Letter From Somalia

Note to readers: Since receiving the following email earlier in the week we have made concerted and repeated attempts to contact Miss Fenwick. Unhappily they have been without success. We will keep trying, but these are worrying times for her supporters.


Dear Frydaygroup Friends

This is my first letter from Somalia. I have been here a week now and have much to tell you.

But first please allow me to again thank you for your kind and collective contribution to our cause. I know that there are some in the scientific community who still insist that my quest for the ancestral breeding grounds of the Devonport Guppy will be in vain. They have been wrong before and I believe they will be wrong again. They lack the vision and indeed the comprehension to know how important to the world a successful conclusion to this quest will be. But you know. You have the vision. And your contribution and faith come at no better time, given the exciting news from Somalia and the fact that my previous benefactor my son-in-law, Mr Jack Arbuckle of Jack Arbuckle’s Pre-Loved Car Emporium, is presently temporarily incarcerated and unable to continue his funding support.

So, what is happening here in Somalia? What adventures I have had! I have not yet been able to confirm those earlier reports that a Devonport Guppy has been seen in Somali waters. But it is early days yet and I remain in hope. In all other respects but one my stay here has been a delight. The one disappointment came with the arrival of our Air Garuda flight at Mogadishu. The pilot seemed in unseemly haste and the aircraft had not yet come to a full stop before we were unceremoniously bundled off and the aircraft took off again. Most disappointing and potentially dangerous, I am sure.

But in all other respects there is no disappointment with this country or my welcome to it. Indeed, I have been made to feel most welcome and am very much in demand. On no fewer than three occasions thus far I have been forcefully removed from the streets and whisked away to a room by heavily armed men who seem to be very reluctant to let me go. It is only after I have completed my five-hour dissertation on the breeding habits of the Devonport Guppy that they seem happy to allow me to leave; only for me to be then whisked away by the next group. Very flattering to an 86 year-old woman to have such attention.

Yesterday I started north from Mogadishu to the northern coastal town of Bosaso, flying Somali Airlines. We are yet to arrive and I believe we must be on a tourist flight because the plane lands every few miles so that we can have a comfort stop and see the sights. There is a lot of sand in Somalia. How refreshingly different this airline is from others I have flown! What other airline allows you to wind down the window for fresh air? What other airline allows you to take pets on board? I have counted several pigs, two goats and countless chickens. They are also a most convivial airline; they serve a strange and strangely delicious alcoholic beverage to passengers and even the cabin crew and pilots join in!  It is all very social. I also feel most secure. Almost everybody on board is heavily armed. So with that warmth, safety  and comfort I think I shall now retire for a short nap—I see the pilots have already nodded off.

I am awake. It is dark. And there is no sound in the plane.  Fortunately my trusty Dell which my son-in-law gave me after it fell off the back of a truck seems undamaged and is still working. But the silence here is worrying. We are on the ground.  I see lights in the distance and they are moving. What or who they are  I cannot tell. My new friend, whom I met on the flight—a lovely woman with her very own Kalashnikov—now tells me that the lights are those of bandits or pirates. How exciting! Imagine—pirates in this day and age! And in Somalia of all places! She says that we must remain silent for if we are captured we are destined to a life of decadence and debauchery. She does not of course know of my three years as nanny in the household of Mr Keith Richards and Miss Pallenberg and their lovely little boy Marlon. But I shall remain silent and post this e-mail now in case it is to be my last.

Bless you.
Yours truly,

Phyllis J. Fenwick (Miss).

Internet support kindly provided by Jack Arbuckle’s Pre-Loved Car Emporium (temporarily in hiatus).