The phone network works in Mogadishu. We started Skyping in in the Spring of 2013. This photograph was from Wave 3, Spring 2014.
Somalia
Look, the cell phone network works in Somalia. And it’s the only thing, maybe, that works in Somalia.
-- Stephen Krasner, 2010
Dagaal waa ka-dare, bro.
-- Somali proverb (San Diego variant)
In 2011, when I lived in the South Park neighborhood of San Diego, I started working closely with Nicholai Lidow and the Somali community in City Heights to document social facts about life in Mogadishu remotely. Then, gradually, behavioral survey research and the Global War on Terror in East Africa became more peripheral to my research. U.S. policy towards East Africa changed. Enforcement of immigration laws changed. I moved a few times, with each move taking me further away from City Hights. I started a family. Others on my team did, too. I lost touch with the friends in this picture. My gratitude to Nicholai, Abdulmalik Buul, Elaine Denny, Michael Seese, and our many Somali subjects and collaborators is immense. I no longer invest energy following Somali politics, however. I only rarely review papers on Somalia and do not consider myself a subject matter expert.