where I decided to spend 3 days and 2 nights at the ass-end of month-long trip to the region

Nicer airport than I’d been expecting. Apparently run by some Turkish company named Favori. “On 15th of September 2013, Turkish company FAVORI took over the management of Mogadishu Aden Adde International Airport. Favori will be managing everything from ground handling, passenger services, cargo, fuel to security, as well as general airport maintenance.” The only thing I can’t figure out is why on the building it says “Aden Abdulle” and every online resource refers to it as “Aden Adde.”

Right before flying into Mogadishu, I’d been running uncomfortably low on cash. I mean, I wasn’t gonna need a ton of money because my tour’d already been paid for, but I’d still need some cash for buying food and tipping my guide and…it’s just always better to have a little too much money than not enough. So, I’d spent the previous two weeks in Sudan where American bank cards supposedly don’t work in ATM machines and’d read they also wouldn’t be working for me in Somalia either. As a solution to this dilemma, on my way from Khartoum to Mogadishu I had a quick layover at the airport in Addis Ababa and figured I’d just take some cash out from one of the ATMs there. So when I got there, I found a machine and I was hoping they’d have the option to withdraw US dollars but they didn’t, so I decided to withdraw a hundred dollars’ worth of Ethiopian Birr which I planned to convert to Somali Shillings upon my arrival to Mogadishu. This turned out to be a really bad idea. Long story short, nobody in Somalia uses Shillings anymore. Everything is priced in US dollars. And when I went to convert this hundred dollars’ worth of Birr into USD in Mogadishu, the most anyone was willing to give me for it was $30. I then tried to exchange it at a bunch of different currency exchanges in Doha, Qatar, before flying home and was pretty much shooed out of each of these venues when the guys behind the counter learned what sorta bills I had in my hand. So now I guess I’m gonna hafta plan a trip to Ethiopia so none of this fuckin money goes to waste.

I’m not sure how long ago this rule was implemented, but my guide was explaining that the government no longer issues tourist visas unless a local company can vouch for the tourist in question and be responsible for their whereabouts during their time in the country. They made this rule because apparently a lot of people – particularly Somali diaspora that’d been recruited online – would show up to the country, say, “Yeah, I’m here for tourism,” and then straight off head down to some al-Shabab stronghold for terrorist boot camp. Might seem kinda weird that my letter of invitation to the country is from a company that specializes in aluminum, frames and pvc pipe manufacturing, but Shamo also owns a hotel not too far from the airport and the guy that I was using as a guide has a deal with them that I’ll do my best to explain in a subsequent caption

The drive from the airport to the hotel was my first taste of the auto rickshaw/tuk-tuk madness on the roads of Somalia’s capital. My guide informed me that there’re 75,000 of these things operating in and around Mogadishu and the permit to be able to drive one costs $15/month. So, $15/month x 12 months x 75k…that’s a lotta revenue. That’s $13.5 million annually for the Somali government. You think all that money goes where it’s supposed to go? Or does it end up in somebody’s pocket?

