A Somali woman in trousers, boots and with men is a strange sight for them. And a woman leading a team of men is something absolutely unacceptable. S… - Sada Mire

She didn't have much to say. Since I left Somalia, I've been in control of my own life. I was raised by my mother and grandmother. They were very beautiful and hard-working. They were also always in favor of women's emancipation. My mother was with me on my first trip in 2007. She didn't know anything about archaeology, but she was very helpful.

I believe that our practical cultural heritage helped us survive the war, even though we were city dwellers. When the war broke out in Somalia, we had to flee. We found ourselves in the desert with nothing. Only through our innate skills did we know how to find water sources, how to make tools from materials found in the field, how to build a house from acacia trees and where to find healing herbs.

I first learned to construct nomadic huts with my grandmother in the summer holidays – spent, whether I liked or not, living in Dayniile, near Mogadishu.