Portrait of a failed state: To read more about Somalia's upheaval, read Jeffrey Gettleman's "The Most Dangerous Place in the World." Click here for FP's photo essay from inside Somalia.In the more than a dozen times I have been to Somalia, I've visited refugee camps, insurgent hide-outs, mosques, schools, dimly lit warlord dens, and famished villages. Most of what I do is interviewing and information gathering for the news stories I write. But some of my most vivid experiences never make it into print. Those memories remain in my mind as some of the reasons -- work aside -- to keep going back in spite of all the dangers.
I've danced at a Somali wedding with beautifully made-up women who, behind the closed doors of our hotel, tossed off their veils and grooved to Somali hip-hop. I've guzzled glass after glass of camel milk -- and paid the price later! I've motored up the crocodile-infested Shabelle River and swam in the pirate-infested Somali seas. I sweated it out at a jihadi rally where thousands of Somalis were packed into a basketball stadium cheering "Death to America!" -- with a U.S. passport burning in my back pocket. I've ducked bullets zipping over my head and seen countless kids cut down by them. I curled an old tank shell (which I think was still live) that some Somali boys were using as a dumbbell. I've crisscrossed the country in countless beat-up pickup trucks lavishly decked on the inside with suffocating amounts of air freshener and the occasional pink feather boa.
Once, while I was riding around with some Islamist fighters, we stopped in the middle of nowhere and offered a lift to a specter-like nomad who materialized from the bush. He was an old man with a map of wrinkles on his face and a long, thin staff. We exchanged greetings. He climbed in next to me, smelling like smoke. I handed him a bottle of mineral water, and he looked at it hard, suspicious. "That's not water," he insisted. "Water's not clear." He took a sip. His lips spread into a knowing smile. "See!" he said. "Water doesn't taste like that!" The Islamist fighters burst into laughter. The old man had been drinking from mud puddles and stagnant rivers his entire life; he had no idea that any other kind of water existed. We tried to persuade him that, yes, this was water too. But he didn't buy it. When we dropped him off, again at a seemingly random spot in the bush where all I could see were thorn trees and sand dunes, half his bottle was still full. I'm sure he was going to show it to his family -- this "water" that these weird foreigners drink...more. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4765
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