Mogadishu

The capital of Somalia, and the whole of Harry’s trip. He moves with two local guides, a videographer and an armed security guard whose name the video withholds, and picks up a second armed guard for the fish market.

What he keeps noticing is that the tension is his, not everyone else’s: people around him are swimming, trading and getting on with the day.

Hamar Weyne market

• The second largest and one of the oldest markets in the city — fabric, clothes, everything.
• The camera is not welcome, so he keeps it on himself. He notes this is routine for him rather than a Somali peculiarity.
• The roads are terrible, which he offers as the explanation for the number of Toyotas.
• Donkeys are still working transport, everywhere.
• Mosques everywhere, in a country he gives as around 90% Muslim.

Liido beach

• The site of an attack that killed 37 people less than a month before he stood on it. It happened on a Friday, when the beach was busiest — which is the point, and which he says makes the odds on the quiet day he’s there very low.
• People are swimming. Fishermen work, cargo ships sit offshore, security is dotted along the sand.
• His own conclusion, and the most useful thing he says all day: he is on edge and the Somalis are not, because for them this is ordinary life. Think rationally rather than emotionally.

The fish market

• Sharks dragged across the floor, swordfish, and quantities of turtle meat — he warns viewers they won’t like it and films it anyway.
• Fish is cheap because Somalis don’t much eat it, preferring camel, chicken, beef and lamb. A coastal country that isn’t a fish-eating country.
• A fisherman’s earnings given as around $1,100 a month (from video – unverified — the figure is garbled).
• Two armed guards accompany him inside.

The old city

• The Italian lighthouse, built with the port when this was the Italian half of the country. Still standing, never destroyed in the war, just left to deteriorate.
• The shell of one of the city’s best hotels, destroyed in the civil war, along with most of the restaurants around it.
• Italian architecture survives in fragments across the district.
• A confrontation begins while he’s filming, possibly about him. His response is the rule he states out loud: keep walking, don’t stop, don’t stand there for two minutes. See keep moving.
• The 14 October monument, where a police ceremony with a well-known singer is going on — traditional dress and dancing.
• The Black Hawk Down crash site is refused. Checkpoints won’t allow it, because the area could count as al-Shabaab territory. The battle itself was in 1993: two helicopters brought down with RPGs, a 17-hour firefight, 19 American soldiers and 500 to 1,000 Somalis killed.

The school for deaf and blind children

The section he says exists to show what is being built rather than what was destroyed.

• Small classes, two sharing each room. The hardest problem the teachers name is that sign language differs between countries.
• Harry donates $1,000 to the Yasmin Foundation, which runs it, and links donations in the description.

Obs: the children are recorded here without names or identifying detail.

The dunes and the boats

• Sand dunes outside the city, where people come on Thursdays and Fridays to get out of Mogadishu.
• A camel ride for $3 — with a seatbelt, which he finds funnier than the camel. Camels were the traditional way of travelling and are now a day out.
• Paid by phone. No cash changes hands anywhere in two days; he gives a number and sends $3.
• Out on a boat of the type once used for hijackings, now working as a tourist trip, with a reformed pirate he is not permitted to ask about piracy.

Harry’s tips

• Keep the camera on yourself in the markets, and expect objections.
• Keep walking. If something starts, don’t stand and watch it.
• Bring no cash expectations — the money system is phone-based.
• Take the guides and the security seriously. He didn’t move around the city without either, and doesn’t pretend otherwise.
• Don’t ask for a safety verdict. His own refusal to give one is the honest answer: nothing happened to him, and he won’t extrapolate from that to you.

Source

• I Ignored Western Media and Went to Mogadishu, Somalia 🇸🇴 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OApi-ZiH4TQ