In the months she lived in darkness and in chains, she held onto her sanity by escaping to memories of her world travels, picturing the vivid images in the old issues of National Geographic she found while dumpster-diving as a child. The wide-eyed optimism and unflappable determination that led her to danger also kept her alive. In an effort to improve their situation, she and Brennan converted to Islam, but that just made the abuse worse for Lindhout. For months, she was forced to lie only on her side and was kicked if she rolled over on her back while sleeping. A fungus sprouted inside her mouth, spreading down her neck and up her face. In the 460 days it took for their family and friends to raise the ransom money, Lindhout endured unimaginable torture and neglect. The amount demanded varied widely, sometimes shooting up, finally dropping over time. Four days after they arrived, a group of Somali militants, mostly teenagers, kidnapped them, demanding ransoms that neither family could afford, nor would their governments provide.
She reached out to an ex-boyfriend, Australian photographer Nigel Brennan, who agreed to join her in the capital of Mogadishu. As each adventure bolstered her confidence, she wandered farther off the grid, wading into riskier areas and returning to her home in Canada to wait tables only when she ran out of money.Īfter six months in Kabul and another seven in Baghdad, Lindhout, at age 27 in 2008, decided she was ready for an even more dangerous road, despite her mother's protests: Somalia. It's that she was able to forgive them.Īn aspiring journalist, Lindhout's plan was to go to Somalia, dubbed "the most dangerous place on earth," to put her on the fast track to establishing herself in the news industry.Ī seasoned backpack traveler, Lindhout visited dozens of countries in seven years, from Burma to South America to Ethiopia.
Or that she endured gang rape, beatings and starvation at the hands of her teenage captors. What's most striking about Amanda Lindhout's harrowing, beautifully written memoir, A House in the Sky (4 stars out of four), isn't that she survived 460 days as a hostage in Somalia.
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