p.193 In 1991, Somalia was sinking into an abyss. However, this tragedy was buried in the backpages of the newspapers by the Allies’ military buildup against Saddam Hussein. “For years afterward if you dialed the national code 252 all you heard was elctronic ether, ghostly distorted voices and lonely Morse signals repeated like pleas.” What a line of prose!
p.193 Mo Amin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Amin), a Kenyan photojournalist
cautions “Never go in and meet a defeated army” on whether they should go to the Somali’s unanncounced. His life was an interesting one as you will see from his bio…to include his death in an airline hijacking. Al-Jazeera actually made a documentary (Mo and Me) about his life. You can watch the trailer for it here: http://www.a24media.com/index.php/component/content/article/90-films/730-mo-and-me?directory=867 Or if you want to watch the whole documentary, you can watch it on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=652RtYwU-XM
(I couldn’t find a place that sold the DVD…)
p. 195 Stepping off the plane and into Mogadishu, Hartley describes being hit by the ‘smell of dust and burning bone.” Hartley is initially concerned when the Somali militia arrives at the airport yelling and screaming at them…till he realized “this was just the way Somalis spoke.” The Mogadishu airport sign had been spray painted to read “WELL COME TO THE NEW AFRICA.”
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