Introducing my guide, Ajoos, who’s been working with foreigners in Mogadishu for almost twenty years. Although now he only works with tourists, he got started back in the day working as a fixer for foreign journalists during the war. He explained to me that Mogadishu is divided into 18 different districts and that each one of them used to be controlled by a different warlord – ten of whom he’d formed relationships with and to whom he’d bring foreign correspondents for exclusive interviews. He said that sometimes the warlords weren’t happy with the stories these journalists would print. They’d say, “So-and-so, the warlord running X district, collects a bunch of taxes from the people but doesn’t use it to fix the roads or educate the people, et cetera. Instead, he uses it to build mansions for himself and buy more weapons or whatever.” And these warlords would send for Ajoos and bring him in and say like, “What the fuck is this shit? How could you let this person write these things about me?” And Ajoos would say that, “I cannot be held responsible for the things these foreigners write. If you want, just say that you’re not taking any more interviews and I’ll never bring one of these foreigners to you again.” And he said they’d think about it, but that in the end they always wanted more interviews. Their egos were so big that they didn’t care if they were only known for bad things, they wanted notoriety in Europe and America and wherever else. Ajoos explained that those times were very difficult and that working with tourists is, in comparison to working with journalists, a total cakewalk. “I don’t want to work with journalists anymore,” he said. “They always want to do the most dangerous things. They always want to be on the frontlines. I remember one time some journalist wanted to report from the middle of a warzone and I was standing there and the wind blew the cap off my head. And then I came to the realization that it wasn’t windy that day. And I bent down to pick up my hat and there was a bullet hole going in one side and coming out the other.” And worst of all, journalists never paid attention to what he had to say. “Listen to me,” Ajoos explained with gravity, “if I were a guest visiting you in America and you told me the rules of what you should do and should not do, I’m going to listen to you. Why? Because it’s your country and you know better. Here, this is my country. I know what is safe and what is not. You listen to me and do as I say, and you won’t have any problems.” And from there, Ajoos candidly proceeded to tell me the story of some journalist he’d been responsible for who wanted to attend some demonstration back in the day. And he said, “No, we can’t go. It’s too dangerous. The best we can do is get on the roof of a nearby building and take some photos up there for your story.” But they wouldn’t listen. They wanted to be in the middle of the action and talk to people and feel the energy and whatever. And so they ended up going against his wishes. And at one point during the demonstration, gunmen came right up and blew their brains out. “And I saw exactly who did it,” he said to me. “And then the government kept coming to me to ask which guy it was. Would I recognize him if I saw him? I always said no even though the answer was yes. Because if I said who it was, the next victim would be me or my family.”

Here I am with my guide Ajoos at a Kenyan-owned coffee shop called Java House where I had my first meal – a delicious plate of fresh fish and rice. He said that within the last five years, a lot of really nice restaurants and supermarkets and things of the like had been opening up around Mogadishu but that the prices at these places are usually quite expensive. “It’s because everybody has to pay two taxes,” he explained. “A government tax and an al-Shabab tax.” He said that if you don’t pay the government tax, they’ll shut your business down. And if you don’t pay your al-Shabab tax, they’ll come and blow your business up. They don’t have a visible presence anymore in Mogadishu, but they’re still here. You never know who’s with them, who’s watching you to make sure you’re paying. They’re like the mafia, he said, extorting the people, stopping us from truly thriving. “Imagine this,” he said, “maybe one business – a hotel, for example – hasn’t paid their taxes. So what they do is they send someone, some brainwashed suicide bomber, to the gate of that hotel where the guy blows himself up and kills that hotel’s security guard and whoever else is standing around. And then they send a message to the hotel owner saying, ‘Yes, we did this. Now will you start to pay? If not, next time it will be you or your family and not just the guard at your gate.’ And what if a neighboring business was destroyed in one of these attacks – a business that actually pays their taxes? And innocent people get killed too? They don’t care. They say, ‘God willed it that way,’ and – if it’s a normal person – they’re not compensated. Maybe if the business next door that was damaged belongs to an important person, they give some money to have it rebuilt. But most likely not. This is why it’s so difficult to do business here.”

Sitting beside me in the backseat of my guide’s vehicle is the armed guard that was with us every minute that I wasn’t safely locked up in Shamo Hotel. He and I didn’t do formal introductions and I had to ask Ajoos what this dude’s name was – and have since forgotten – but pretty sure it started with a D. I don’t know if he didn’t like me or was indifferent to my existence or what, but he really didn’t want anything to do with me. He’s officially a soldier with the national army but’d been working with Ajoos for the last three years as a side gig. “I usually call him two days before I know I have a tourist coming in and he takes leave from his job,” Ajoos explained. “He may be skinny and weak but he knows everybody at all the checkpoints and can help us get through them much faster.” Ajoos said he pays the guy $30/day which more likely than not goes directly towards supporting his qaat addiction. “Our skinny friend doesn’t eat and doesn’t sleep – he’s just up all night chewing.” Good quality qaat goes for something like $20 a bag, but chewing with what, I’d like to know. The man didn’t have any teeth left in his mouth. This was best highlighted later at one point on the second day when Ajoos and I were in some restaurant sipping freshly-squeezed juice and eating a big plate of Turkish desserts we ended up not being able to finish while the guard waited out in the car. Ajoos ultimately decided to give the leftovers to some kids on the street who started to fight over ‘em, but’d originally said to me that, “I’d like to give these to our friend, but he doesn’t have any teeth to chew them with.” I dunno…all around scary guy. Glad he was on our side, I guess

