Like the rest of us, Iman spent the last several months reading with increasing horror about the famine and violence in Somalia. But for her, the pain hit closer to home, Iman was born and went to school in Somalia's capital city, Mogadishu, now torn in half by warring clans. She and her family - her diplomat father, doctor mother, two brothers, and two sisters - went to exile in Tanzania in 1972, and Iman launched a modeling career that landed her on every major designer's runway and in the pages of Vogue more than forty times. Now, twenty years after leaving her country, she feels compelled to give something back.
"I want to put a face on the pain," she says. "Somalia is not a nation of beggars and looters. I want people to know what it used to be." In August, Iman approached the BBC about making a half-hour documentary on her homeland. Six weeks later, she flew to London to pick up her camera crew. (The documentary aired in Britain in October; Iman hopes to bring it to American viewers before the end of the year.) This is the diary of her odyssey.
September 24
After an intense six weeks of planning, I land in London on the first leg of my journey to Somalia. I am jet lagged and feel jittery, lost, and alone, pessimistic about what lies ahead. At noon I meet with the British Red Cross. They explain how important it is for me to stay neutral in the conflict. I cannot take any money with me, so I won't be able to give money to any family members. I will have to pay courtesy calls on the two warlords in the capital city to prove my neutrality and impartiality. Seven people from the Red Cross/Red Crescent have been killed in Somalia, caught in crossfire. But the problem with me is that my clan was at one time the ruling clan, and my family left the country; the Red Cross is worried about my safety.
Later I drive to the BBC office to meet with reporter Robin Denselow and the film crew and to discuss final details of the documentary. We will be flying to the coast of Kenya to visit a refugee camp just outside of Mombasa, then into Somalia itself to visit more camps and several towns connected with my family's history.
In the next two days, I visit the doctor for my last hepatitis shot and go shopping for a sleeping bag, mosquito spray, water-purifying pills, protein drinks, assorted dried fruits and nuts, and water jugs. I also revise my will and at my husband's insistence, buy a bulletproof vest.
September 28
I am shocked by the proximity of the Utenge Refugee Camp to our resort beach hotel in Mombasa - it's barely a ten-minute drive away. Some people have rated Utenge a "five star" camp. After spending an entire day here, I understand why. This is where the elite of Somalia have ended up. The thirty-five thousand people who live here (in a camp built for twelve thousand) are mostly professionals - doctors, nurses, professors, teachers, entertainers, and poets - who had enough money to escaped by boat to Kenya. There are little shops inside the camp's gates, a Koranic school, and an eight-room primary school, where children are taught English, French, and Swahili. But the most uplifting and joyous part of the camp is the cultural center, where professional performers sing, dance, recite poetry, and act in traditional plays.
There is a little creek that separates the refugee camp from the resort beach. It's a surrealistic vision to see these tents and palm huts barely separated from a body of tanning tourists. Life-and the tourist economy in Mombasa - goes on.
September 29
As we board a Belgian Hercules cargo plane for Baidoa, in the heart of southern Somalia's famine belt, memories rush through me. I think of my summer visits to my uncle, who was a teacher there - long, lazy summers. This soon changes. I see the town through the window of the plane and feel every kind of fear.
Driving through Baidoa's streets is a nightmare. All the buildings are bombarded and bullet ridden. Women wrapped in black shawls or sack cloths and naked children walk toward the feeding centers in near catatonia. A bony woman is lying on her side, holding a stone to her temple. Armed teenagers are visible everywhere. We drive through the gates of the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) compound for our briefing, have tea for breakfast, and arrange our security for the day. One cannot travel without a "technical team," as these armed men for hire are called.
Our first stop is a center for the severely malnourished, run by the Irish
group Concern. We walk through a little green door into a dark room where
children and women lie on mat-covered floors. I cannot take one step; I
feel paralyzed by the horror. A nurse is helping a team of Somali women
administer IV needles that deliver liquid nourishment to the skeletal
bodies. I sit down next to a woman and her huddled child and ask, in
Somali, where she was born, if she lived in Baidoa before the problems
started. She starts saving her arms and embracing me. She and her three
children walked from a town eighty kilometers away; now she has only one
child left. I fall to pieces, sobbing with her, while her child sits
between us in an unnatural stillness.
Later in the afternoon we stop by the orphanage in Baidoa. They take care of 520 children here, twenty-one of them severely disabled, ranging from two to thirteen years of age. The orphanage was created by a Somali grandmother after a two-year-old girl walked into her house, without any family in sight. I meet a quiet girl who lost both her parents and came to the orphanage three months ago with her four siblings. She is the only survivor now. She is speechless with shock.
During my visit, children recite the Koran in the courtyard, some laugh and play, and one little boy dies. Everything goes on as normal; as I leave, people are putting a shroud over his body and praying. I later wonder whether this really can have happened. But the orphanage's cemetery is right next door. They have buried 120 children in the past four months.
Before I left New York, I was told that my uncle was still living in Baidoa. I ask all the Somali nurses if they know of him, and finally meet a young woman who knows the location of his house. Late in the afternoon, I enter his house, unannounced. He hears my voice and rushes to hug me. Uncle, aunts, and cousins - we all tearfully kiss each other. They tell me not to worry about them, although I suspect that thy cannot talk freely in the presence of our armed guards. It has been twenty-five years since I saw them, but my visit is cut short. I must return to the ICRC camp, for the streets are not safe after 5:00 P.M..