by Sara James
I threw my backpack in the car and tried not to look conspicuous. Since credit cards were worthless in Somalia, I was carrying more cash than I ever had in my life—ten thousand dollars in small bills. I’d padded every curve I had, added a few nature hadn’t given me, and draped myself in an enormous khaki shirt and loose slacks. It was 100 degrees outside and I looked like the Michelin Man.
Mogadishu was like some wretched postscript to civilization. The landscape had been bled of color, lacerated and cratered by bombs and bullets, a vast expanse of cascading rubble pierced by the occasional stump of a building, a city like a row of broken teeth. As we bounced over the mortared road, a truckload of U.S. soldiers rattled by, the look in their eyes suspicious. A year before the events that inspired the book and movie Black Hawk Down, I suspect they’d already seen enough to fear this humanitarian mission could turn into a suicide mission. But I wasn’t nearly that smart. I was young, ambitious, and anxious to prove myself. I was too concerned about whether I would get on the air to worry about what might happen to me on the ground.
Indeed, when I arrived at what was known as the Sahafi Hotel, headquarters for NBC and several other news organizations, I had to pick my way across a lobby littered with exhausted reporters catnapping on the cement floor. Living conditions were austere, but it wasn’t the squalor that I noticed. Suddenly faces that I knew only from TV were all around me. Not only did I see Brokaw, sporting an NBC News baseball cap and an easy grin, but I spied Martin Fletcher from Tel Aviv chatting with Jim Maceda from Moscow, who’d obviously been here a while, since his sunburn was peeling. And that must be Keith Miller, from London. While I felt a sudden flush of happiness to find myself there, now part of the reporting team I’d admired from afar for so long, I was also worried. With the first string in town, how would a cub like me get assigned a story? Nightly News was a thirty-minute broadcast—more like twenty-two minutes of actual news after anchor lead-ins, teases, and commercials—and there were other stories besides Somalia.
As I continued to scan the room anxiously, I noticed a tall dark-haired guy wearing glasses and an intelligent expression. Clearly a producer. Better yet, he looked about my age. I introduced myself and learned his name was Justin Balding and he was from London. He was happy to offer advice over a late lunch of canned tuna and beer. “The water here is full of parasites, so close your eyes when you take a shower. That’s if you get one. The water’s only on for fifteen minutes a day and we never know which fifteen. And eat only fruit you peel yourself, like bananas or oranges. Otherwise stick to tinned.” Then Justin proceeded to fill me in on the identities of several people I didn’t recognize, including one man with a curious nickname, “the Wanker.”
“What’s a wanker?” I asked.
Justin gave me a dubious look, and one corner of his mouth tightened as if he were holding back a grin. “Why don’t you ask him? But see the gray-haired chap next to him? That’s London photographer Ken Ludlow—we all just call him ‘Father’—and his soundman, John Hall. They’re joining a convoy that’s leaving tomorrow morning for the town of Baidoa. Maybe you can team up with them.”
Fortunately, arranging that proved easier than I’d imagined. The harried London bureau chief saddled with the thankless job of deciding who stayed in Moga and who headed deeper into the country clearly had more important things to worry about and nodded yes. I was free to spend the rest of the evening enjoying myself, reveling in the casual camaraderie of that traveling fraternity, not to mention the attention that comes with being new, young, and female in a predominantly male environment. What’s more, these men seemed universally good-looking and witty, and their stories, even if embellished, were genuine war stories. I kept mum about my experiences in Saudi Arabia and especially Nicaragua, not quite believing that naïve young girl had been me. Instead I settled back to listen to the lighthearted banter perfected by those old enough to know better who nevertheless intentionally put themselves in harm’s way. I caught a surreptitious look at the ring finger on my left hand and was glad I was married. I could see how it would be all too easy to get into trouble.
The next morning Ken, John, and I grabbed our gear to join the convoy of trucks that would deliver wheat to Baidoa, the town hardest hit by the famine. I suspected the only reason they’d agreed to be saddled with me was that in television, a camera crew and a reporter are each equally worthless without the other. I hoped to convince them they’d made a good decision in joining forces.