So, here I am sitting in the courtyard at Shamo Hotel. In an earlier caption for the photo showing the letter of invitation I’d received to be able to obtain a tourist visa on arrival at the airport, I mentioned something about a deal my guide has with Shamo. So, remember how I said about how every business has to pay two taxes – both a government tax and an al-Shabab tax? Right, well, for some people, paying two taxes makes the idea of running a private business a complete impossibility. It’s just too fucking expensive and not economically feasible and either dooms your business to certain failure or sets you up to become a target of al-Shabab for not being able to pay up when they expect you to. This is the case for Ajoos who works as a tour guide in a country where tourism ain’t exactly a thriving business. But to be able to get your hands on officially recognized letters of invitation to give to tourists so they can get visas to get into the country, you gotta be an official government-recognized business, which he is not because it’s too risky. See the problem here? That’s where Shamo comes in. Ajoos agrees to bring tourists to stay at that hotel and nowhere else where they can charge a hundred-something bucks a night for mediocre rooms while they in return promise to keep sponsoring his letters of invitation. So, even though Ajoos is pretty much independent, in a technical sense, to save himself from lots of problems, he is an employee for Shamo Hotel. I mean, don’t quote me…but I’m pretty sure that’s what Ajoos meant when he tried explaining it to me.

Heading towards the Hamar Weyne district of the city. It wasn’t too far from here the next day when one of those red rickshaws drove past us going in the opposite direction and Ajoos looked at me in the rearview mirror and said, “Hey, did you see that?” And I said, “Nah, what? I missed it.” And he said, “Look out the back window, you can still see it. Hanging out both sides of that tuktuk is a big dead shark someone caught.”

Hamar Weyne District, the oldest in Mogadishu

I’d read in the itinerary I’d been sent that I’d be swimming at the beach on my first day in the country, so after dropping my big bag off at Shamo Hotel, I grabbed my little Jansport backpack and threw some shit in there like my sunglasses, sunscreen, a water bottle and the shorts I planned on swimming in. When I got back outside with this bag, Ajoos said, “No bags, we’re trying to keep a low profile.” Obediently, I went back to my room, left my bag and came back out with only a water bottle in my hand. He approved. We got back in the car and drove away. Maybe an hour later, Ajoos said we’d be going to the beach and I told him my swimsuit was in the bag he made me put back in the room which was like half-an-hour drive from where we were at the moment. He said he’d just buy me a new one. And here he is doing just that. Not the easiest thing to see here, but he’s paying this vendor here on the street electronically. More on that in the next caption

So, according to my guide, it was about fifteen years ago that payments in Mogadishu started to be done electronically and ever since then, it’s caught on like wildfire. Practically no one – not even the smallest fruit vendors on the street – deals with paper currency anymore. Everybody has their own payment number like the one here shown in this little shop near my hotel and you punch it into your phone along with the amount of money you’d like to send and that’s it. This system is even used for bribes. In addition to having the skinny toothless guard in our car who knows people at all the checkpoints around Mogadishu, Ajoos likes to text his contacts at each of the checkpoints right before he’ll be coming by and tells them to look out for him and to be the one that inspects his car when he approaches, just to ensure that things go smoothly and he can continue on with his tours as planned. In return, he always pulls out his phone and sends a little tip the soldier in question and we were on our way

I think, for me, the most surprising aspect of the digital payment system had been the beggars. Of course, I’m used to people sticking their empty hands out in front of my face while saying things to me in their language that I don’t understand, expecting me to hand them bills or coins or whatever, but being approached by people with their payment numbers scribbled out on pieces of cardboard was just too fuckin weird

On the way to this place called Beach View Restaurant near the Liido Beach area of the city, we’d passed through an area with lots of checkpoints. “They have it like this because right over there is the Turkish embassy,” Ajoos said. “They are currently a big target for al-Shabab because the help they are giving to the government. They keep using Bayraktar drones to drop bombs on al-Shabab and have been doing a lot of damage.”

