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Its no wonder Somali immigration officials in Mogadishu thought a 41-year-old man who described himself as a tourist was insane; they hadnt seen a tourist in the Somali capital since, well, ever.
Canadian citizen Mike Spencer Bown is a seasoned traveler having visited more than 150 countries. But when he arrived in Mogadishu as a tourist, he was met with disbelief.
We have never seen people like this man, Omar Mohamed, one of the officials, told the AFP. He said he was a tourist, we couldnt believe him. But later on we found he was serious. That makes him the first person to come to Mogadishu only for tourism.
Somalia has been one of the worlds most dangerous regions since 1991 when political strife erupted and the country has been plagued by civil conflict since. Many government tourism departments, including those of the U.S. and Canada, heavily discourage travel to Somalia. According to the U.S. Bureau of Consular Affairs, kidnapping, murder, illegal roadblocks, banditry, and other violent incidents and threats to U.S. citizens and other foreigners can occur in many regions.
All of that may seem pretty daunting to any traveler but Bown was intent on visiting Somalias beaches. I knew that Somalia plunged into civil strife nearly the day I started travelling but it was still on my list of places on the globe I should tour, he said.
MOGADISHU, Somalia Up until a few weeks ago, all visitors who landed at Aden Abdulle International Airport in Mogadishu were handed a poorly copied, barely readable sheet that asked for name, address and caliber of weapon.
No more. Now visitors get a bright yellow welcome card that has no mention of guns and several choices for reason of visit, including a new category: holiday.
Outside, on Mogadishus streets, the thwat-thwat-thwat hammering sound that rings out in the mornings is not the clatter of machine guns but the sound of actual hammers. Construction is going on everywhere new hospitals, new homes, new shops, a six-story hotel and even sports bars (albeit serving cappuccino and fruit juice instead of beer). Painters are painting again, and Somali singers just held their first concert in more than two decades at the National Theater, which used to be a weapons depot and then a national toilet. Up next: a televised, countrywide talent show, essentially Somali Idol.
Mogadishu, Somalias capital, which had been reduced to rubble during 21 years of civil war, becoming a byword for anarchy, is making a remarkable comeback. The Shabab, the fearsome insurgents who once controlled much of the country, withdrew from the city in August and have been besieged on multiple sides by troops from the African Union, Kenya, Ethiopia and an array of local militias.
Now, one superpower is left in the capital the African Union, with 10,000 troops (soon to be 17,000), tanks, artillery and armored personnel carriers that constantly chug up and down the street and the city is enjoying its longest epoch of relative peace since 1991: eight months and counting.
Its a rebirth, grinned Omar Osman, a Somali-American software engineer who worked for Delta Air Lines in Atlanta and just moved back here. Call it Somalia 2.0.
Clearly, this city and the rest of Somalia still have a long way to go. A suicide bomber recently struck at the gates of the presidential palace, and a stray mortar shell crashed into a refugee camp, killing six. A few warlords are still lurking around, and clan-based militias have reared their heads in some neighborhoods, a potent reminder of the clan-driven chaos that dominated Mogadishu for so long.
But people here are sensing the moment and seizing it. More than 300,000 residents have come back to the city in the past six months, local aid groups say, and many are cheerfully carting away chunks of rubble and resurrecting their bullet-riddled homes. The economic boom, fueled by an infusion of tens of millions of dollars, much of it from Somalis flocking home from overseas, is spawning thousands of jobs that are beginning to absorb young militiamen eager to get out of the killing business.
Given Mogadishus importance to the country, it all adds up to a huge opportunity. And though Somalia has self-destructed numerous times before, Augustine Mahiga, the head of the United Nations political office for Somalia, along with so many others here, insisted that this time really is different. Somalia, they contend, is finally turning around.