“I bet you guys have seen it all,” I said.
John pulled up his sleeve to reveal a jagged scar from what looked like a bullet. “Iran-Iraq War. Nearly lost the arm.”
“Bugger me, not the war wound already, John, we’ve got hours yet.” Ken grinned, then took a second look at the gunmen by the trucks and turned serious. “Besides, we’ve got our own guards this go-round, right?” He gestured toward the sullen, red-eyed Somalis who’d been hired to accompany us, since Baidoa was anything but secure. One gave a malevolent look, then shifted his aging AK-47 from one arm to the other so that it appeared to be aimed directly at us, and spat.
“Could you kindly point that thing over there?” John suggested, then turned to me. “They’re chewing qat, Sara, a local drug, and they’re stoned. Chances are our greatest danger here is getting shot in the back when we hit a bump.” I felt alarm flow like a quick, sharp poison to prick my fingertips. Instinctively my toes curled in their dusty boots, another reflex when I’m nervous. But fear is a funny thing. We humans are pack animals, and if the collective herd isn’t overly alarmed, individual anxiety quickly diminishes. Clearly Ken and John were a seasoned crew who’d survived far worse. I shook off the feeling and started to climb into the nearest jeep. Suddenly the soundman yanked my arm, shaking his head. “Not that one, love, it’s third in line,” said John, steering me toward another vehicle in the caravan.
“You’re joking, right? Are you superstitious or something?”
His look told me this was an even more serious error than not knowing what a wanker was, if such a thing was possible. “We’re traveling to Baidoa ahead of the marines, remember, so no one’s cleared the road. You never want to be first in a convoy, Sara, in case of land mines.”
“But that wasn’t the first truck, it was—”
“And you don’t want to be third since an enemy spots the first vehicle, aims at the second, and then—” He made a motion as if firing off a round. I glanced quickly at Ken to see if this was some sort of trick designed to haze a rookie, but he concurred with a curt nod. I threw my backpack on the second truck. On such a clear, sunny day it was impossible to imagine being blown to smithereens.
If you talk to soldiers or the journalists who cover them, chances are they’ll tell you that if they die in combat, so be it. Such a death can be heroic, noble. But there are far too many ways to die in war zones that are pointless and even stupid. A miscalculation, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, a snafu. No one wants to die like that. And the worst of it is, you rarely see those situations coming.
A few hours later, as we were waved to a halt at a checkpoint, I felt my toes curl again. We’d been stopped by a no-name ragtag gang, well armed, poorly disciplined, and young. A bad combination. One soldier casually aimed his rocket-propelled grenade launcher at us, leering. I stared at his red vacant eyes and found myself wondering how many people he had killed. And then I wondered if he liked it. What did he think of the carnage, the sound of people screaming? Did he get a jolt, a buzz, from the blast of a weapon? Did it make him feel superior? He seemed ominously bored, spoiling for something, and behind us our paid guards tapped their weapons, a sort of return growl, although we were no match for this much muscle. But the first truck in our convoy had already made it through, so this should be simple.
Just below us the driver carried on a rapid conversation with the leader of this gang. John and Ken made a point of looking away from the scene, a template of studied calm I found difficult to mirror. How many ti
mes had they been in a similar spot? I was suddenly keenly aware of my collar, how it dug into my neck, how the sweat beads which daisy-chained along my hairline had begun to drip like a leaky faucet, how I wanted to wipe them away but didn’t want to lift my hand. Would one hand lifted at the wrong time alter this equation? That thought was enough to make me close my eyes, only to open them again immediately. I focused on trying to make myself invisible. A heat wraith. A mirage. A nonentity. Down below us the brief conversation had apparently reached a successful conclusion because the driver engaged the clutch and we lurched forward. But the soldier with the RPG didn’t seem to agree and kept his weapon trained on us. Finally, with a lingering look of loathing, he lowered it, his expression indicating he’d have liked to, but we weren’t really worth the trouble.
