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Showing posts from May, 2018

HEARTLESS MAKER

I,    Fayed Noor al Swedan , the son of Haji Shardid Noor Bogol, resident of the village of Afmadow , being of sound mind declare this here as my last and final will and testament … He was dressed in a nylon shirt and grey trousers; His face was scrawny with the sunken eyes set too close together giving him a perennially haggard and hungry look; an expressionless page not easy to recall.  He was also beyond reason.  He looked up his young face concentrating on the task at hand. Yes, he was young – sixteen going to seventeen – And he was ready to immolate himself. Somalia’s extremist group Al Shabab has a recruitment pipeline which starts at a mosque in Hagadera refugee camp in Kenya and extends right into Somalia through the heavy patrolled border areas. Four months earlier the young and impressionable Fuad had used the same pipeline from Kenya and crossed into Somalia to join the Al Shabab terror group. And in Joining Al Shabaab; Fuad found himself.  It was nothing as magical a

THE CATHOLIC NUN

She was a nun, a Catholic nun and it was hard not to fail to notice her; it was Sunday and I had visited another city and found myself in the Catholic Church for Sunday mass service, I find that attending Sunday mass services deeply enriches and helps me spiritually to face the week ahead.  But back to the nun, she was tall for a lady and dressed in the grey habit of her order and she was conducting the choir adjacent to the altar and as she sang, I noticed the very perfect teeth, long neck and incredible eyebrows. Her face was quite calm, remotely smiling and from her composure you could readily see that she was quite at ease with her calling. She was a nun, probably in her thirties; yes, leading a choir at a holy place. A creation of God living her calling, a holy calling but still candy to the eyes… As I had pointed out, you could not fail to notice her. Her habit was made to measure and fitted her perfectly, ending an inch or so below the knees, her head scarf, meant