INTRODUCTION: Writing is not an easy thing; writing is a complex and draining phenomenon. People write for different reasons: to inform, to educate, to entertain, or to critique the writings of other people. Writers are like poets, who compose poems in response to matters that pester their minds. And only then do they rid their brains of that burden. Similarly, writers feel the same thing. They write about situations that either agitate or excite them; then, they become exonerated or relieved of the perturbing burden.
These essays in this book fit some of the above-stated reasons if not all of them. I penned each essay to respond to a particular situation that had occupied my mind when writing that individual essay. My age at the time of writing any of these essays might have influenced the tone and vigour of that particular essay. The essays span twenty years (2003-2023), and most of them are about the Horn of Africa.
Over those twenty years, I extensively wrote about matters affecting the Somali people in the Horn of Africa and Canada. These are my essays written from my personal viewpoint; hence, they may appeal to some readers but not please other readers. And that is not surprising, as it is the nature of human beings. It is said that both writers and readers are biased about what they write or read. To preserve my efforts during those twenty years, I decided to compile my essays and make them a book. Due to paper size, I shortened the essays’ titles on the table of contents, but they retain their actual titles inside the pages.