Bunch of people swimming and enjoying the water at Liido Beach while others play soccer there in the sand

As indicated by the flags on this here guy’s boat, there was a very strong and constant wind coming inland while I was at the beach

Nice modern supermarket where we picked up some bananas and stuff for me to snack on back at the hotel

The next morning, on the way to the Mogadishu Cathedral, we passed this place here called Obesity Centre. When I think East Africa, an obesity epidemic ain’t really the first thing that comes to mind

Inside the destroyed Mogadishu Cathedral. There are tons of checkpoints all around this area and at one of them, unfortunately none of my guide’s contacts had been available at the time to help us get by really quickly. Once we finally got through, I asked Ajoos how the interaction had gone. He said, “The guard said to me that, ‘I am new here, identify yourself.’ And I showed him my identification and he said he wasn’t going to let us past. So I said to him in return that, ‘I come here often with tourists, why do you create a problem for us?’ And then I showed him the special permission I have to pass through this high security area that I got from one of my friends who works for the government. And it worked. But this permission expires in three months and I don’t know what I’ll do then if the guards don’t want to let me through. I might have a problem.”

Jesus’s head and torso covered by bullet holes from when al-Shabab totally fucked up this cathedral some years back. I’m not sure if I believe this, but Ajoos said to me that, “The stone that this church is made of is very, very hard. And when the militants were inside here, they were shooting bullets in all different directions and one of the bullets ricocheted and killed one of them.” “No way,” I said in return. “It’d be so funny if the bullet that ricocheted and killed the guy was one of the ones that they fired at Jesus up there.”

As we were getting in his car to drive away, Ajoos further explained to me why there is so much security near Mogadishu Cathedral. “We are right by the mayor’s office,” he said. “Not so long ago, al-Shabab attacked one of these security checkpoints, trying to get through. First a suicide bomber came up and exploded himself. Then six militants came in after him and started shooting everything, turning this place into a hell on earth. The government soldiers were able to kill all of them in the end. I think four civilians and one soldier were killed as well.” He produced his phone and handed it to me in the backseat. “Here’s a picture of their bodies that my friend who works here at one of the checkpoints had sent me.” “Oh shit,” I said. “When did this happen – like a couple months ago or something?” “No, no, no,” he responded, “this was just last week.”

Here we are heading towards the old Mogadishu lighthouse where a lot of local people do their fishing. The security guy in the blue there stopped us and was giving my guide a hard time about letting us through. After we got let through, Ajoos said to me, “That’s the way people are in Somalia. When you meet somebody for the first time, they always want to start a fight with you. He’s saying to me, ‘Who are you, I never see you before.’ And I say, ‘I come here all the time with tourists. I never see YOU before. Who are YOU?’ And then when we are done arguing, that’s when we can say, ‘Hi, my name is this and it’s nice to meet you.’”

Waiting for these guys to pass before we head down to the beach

Them some big ol’ fish right there

Bout to have a quick lil look around. When I was standing up here, I met a fisherman who spoke really good English. He said to me, “I am not working today. I went out fishing during the night. We only caught a few fish. Maybe you notice that the wind coming in from the sea is very strong. When it’s like that, the fishing is not very good. It’s not very good this time of year.”

Ajoos said the buildings behind him were destroyed by a combination of war and negligence

Another loud discussion between my guide and the local security guys

These guys didn’t speak any English, but the dude in the red shirt there kept calling me David Beckham

Entering the fish market

At first I didn’t realize that that big thing on the ground blocking the pathway was a gigantic turtle. Had to do a doubletake

Fishmongers

Slicin and dicin

How you livin, Biggie Smalls?

Guy dragging one of the sea turtles from the fish market across the street to be executed. I was told that turtle meat goes for ten dollars a kilo and that this turtle weighed approximately 50kg but that maybe only 30kg of its meat is able to be sold.

