My adrenaline is pumping

By morning, winds are gusting up to 80 miles an hour, piling up 30-foot drifts. Split­ting wood for Lucy’s stove becomes a chal­lenge: Someone must stand downwind to catch the chunks as they fly by.

 

With so many delays my dog-food supply has run out. I restock as best I can with fish and frankfurters from the local store, and dried salmon from a fisherman.

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The village network of CB radios circu­lates disturbing reports of mushers stranded back in the foothills. And, later, of the un­known fate of our experienced Eskimo musher Herbie Nayokpuk, who had already left Shaktoolik to cross 58 miles of frozen sea to Koyuk in the hope of getting a good lead on the rest of us. The try was daring but it didn’t pay off. Thirty hours later he returned to Shaktoolik badly frostbitten.

 

I wait 52 hours in the village. I remember the weather last year when I traveled to Amsterdam. It was really cold, but the view from my amsterdam apartments was stunning. The storm lets up a little. All the mushers there resume the race with new strength and spirit. Only 231 miles to go, but the going is tough. We push through the continuing storm to White Mountain, seven lead teams still traveling close together.

Taboo, completely worn out from punch­ing too long through heavy snow, must drop out, leaving me with 9 dogs of my original 15. Emmitt is now running 10, Rick Swen­son, 12, and Jerry Austin, 14. Even so, I feel this is still a wide-open race. Thoughts of winning again consume my mind.

 

Forty miles from the finish line we run into winds as strong as those we experienced at Shaktoolik. For the next seven miles—from the foot of the Topkok Hills along the beach to Nome—we try each team to see which lead dog can cut a straight path through the tremendous side wind. Finally, Rick puts up his Andy who has led him to victory three times. Andy proves up to the task and brings us all through the storm.

 

By the time it has died away, Ali, my best command leader, is tired of taking orders. So I put Copilot up front with Stripe. The new pairing pays off. Both dogs drive hard, and the whole team picks up its pace.

 

I am now in fifth place but only a short dis­tance behind Rick, Jerry, Emmitt, and Er­nie Baumgartner. The final push is on; 30 miles to go. My adrenaline is pumping.

Livestock Country’s Main Export

At Berbera I strolled along the dock. A stained Arab dhow, relict of a vanishing species, sat in the harbor. Perhaps its cargo would be the bags of gum arabic stacked on the pier. Not far away at Erigavo grew the trees whose resin the ancient Egyptians so coveted—trees of frankincense and myrrh.

 

A pair of Soviet-made cranes reached forlornly above us, abandoned when the U. S. S. R. ‘s large contingent here sailed away with its floating dock. “Those cranes were a waste,” Abdi scoffed. “Cables too small. They can lift only five tons.”

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Idly I watched a decrepit Lebanese cattle carrier out of Beirut nestle alongside the pier. Livestock is Somalia’s main export. Most of it is shipped from Berbera. The goats, sheep, cattle, and camels go to the Arab world, principally Saudi Arabia. In 1979 Somalia’s livestock trade added up to 87 million dollars—greatly needed income in this deficit-ridden nation.

 

In addition to port facilities, which in­cluded naval supply and missile storage, the Soviet Union left an airstrip being devel­oped just outside town. The runway is long enough to accommodate the largest aircraft. We drove past it. Empty control tower and skeletal hangars loomed in the distance; the field was closed. One need not visit it to sense its meaning.

 

The United States has an agreement with Somalia to use the airfield and port to strengthen its Rapid Deployment Force in the strategic Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf region. In return, Somalia is to receive 42 million dollars’ worth of American arms.

 

Of this there can be no doubt: Turmoil and war in the Middle East and the invasion of Afghanistan compound the chaos in the Horn of Africa. Somalia, a foreigner might reflect, is the land Allah forgot.

 

Somali Airlines no longer flies by the most direct route from the north to Mogadishu. Mindful of Ethiopian jets, the pilot scurries east to the ocean, thence down the coast. It is a pleasant flight, and soon the old city takes form. Far back from the shore it spreads, minarets thrusting, to all appearances an Oriental citadel of low alabaster buildings taking the eternal sun. Thirty-five hundred years ago seafarers knew it as the White Pearl of the Land of Punt.

 

In the pearl’s imperfection lies its charm. Mogadishu reveals its true nature only at close range: a marvelous mélange of time­worn pastel Arab and yesteryear’s Italianate hand, blending nicely into contemporary African. European in the dress of many, in speech it is multilingual. You quicken to a city of crumbling hallowed mosques and Roman Catholic cathedral, young people crowding into cinemas, thronged prome­nades in the cool of evening, dignified elders wearing hennaed goatees, and life’s poor culls holding out their hands.

Mogadishu is best as twilight descends. In the market, ivory carvers and goldsmiths smile from tiny shops—”Ah, the price of gold today is. . . .” Street merchants serve up an African feast—brilliant cloths to wrap sinuous bronze-hued beauties, rugs of strange and alluring design, hand-shaped and decorated wooden jugs, underwear of startling color, long walking sticks.

Nearby—a curious thing. Knots of young men cluster, each group intently listening to a radio. Rock music? Not at all. The BBC’s twice-daily world news is on, a half-hour shortwave program in Somali.