The adventurous, resilient Chandlers
Greetings from Mogadishu - a city I wish we could visit more often.
"This is a stinking dangerous place," said one American engineer, earlier on Sunday. He was sitting in the airport VIP lounge looking out on to the sun-baked, beachfront, heavily-guarded runway - a big surf breaking on the rocks beyond, and from time to time, the distant snap of gunfire.
He was summing up a wider sense of unease about the decision to bring the Chandlers to Somalia's capital, instead of flying them straight out to neighbouring Kenya. Out of the frying pan, into... well, into somewhere any weary ex-hostages would probably prefer to avoid.
To raise the stakes even further, Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) decided it shouldn't send the new prime minister down to the airport tarmac for a quick handshake. Oh no.
The news conference was good PR for Somalia's beleagured government
The Chandlers' small charter flight arrived soon after lunch, and the couple were immediately bundled off the plane, without even time to put on flak jackets. They were made to climb into one of the giant armoured cars belonging to Amisom, the Ugandan-led peacekeeping force that protects what little territory the TFG controls in the city.
They were then driven through Mogadishu's perilous streets to the presidential palace for a quiet chat, a brief news conference, and then a return trip on what Paul Chandler called, with the sort of jovial patience one might expect from a tourist - "the airport bus".
To be fair to the TFG and its ever-changing cast of characters, it does appear to have been closely involved, along with many other groups, in finally securing the Chandlers' release. Officials were understandably keen to take some credit, in a country with little to crow about.
A government official angrily accused me of "looking for bad news" when I suggested the airport bus journey was at best unnecessary. The information minister was adamant that "no ransom" had been paid by the TFG. And the city is a little quieter than usual right now.
As for the Chandlers, they were remarkably gracious throughout. Paul - not quite shaking off his tourist-image - carried a large camera around his neck and, before leaving Mogadishu, took some snaps of the airport while his security guard growled, yet again, at the handful of journalists trying to film the couple.
Paul's wife, Rachel, seemed intermittently more weary, but rallied during the news conference to give a bright and moving description of her elation, her enthusiasm for the people of Somalia, and her relief at no longer being surrounded by criminals.
An adventurous, resilient couple, then. They made a terrible mistake 13 months ago in trying to sail from the Seychelles to Tanzania.
They were treated badly - and beaten at one point by their captors. But the experience has clearly not broken them. I got the sense that the Chandlers aren't the sort of people to hold a grudge against a whole country - even one as relentlessly chaotic, and violent, as Somalia.
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