I was also told that from each turtle slaughtered, they are able to collect approximately 5 liters of oil. The oil is then set into 500ml bottles and sold for $20 apiece, some of which you can see in the background on that guy’s stand there. The oil – I suppose something like cod liver oil – is said to be good for your overall health. The recommended dosage is three capfuls each day. And then, in the forefront of the photo, what my guide has in his right hand there is a dried-out turtle penis. And in his left hand is a bag of dried-out, ground-up turtle penis mixed with some kind of herbs or spices or something that you’re supposed to make a tea out of. I don’t know if he didn’t know the word “penis” or if he thought the word “dick” was the technical term or what, but when Ajoos was describing it to me, he was saying, “The turtle dicks they sell for two-hundred dollars apiece. And these little bags of turtle dick that they make the tea from, they sell for twenty dollars apiece. They say that if you drink one glass of turtle dick tea in the morning and one at night, that it will make you a much stronger man, you know, down there. Would you like to try some?”

While this turtle was getting its head cut off, one of the guys said to Ajoos and he translated it to me that some of the turtles they catch have some sort of tags with numbers attached to them. “The guy says that he still has them, he keeps the tags that he finds on the turtles.” And I said back to Ajoos that, “Well, yeah, aren’t all sea turtles endangered? Like, don’t ya think the numbers could be part of some scientific tracking program or something like that?” He said that he didn’t know and we left it at that.

Right here what you’re looking at is this guy cutting what I believe to be a bunch of half-digested seaweed shit out of the turtle’s intestines. Ajoos said that, “That stuff is no good. Unless there are Chinese people around to sell it to. They buy that stuff and make it into food.” Earlier I’d been told that 30kg of this 50kg turtle could be sold for meat, but after seeing all the shit they cut out this thing being thrown into the sea, I highly doubted that. I mean, there just didn’t seem to be that much meat on these turtles in general – it’s all organs (currently being discarded) and a hard, seemingly inedible exterior that contains ‘em all.

Cat lapping bloody scraps out of what might be an old upturned turtle shell

After visiting the fish market and the turtle-butchering, we went to a nearby cafe for some refreshments. I got a juice made out of some fruit called “batikh” which tasted kinda like cantaloupe. This was a bit confusing for me because when studying Arabic, I learned that “batikh” was watermelon. Ajoos said that it’s definitely not watermelon. “I’ll show you later what it is when we’re driving around.”

Ajoos put in an order with one of these guys and when we still didn’t get it like five minutes later, he unwittingly grabbed the other one while he was walking past to ask what was taking so long and the guy had no idea what Ajoos was talking about. Then all of a sudden our waiter appeared with our drinks and Ajoos said, “Whoa! There’s two of them!”

Roadside fruit vendor showing me Dolly Parton’s lopped-off tits. I mean, sorry…that’s not what I meant to say. I meant to say he’s showing me some batikh, the fruit that the juice I’d just drank was made out of. To thank him for this demonstration, Ajoos bought some fruit that he didn’t want and sent the guy a little tip via their mobile payment system

I read on Wikipedia that the old American embassy was bulldozed back in 2011, but as we were driving past this building here, the guide said this was in fact the old American embassy that was abandoned in 1991 when the civil war shit started to get really out of control in Mogadishu. Well, whatever the building used to be, judging by the drying laundry hanging outside of it, looks like people are living in there now.

Same building. Look at all those bullet holes…sheesh

So the next thing on the itinerary was to visit a school, but I’d already done that once before in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and it’s kinda fuckin weird, ya know? It’s like, I have no business being there. I’m interrupting the learning process…for what? To take some photos of kids learning errr…I dunno. I told Ajoos I wasn’t interested in doing that. He said, “Okay, well, we have some time to kill before lunch. I need a new pair of pants. Would you mind coming with while I go to buy some?” And I said, “No, that’s fine. Let’s go.” He said that all these clothes sold here on the street are secondhand stuff from America and Europe. He said not only is it cheaper than all the clothes they sell in stores, but it’s also of a much better quality. “The clothes in the stores here feel like plastic. But feel this,” he said holding up a pair of pants, “feel this quality. This is what I’m looking for.”

