Tag: Mogadishu
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Three Weeks, Three Countries and Two Questions
The other day, on my way back from Mogadishu, when the Immigration Officer at KIA’s Terminal 2 looked at my passport, she said, ‘Mzee, at your age you shouldn’t be going off to Somalia like this. If you were a Kenyan, you would be resting comfortably at home.’ If she had examined my passport more […]
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Mogadishu: A Story of Chaos and Redemption
‘If there’s an emergency at night,’ Casper said, ‘don’t go looking for a bunker – your room is a bunker.’ I was checking into the RA International Camp in Mogadishu’s International Airport for a two-night stay. Casper is one of the managers of the place. And after the signing in process he showed me around. […]
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The Peace Hotel and the Changing Face of Mogadishu
‘You will see some changes,’ Bashir said. Bashir owns the Peace Hotel in Mogadishu. He was welcoming me there for… it must have been for the fifth or sixth time. He joined me for a coffee in the hotel’s leafy garden café. I like Bashir. I like his energy and his optimism. I appreciate his […]
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At Chelsea Village in Mogadishu Airport
At the hot drinks counter a blonde woman was sniffing cups, one after another. She must have sniffed at more than half a dozen before she found one that had the right smell – or lack of it – and then poured a coffee from the percolator. At a table across from us an mzungu, […]
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Peace and War in Mogadishu
Bashir calls his hotel in Mogadishu ‘Peace’. He might as well have called it ‘War’. Almost everything about it is designed to counteract the violence that too often goes on outside its blast-proof walls. It was my first visit to the hotel since some of its outbuildings and houses along the road were destroyed in […]
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Contained and Contented in Mogadishu Airport
I’ve been contained again. But, no, this photograph isn’t of a prison. Far from it. Secure it is, yes – but it is an avenue of containers in the SKA compound within the Mogadishu International Airport. And I have just had my most comfortable ever stay in that once beautiful but now much bruised city. […]
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Dawn Chorus and Sundowners in Mogadishu
I woke to gunfire. Well, I thought it was gunfire – the staccato sound of AK47s. Maybe it was the early risers opening the rickety metal gates in the compound. And then there were the dull thuds – the heavier sounds of mortar shells. Maybe someone was heaving his heavy case down the concrete stairs […]
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Mogadishu’s Oasis of Peace
‘Don’t worry, we’re not under attack, it’s just an assassination’. As a senior government official’s car exploded a few blocks away from where we were having our meeting, our Somali colleagues carried on talking business and sipped their tea with a composure that can only come from living in a city like Mogadishu. That said, […]
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