After the release of Lawrence of Arabia on Somali television in the late 1980s, Sharif became a household face. By 1993, seeing an American helicopter crash was so surreal that witnesses literally "cast" the event with movie stars.
At first glance, it appears to be nonsense. Dhibic Roob is Somali for "a drop of rain." Omar Sharif was an Egyptian-born, Oscar-nominated actor famous for Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago . Black Hawk Down refers to the 2001 Ridley Scott film about the 1993 U.S. military raid in Mogadishu. And Hit could mean a musical hit, a physical strike, or a targeted assassination.
None of it fits. And yet, for those who were in Mogadishu on that October night—or grew up on its stories—it makes perfect sense. Because in the chaos of the Black Hawk down, when tracers lit the sky like horizontal rain, every man became an actor, every drop was an omen, and every crash was a hit.