As the truck picked up speed, the breeze on my damp neck made me shiver involuntarily. Or perhaps what made me shiver was that toy soldier. Because the soldier armed with an RPG couldn’t have been more than ten years old. When children are soldiers, it’s far too easy for adults to die. And as I could already tell, it was far too easy to die in Somalia.
BAIDOA HAD NO functioning hotel, but my new team was accommodating. “This will do,” said Ken, claiming a small roofless hut where the three of us laid out our sleeping bags side by side. “We’ll just tell everyone back in New York that you slept with both of us,” he added mischievously.
“Great—two days in Somalia and already my reputation is ruined.” I laughed.
Night had fallen, bringing with it a limp, shallow breeze. I could glimpse the stars overhead through the mosquito netting we’d strung over us. Before I knew it, it was morning and I woke to the noisy rattle of the generator. Time to get going.
It was in Baidoa that I saw the face of famine and it was a dreadful sight, especially since this disaster wasn’t the result of poor rains or failed crops but the pox of war. Their faces still return in my dreams, impossibly thin men and women waiting for hours under a relentless sun. Sometimes the hungry would fall where they stood in line. I remember how the smell of gruel slopped into those bowls made me queasy, how the sight of a grown man desperately gnawing a child’s biscuit made it nearly impossible to eat. But hardest to witness were the little boys and girls, their bodies like a child’s stick drawing, all angles and lines, topped by terrible skulls with enormous eyes and chapped, bleeding lips. And then there were the babies, tiny bloated souls too famished to cry. As we made our way through the feeding camp, I saw one infant who clearly hadn’t made it, although his mother clutched him, refusing to give up hope. When the baby I assumed was dead gave a plaintive mew, I jumped.
The aid workers at a feeding center run by Irish Concern were exhausted and beleaguered. One strapping man choked back tears as he pulled a torn sheet over a woman he’d just fed but who had died anyway. And as if hunger weren’t enough, the doctors and nurses also knew to expect typhoid, TB, and cholera, the coven famine brings in its wake. And yet as I stood there under that scorching sun, overwhelmed by the scope and scale of a catastrophe unlike any I had ever witnessed, I suddenly knew that as dangerous as Somalia might be and as devastating as this was to witness, I was glad I had come. This was an assignment worth the risk. Naïve as it might sound, I believed that if perhaps those at home saw the extent of the starvation, the misery might be brought to an end.
Ken tugged on my arm, derailing the train of my thoughts. “Make sure you get a doctor for Bryant and Katie,” he advised.
I was mystified. “What do you mean, get them a doctor?”
“He means a live guest,” John interpreted.
“You need to think like a producer, since we don’t have one,” Ken continued. “The show will want someone here in the field that the hosts can interview in a cross-talk.” It would be one of the many prudent tips Ken and John gave me. I quickly rounded up a doctor and another aid worker, then rang New York on the satellite phone back at our base to set things up.
By then it was afternoon, which meant with the time difference it was nearly time for my own Today show live shot. I pulled out a lipstick and brushed my ponytail before clapping on an NBC News baseball cap. Thank God Brokaw had decided to wear a hat, since that meant the rest of us could. As I finished my report and removed my mike, I could hear Jeff Zucker in my ear from New York. “Good job, Jamesey. Keep it up.”
I stepped away from the hot lights and instantly bumped into a reporter I didn’t know, a young guy with a big smile and a hearty handshake. “I’m David Bloom,” he said, “from Miami.” It was easy to tell that, like my old friend Linda, he too would soon be at the network. It wasn’t so much that he was boyishly handsome, but that he quivered with restless energy, ambition, and charisma, all leavened by a wide, friendly smile which said, You’ll like me. Everybody does. And of course everybody did. Later that night he beckoned me over, pulling out his wallet. What secret did he wish to share?
“See her?” he said, pressing a photo into my hand. “That’s Melanie.” His expression was so pleased and proud that for a moment I couldn’t speak, could only twist my wedding band. Would my husband speak that way about me? Would I speak that way of him?