It was so funny for me watching our guard watching Ajoos try on pants and occasionally nodding his head and commenting on how they looked or what he thought of the fit or whatever

Entering a Yemeni restaurant for lunch

A couple minutes after we got this food delivered to the table, Ajoos gets a phone call. “Oh,” he said to me after he hung up, “I have some bad news. You might get stuck here for a few extra days.” And I was like, “What the fuck are you talking about? Who was that on the phone? Why would I get stuck here?” And he says, “There’s a delegation from the African Union coming to town tomorrow when you’re due to fly out and for security reasons, they’re cancelling all flights and shutting the airport down for several days.” “You gotta be fuckin kidding me,” I said. “How long has this been planned for?” “They just announced it,” he said. “They don’t announce these things far in advance so people don’t have the chance to plan attacks.” “Oh man,” I said, “this is so fucked up. I don’t have enough money to stay extra nights here. I’d really like to get on my flight tomorrow.” “Well, there’s nothing we can do if they cancel all the flights, but there’re always solutions. I would split the cost of extra nights in the hotel with you. And if you don’t have the money now, you could wire it to me later, so that’s not a problem. Or we could try to go to the airport today and see if you could get out now before they shut the airport down.” “Going to the airport now might be the best option,” I said. “It’s noon now. I know my flight tomorrow to Doha is on Qatar Airways and is due to leave at 2pm. Maybe it’s a daily route? Like, it’s 12:30 now, maybe we could catch the 2 o’clock flight to Doha if there is one?” “We can try,” he said, and we both stood up to go pay the bill and begin our mad dash first to the hotel to collect my belongings and then over to the airport.

Getting back to the hotel from the restaurant was difficult because they’d already started to close down major thoroughfares in preparation for the impending visit of the delegation. We had to wait at least five minutes before we could convince these guys here to let us past

A bit nearer the hotel, a bunch of those red tuktuks were blocking the way, so the guard decided to get out with his gun in his hand and start yelling at everyone to get the fuck out of our way. He led the way on foot and we followed close behind in the car. Once back at the hotel I packed my bags faster than I’d ever packed them before, haphazardly stuffing all my shit in any way it would fit, then hustling back outside, jumping in the car and heading to the airport.

You can only get so close to the airport in a personal vehicle before you gotta get out and walk the rest of the way through a bunch of different security checkpoints they got in place, manned not only by Somali troops but also by soldiers from other African Union countries – I remember seeing Kenyans, Ugandans, Egyptians, and a guy from Burundi. To make this process go smoother, Ajoos hired that guy in front of us to carry my big bag for me

We got to the airport only to find out that there were no flights to Doha that day and, since it was lunchtime, nobody from the Qatar Airways office was there to answer any of our questions. So, we just sat around twiddling our thumbs for about an hour until one of the Qatar representatives returned and here we are accosting the guy outside his office with our many inquiries – namely how and when I’m supposed to get the fuck out of Somalia. And the man says, “No worries. Qatar Airways, Turkish and Ethiopian have permission to keep running their flights. It’s all domestic flights and all international flights between Mogadishu and Nairobi that have been cancelled. You will be able to get on your flight tomorrow as scheduled.”

After that emotional rollercoaster at the airport, Ajoos took me back to my hotel where he told me to go have a rest in my room for an hour while he and the guard made some phone calls to see if we’d be able to do the rest of the tour as planned that afternoon. It turned out that it wasn’t gonna be possible. “They’ve shut the roads between different districts,” he said, “for big vehicles at least. It would still probably be possible for us to go to the market I wanted to show you in a tuktuk, but then we might get stuck in a different area of the city and you wouldn’t be able to sleep in the hotel tonight and you’d miss your flight tomorrow, so I don’t think it’s a good idea to risk it.” There wasn’t really much shit to do around the hotel area in terms of tourist activities and it wouldn’t be time for dinner for at least a couple more hours, so I agreed to go with Ajoos while he looked at laptops that he might wanna buy for his college-age daughter.

Powerful blowing and sucking – just like your mom!

