A_Khadar Posted July 6, 2011 by Mohamoud Ali Gaildon, Sunday, June 26, 2011 Colonel Ibrahim Rooble Warfaa “Doonyaale” The mention of Colonel Donyale, in a piece recently posted by Mr. Mohamed Haji Ingris triggered in me a vivid memory that I wish to share with you. It was one of those times when by a stroke of luck a man’s outer shell cracks open, and his inner sanctum is laid bare for all to see. “This is no time for a short story,” you may want to say. If so, please allow me to argue that at a time all we as a nation once stood for is gone with the wind, memories and stories are all we have left to link with the past and ponder what was and what could have been. My dimming memory tells me it was early October of 1971 when a devastating cyclone, the second in as many years, hit the northern coast of Somalia. I was in Las Qoray, as I had been the year before when an equally devastating cyclone hit. To the north of the town is the Red Sea. To the south, the magnificent bluffs of the fault-block mountains of Calmadow rise sharply into the sky and bring one oh, so close! to Awrkii Cirka. A torrential rain on the mountains sends flash floods down deep gorges which open into wide and relatively flat watercourses that dump the water into the sea, a sea that is unwilling to lie flat and take it on the cheek. The clash between the fast flowing floods and the raging sea is something to behold. This is when titans, driven by the power of God, duke it out in an epic battle for the ages. Such fury and such power I had never seen before, nor since. And it is in the middle of such a scene that my short story of Donayle begins. READ Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