“She’s beautiful,” I replied.
“Isn’t she?” he agreed, then gave a wistful sigh. “I can’t believe she loves me. I miss her.”
Although the night was warm, I wrapped my arms around myself as I rejoined the circle of colleagues, a circle that had suddenly doubled in size with word that the marines would be arriving the next day. How I wished that instead I were joining a far smaller African circle, sitting by a crackling fire with Ginger and Nad. I missed her friendship and steady counsel and had instantly been captivated by Nad’s intelligence and self-deprecatory humor. His assessment of humans—just a complicated, confused, and often very foolish animal—also had a way of putting problems in perspective. To think I was there on the same continent and yet wouldn’t get to see them. Ginger had sent several letters, but once again I hadn’t written back. I’d wanted to, had thought of it many times, but each time I sat down I wasn’t quite sure what to say about my marriage. Afraid to write of my fears, in the end I’d written nothing at all.
But then, as I looked around me, my spirits lifted. While I recognized that these gregarious men and women weren’t actually friends—not yet, anyway—I felt sure many could be soon. Given the intensity of life on the road, the way everyone worked, ate, even slept side by side, it wouldn’t take long. And while some might find such relentless proximity claustrophobic, even incestuous, I loved the roly-poly tangle of it. I’d found a tribe. A tribe that almost felt like a family.
Still, I also knew that I must venture away from the security of this pack if I wanted to discover this place as a reporter, and try to understand it. Which is why I cannot think about Somalia without thinking about a woman called Muslima.
We met her in the center of town on a bright sunny day, one of several dozen people being helped by an aid agency, given sacks of grain to plant in her village. Muslima was young and winsome, even if sorrow threatened to extinguish the laughter from her eyes. She touched the red scarf on her head with a delicate hand. “My widow’s mourning,” she told us matter-of-factly, explaining that her husband had died in the famine, leaving her to try to raise their little boy on her own. But her responsibilities didn’t end there. She also had to care for her brother. And her brother was blind.
In spite of her burdens, on that day Muslima sparkled with energy, spirit, and excitement. The aid agency was paying for Muslima and the others to get a ride back to their village. As her fifty-pound sack was hoisted onto the truck, Muslima’s gaze was sharp and proprietary, as if the burlap bag were loaded with emeralds. This is a great opportunity, she explained through a translator, proof that the evil days are at an end, the famine vanquished. She wasn’t alone. As we clambered aboard the truck with her small family, virtually everyone was laughing, joking, in a good mood.
Then, less than an hour into the trip, the rick
ety truck suddenly ground to a halt. It took several confusing minutes to figure out the situation. Finally our translator explained that the drivers insisted they didn’t have enough fuel to drive all the way to the village. Although everyone felt certain the drivers had actually sold most of the gas and pocketed the proceeds, what could anyone do now? The villagers were forced off the truck and ordered to walk the final twenty miles home and their precious sacks of grain unceremoniously dumped onto the dirt track. I looked at Muslima. The look of expectation on her pretty face had guttered and blown out. She stood there, abandoned and betrayed, a woman whose plight symbolized that of so many Somalis. In this heartbreaking land, food and fuel weren’t the only commodities stolen. Hope had been hijacked, too.
“Muslima, what will you do?” I asked as we scrambled to get a few final shots before the truck lumbered off and we, too, were left stranded.
“What can I do? I must go home,” she replied.
“But how?”
In answer she retrieved the heavy sack from the path and carefully balanced it on her head. Her little son carried the family’s other possessions—a pot, a blanket, a spoon. Next he picked up a long pole and gently placed one end in his blind uncle’s rough hand before picking up the other to lead him. And that was the last we ever saw of them—Muslima, head high, leading her son, who in turn led his uncle, as the family disappeared around a bend in the winding dirt track toward home.
Did they make it? I think so. I hope so. Did they plant their crop, reap their harvest? I am less certain. The story of Muslima was the story of Somalia, the story of so many troubled lands. It was a bleak tale with a beginning and middle but no end.