Here we are at a place called Akram Sweets where we ordered a big plate of Turkish-style desserts and sat killing time. While messing around on his phone, Ajoos started showing me pictures of and talking about his family. He has twelve children in total. Three of his daughters, he said, live in Kenya. And one of those daughters has three children of her own. And he was explaining to me that people in Somalia don’t really celebrate their birthdays. It’s just not something they do. And since he never did it for his children, that daughter in Kenya never thought to do it for her own children. But then as they started to get older and be invited to birthday parties for their peers in Kenya who do celebrate birthdays, she figured she was going to have to start throwing birthday parties for her own children. But since it’s expensive and she didn’t have a ton of money, she figured she’d just throw one birthday party a year on an arbitrary date in which all three children’s birthdays were celebrated at once. And he was telling me how then the grandkids complained about that, saying, “How come all the other kids get to have their parties on their actual birthdays and don’t hafta share it with anyone else?”

After talking to me a bit about his family, Ajoos showed me some of the stuff that was popular on social media at the time in Somalia. Here he was like, “Look at this gold digger who’s married this old man for his money.” And I asked, “Why’s that lady look so white?” “It is makeup, you know, to make her look more beautiful. It’s normal for weddings.” “She looks like a fuckin ghost, man,” I replied. “She’d probably look a lot better if she just went natural with it.”

And then this is another one he showed me – one of some Dutch guy dressed-up with fake tits at the World Cup in Qatar. And I asked him, “What would happen if someone did that here? Like how ‘bout if I strapped on some fake tits right now and started walking down the street here in Mogadishu? What would happen to me?” “It wouldn’t be good,” he replied. “You gotta be mindful of the country you’re in.” Ajoos told me the story of two visitors he’d had not too long ago. “Two men. They were both doctors and they were both from America. One was of Irish descent and one had Indian ancestry. They were gay and the Irish guy was the lady in the relationship. And they were going around telling everybody about it. And for me, I don’t have a problem with it, but you can’t openly say that sort of stuff here. It’s not accepted. I had to lie for them at the hotel when they insisted on sharing a room together. The guy at the desk didn’t understand why the two men wanted to share a room and I made up a story about how the one guy was sick and taking medicine – some sort of pills – and how he shouldn’t be alone because he needed someone to look after him. It’s not just that that I’ve lied about either. For example, if I have a man and a woman guest who are traveling together and they are not married but want to share a room together, I tell the people at the desk that they are.” I asked if they’re asked to present a marriage certificate. “No,” he said, “foreigners don’t have to. My word is enough. But local couples checking into hotels always need to present their papers.”

Here’s the last stop of the day. Ajoos wanted to buy a new pair of specs. As he was browsing, he turned to me and said, “This is a pretty nice store, isn’t it?” I said, “Yeah, really nice.” “It’s all new,” he added. “A little more than two months ago, this place was completely destroyed. We’re very close to the Ministry of Education and al-Shabab did a car bomb there – two of them actually. Huge explosions. More than a hundred people dead. Hundreds more injured. Innocent people…This is what we deal with. We have no choice but to rebuild and keep going.”

Rickshaw ride from dinner back to Shamo Hotel. Me and Ajoos were in back and that’s the guard up there in front next to the driver. And yeah, that’s his gun at the bottom of the photo sticking out the side of the rickshaw

I like to collect some of the local currency from all the countries I visit and since nobody uses Shillings anymore, I asked Ajoos if he could get his hands on some for me. Turns out he had some old banknotes in the glovebox of his car which he let me have as we drove on our way to the airport on my final day.

On my flight from Mogadishu to Doha, I spent about half-an-hour talking with this lady in the seat next to me. She was originally from Somalia but’d been living in Kentucky for like the past fifteen years. She said she just spent a month or so in the country visiting family along with her two young sons while her husband continued to work back in the states. Of Kentucky, she said, “I love it. It’s my home and has been for a long time. But I like coming back here because the pace of life is much more relaxed. In America, all I ever have time for is work, work, work. But here I have the opportunity to slow down and enjoy life a bit. And it’s important for me to bring my children back here so they can understand their culture. Obviously, I love how safe America is and I don’t take it for granted. But I need my children to know that it’s not real life, that real life – where we come from – is much more difficult than what they’ve had the opportunity to grow up in.”

Three days in Mogadishu and the two weeks before that that I spent in Sudan made approaching Doha, Qatar, feel like I was about to land on some futuristic alien planet

I stood here and stared at these skyscrapers in downtown Doha for a good two minutes. I stared as if I’d never seen anything like it before in my entire life