Once in Somalia I went to visit my uncle who used to live in the country. I did not know what the country looked like, as I had never seen it before in my life, this was my first time. Anyway I had to stay there for one month, because this was during the school holidays, which was also a rainy season.

One day my cousin and I were told to take the camels for feeding to the bush where there were carnivous animals, such as lions and hyenas. I was about ten years old and my cousin was five years older than me. He was able to carry a gun to protect us and the camels. Because the lions were very dangerous to people and animals, using the gun was out protection. I was terrified, because this was my first time in the country where you could face a lot of different dangers. My cousin had experience with this, because the country is where he was born and grew up and he knew how to deal with it.

In the evening we had to take the camels back home, it was getting dark and wet, because there weren't any lights, but we had a torch with us. Suddenly we heard a scream at the very back of the herd because as we were leading the camels from the front so the rest of them were following us. As we rushed to see what happened there was a lion holding down one camel and about to kill him.

I was shocked and scared, but my cousin started to help the camel escape from the lion and he killed the lion with his AK-47.

My cousin told me that we had to go and get people to help the injured camel, because it was bleeding a lot and he could not leave me alone with the camels, because he was worried more about me getting hurt than the camels as he was responsible for me.

Anyway we went and found some people to help the camel, but they couldn't as it had bled for a long time and they had to slaughter him before he died by himself, because people could then eat the meat. If he died by himself, we would not be allowed to eat the meat as it is against our religion to eat meat from an animal which has died this way.

This was my first and last time of seeing the country-side as I did not enjoy it during the visit to my uncle, because things did not happen the way I thought they would and I did not really like it at all.