Male passengers fanned themselves with the Russian-language aircraft safety cards the women fanned their children. Sweat poured freely off my skin and soaked into the torn cloth of my seat cover. The cabin absorbed the heat of the midday African sun like a Dutch oven, thickening the air until it was unbearable to breathe. Modern Puntland, a self-governing region in northeastern Somalia, may or may not be the successor to the Punt of ancient times, but I was soon to discover that it contained none of the gold and ebony that dazzled the Egyptians-save perhaps for the colours of the sand and the skin of the nomadic goat and camel herders who had inhabited it for centuries. To the ancient Egyptians, Punt had been a land of munifi cent treasures and bountiful wealth in present times, it was a land of people who robbed wealth from the rest of the world. The 737s of Dubai, with their meal services and functioning seatbelts, were a distant memory the plane I was in was not even allowed to land in Dubai, and the same probably went for the unkempt, ill-tempered Ukrainian pilot. I arrived in Somalia in the frayed seat of a 1970s Soviet Antonov propeller plane, heading into the internationally unrecognized region of Puntland on a solo quest to meet some present-day pirates.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |