Farouse was quick to point out that I was wrong; most Yemenis are dark, not black. She said Ziad looked African black and that wasn’t something they ever saw, not in the villages anyway. She said she had never seen one before, only heard of them. African Yemenis or ‘black Yemenis’ as she called them, do not mix with what they called ‘pure Yemeni’ because they say black Yemeni have a difference in culture and pure Yemeni believed they were beneath them.
She told me that they referred to these as ‘Akhdam’ meaning servants; they were also referred to as ‘Muhamasheen’. I was told that they lived as outcasts in Yemen, living in isolated communities that are garbage filled slums!
I assured both of them that I had no problem with the colour of his skin; I actually thought he looked rather nice; it was the whole marriage thing that I didn’t want and had a problem with.
I was anxious when Dad came over after dinner with Ziad; he walked him into the room and introduced us. Ziad shook my hand very gently, not saying a word, and although his skin was dark I could see he was blushing. Once Dad made sure we were OK he left saying we had around 20 minutes together. Ziad looked kind of shy but arrogant at the same time, as if he was confident in himself and the way he looked, but not good with people.
He looked around the room as if to admire our house but I could tell from his face he wasn’t really impressed. Our house was a dump, what was there to be impressed about? He looked at me and smiled; his teeth were the whitest I’d ever seen! I looked away from him while he looked at me. I could feel his eyes on me and it made me feel very uncomfortable. There wasn’t much I wanted to say to him or ask him.
Although I tried my hardest not to, I couldn’t help but remember the day Mana came with his family, he and I were put in this very same room for what everyone thought was the first time we met. We laughed and giggled together that day and we made plans for the rest of our lives, now today I was here with this man and it didn’t feel right! I didn’t know or want this man but he was going to be my husband and there was nothing I could do about it. I turned and looked at him.
“Do you know my name?” I was being sarcastic but I didn’t know what to say. Ziad laughed.
“No I don’t, maybe you could tell me?” he joked.
“I’m sure you’ll find out sooner or later. Why did you want to marry me?” My voice sounded angry because I was, and he could tell.
“Have I said something wrong?” Ziad was smiling when he asked me the question and he didn’t sound worried. But if he was waiting for an answer he wasn’t getting one. I just stared at him.
“You’re a tough one, aren’t you; OK, this is why I picked you. My aunt saw you many months ago at a wedding and told me I had to marry you because you are very beautiful, and she is never wrong about anything!” He smiled again, waiting for me to say something nice.
“Do you do everything your aunt tells you to do?” I carried on staring at him, right in his eyes, but he looked away.
“No I don’t!” He was getting defensive but he didn’t raise his voice. “But I don’t have a mother and she raised me so I trust her! Anyway, she knows what I like and don’t like and in your case I think she chose very well, she told me you were very beautiful and she was right! So once again she hasn’t let me down.” Ziad looked at me and smiled. I couldn’t really argue with him after he was sat there telling me how beautiful I was. I wished I had someone I could trust like a mother as much as he trusted this woman to pick out his wife.
We started a proper conversation and I tried to be less angry with him. I asked him if he had any brothers and sisters and he told me he did but he really didn’t know them because he spent most of his time travelling abroad. I told him I had a sister who lived in Sanaa and who I wanted to visit as much as possible. He said it shouldn’t be a problem because at the moment he was working in Sanaa, not abroad, but he would make no promises to how often I could visit.
Ziad obviously took pride in his appearance because he wore a gold watch and gold rings and although I was sat across from him I could smell his aftershave. I asked if he spoke English, he said he didn’t but he spoke French and African.
He said that his family owned a lot of shops and houses in Yemen and abroad and were very rich. He told me that he would be sending my suitcases in a few days’ time. He said it would be full of clothes and jewellery but if anything was missing that I needed or wanted I should let them know immediately and he would have it sent to me.
After he left Farouse and Amina came in, all excited to find out what we had talked about. I had nothing to tell; unlike Mana, I felt nothing for Ziad.
Yas came for the wedding, which took place a week later. Just 6 months after Mana had died. We were both devastated that things hadn’t worked out the way we planned. It seemed no matter how hard we tried, things didn’t go our way. She looked thinner than the last time I saw her and it hadn’t been that long ago. She hadn’t been well for a while but now she had found out she was pregnant; I was so sad for her because she looked frail and she couldn’t eat or drink without bringing it back up. Her beautiful smile had gone and, although my heart was breaking because I was being sold, I tried to put on a brave face for her.
I told her Ziad looked OK and that he was good looking and I told her I didn’t think he would stop us from seeing each other. I tried to convince her and myself that I’d be OK, but I didn’t know that I would. I kept telling myself if Yas could live with a man she didn’t love then so could I! As long as Ziad treated me well and with respect then I would be fine!
We were both now married. Yas was pregnant and we were being separated on different sides of the country with no means of communication, so it was now up to us to keep in contact by any means possible.
I kept smiling throughout my wedding. There wasn’t much more I could do! The suitcases arrived from Ziad and just like he said they were packed with the most expensive of dresses and materials available. There was lots of gold. It was custom for the groom to send at least one piece of gold if he could afford it. The richer the groom the more gold the bride would receive, and Ziad proved his wealth! All the family wanted to see the necklaces, bracelets and rings he sent. They had never seen so much gold! They couldn’t understand why I wasn’t excited to see all the gold, but nothing could take away the pain that Yas wasn’t coming with me to Ziad’s house, or the fact that I didn’t know when I would see her again. It could be months, maybe years, and the not knowing was the worst part.
The day I left to go to Ziad’s house was heart wrenching for both of us. We hugged and wept and begged each other to do whatever it took to stay in contact.
“Please let me know when you have your baby,” I sobbed as we hung on to each other, not wanting to let go.
“We will see each other before then,” Yas promised.
“I know,” I sobbed, “I’m just saying; remember how much I love you.”
“Love you too, Moo,” she replied as I was taken away.
Ziad’s village was about 20 minutes from ours and as we came to the edge of the village it seemed as though the entire village of men were waiting for his convoy. All I could see were rows of jeeps full of men firing their guns and letting off fireworks. Dad was sat with me in my jeep, but he was of little comfort to me as my stomach turned with nerves.
The village looked bigger than ours and the houses got bigger and higher the more we drove into the village. As we drove closer to the house we went up a steep rocky hill that made the jeep shake from side to side, and as it turned a corner it rocked to its side as if it was about to turn over! I held on to the edge of the seat and held my breath, scared we were going to end upside down, but then it gradually steadied back up and carried on around the bend.
The whistling had started as soon as we entered the village from women who were on their rooftops joining in the celebration, and carried along as the jeeps did. The closer we got to the house the louder the whistles got, as did the gun shots.
When we pulled up to
the house at the top of the hill I realised that even in the slums and the most remote rural areas of the world, people with money still had the biggest houses! We pulled up to a huge house at the top of the hill overseeing the rest of the village. There was a big dirt drive for the family jeeps, a drive that was also used by the neighbours who were also rich. Our jeep was the only one from the convoy allowed to pull into the drive and as soon as it did, the women swamped it to usher me inside. Dad quickly said his goodbyes and disappeared to celebrate with the men.
My heart started to beat really fast. With the sharsharf on and the veil over my face I could feel myself heating up as I was taken into the house and up the stairs, while surrounded by dozens of women whistling all around me from all directions! I started to sweat as I was rushed up floor after floor, and by the time we got to the room on the top floor I was so hot I turned to the lady who was holding me the closest.
“I need to take this off now!” I was tugging at my veil.
“No you can’t, not yet!” she whispered.
The room was full of women and I really didn’t want to start my married life on a bad note by ripping off my veil. “Please, I can’t breathe, I need to take it off!” I begged. She whispered something in the ear of a second lady next to her and they announced they needed the room cleared.
Within seconds the room was empty of all but the two ladies that had cleared the room. I ripped off my veil and my sharsharf and threw them to the floor and I heard them say something at the same time but I ignored them. I had been made up before leaving our village so my face was full of make-up.
“You have to hurry and put this back on!” The second lady said to me anxiously handing me my veil from the floor, but I ignored her and continued to cool down, picking up a book from the window sill and fanning myself.
“Just as you said Ayesha, she’s perfect for Ziad, the others are not going to like this, she’s more beautiful than I thought! Marsh Allah, Marsh Allah! Ayesha, put her cover back on quickly!”
She was speaking to the lady who had helped me up the stairs and helped clear the room. I looked over to the other lady. “So you’re Umie Ayesha?” I asked, smiling.
She was the lady Ziad trusted like his mother and called ‘Umie’, which meant mother. It was nice to know I had picked the right person to ask for help and that she had helped me when I needed her.
“Yes that’s me and this is my sister Sofia, now hurry up and cover yourself before anyone sees you, it’s bad luck until we get the bochor and unveil you in the right way!” Bochor was used in all occasions not just to make something smell nice, but also to ward off the ‘evil eye’.
No longer had she finished speaking than the door flung open and about three women tried to walk in, with dozens more stood in the hallway. It took a few seconds for everyone to realise I was unveiled with the sisters screaming at everyone at the door to go back out, whilst at the same time trying to cover my face by throwing my sharsharf over me!
The women quickly retrieved and shut the door behind them but not before they and many of the women in the hallway had seen me. Umie Ayesha and Sofia were convinced something bad was going to happen to me and spent the next few minutes praying whilst I put my sharsharf back on! Once my sharsharf was back on, I sat in the room with them while the other sisters and family members came in and we were introduced. The others were not allowed to see my face and at the time I didn’t understand why. I’d always thought sisters and close family were allowed. But later on I would find out why.
They brought me dinner but left me alone to eat what I could. After that I was left alone to wait for Ziad. I could hear them bringing him from the edge of the village; they had driven him all the way down there just to drive him back in a blaze of gun fire and whistles.
Although I was no virgin, this was Ziad’s first wedding and it was a big one! The whole village had been invited to a feast and the food had to be cooked in several houses because the village was big and there was so much food! Everyone was grateful and most of them worked for Ziad’s father, or wanted to.
I heard the convoy outside the front, singing and dancing for ages before Ziad came up into the room. When he finally came into the room I wasn’t scared but more nervous. I didn’t have the life and death situation of my first marriage but more a how-is-this-man-going-to-treat-me? situation.
Ziad barely acknowledged me. He asked me if I was OK and then he lay down in the corner of the room and stretched out on a mattress that was made into a bed. I sat in silence, thinking to myself if I didn’t speak time would go quicker! I was happy when Ziad said he was going to rest for a while because he wasn’t used to all the noise. I sat across from him in total silence for what seemed like hours but I’m sure wasn’t, while he nodded off and then woke up.
When he got up he moisturised his hands and face and combed his hair, and then he sprayed himself with aftershave. Just before he went to leave he came over and attempted to kiss me, but because it was unexpected it went awkward and I pulled away from him. He didn’t seem to care. “See you later!” he said as he left the room smiling and whistling. As soon as he left Umie Ayesha and Sofia came back in to get me ready for my unveiling.
They fussed around getting me ready, but when Sofia went to comb my hair she gasped in horror as if she was going to have a heart attack! “Oh dear, sister look, she’s caught the evil eye!”
Her sister stood up from what she was doing and put her hand to her chest, also gasping. “What?” Umie Ayesha demanded to know what she was ranting on about and Sofia pointed out that I had many white hairs on the crown of my head; therefore I’d been looked upon by a jealous eye.
Yemenis strongly believe that if you look upon a thing of beauty you should always say ‘Marsh Allah’. The old Yemenis say that if you look upon someone with jealousy and do not say ‘Marsh Allah’ then you are wishing them bad luck. Ziad’s aunties believed that someone had seen me when the door opened a few hours earlier, and now all of a sudden I had gone grey! They believed one or more of the women that looked at me when the door opened had looked upon me with jealousy. They were discussing taking me to see a ‘medicine woman’ as soon as the celebrations were over to get ‘the curse’ broken. They decided in the meantime they would use some of their brother’s hair dye!
I tried my best to convince them there was no such thing as the evil eye and the white hair was just grey hair that I’d most probably got from years of stress. Seeing the grey hairs did come as a shock to me too, because I’d never seen them before and I was barely 14 years old! The sisters were having none of it and Sofia took a bunch of keys from her sister and ran off, returning moments later with a little match box-sized clump of black powder, a small metal tin with water in it and a twig of a branch! They mixed a tiny bit of powder and water into custard-like paste using the twig as a spoon.
I sat in silence as they covered the few grey hairs I’d collected over the years from people scaring the death out of me! As they did I wondered what this woman would be like that was going to ‘break the curse’, if she would have to touch me in any way, or if she would want me to do any weird stuff. This started to worry me more than meeting Ziad had; I put it to the back of my mind because, after all, there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
With my hair dyed, washed, my wedding dress and make-up redone, I was escorted into a huge room next to the one I’d been sat in. Umie Ayesha walked in front of me with the bochor, twirling it around in circles as she chanted some words I didn’t understand while the women whistled. They stared at me, trying their best to see behind my veil before I was sat on the throne at the head of the room.
Once I was sat and my wedding dress spread out as wide as it could be to look perfect, the whistles got louder and my veil was lifted! I had a horrible feeling in my stomach as all the women stretched their heads to look at me. Those that were in the hallway pushed each other forward to get a look at Ziad’s English bride. The room was as long as I could see and packed full of w
omen. The middle of the floor was a sea of bodies with hardly any space to move once I had been seated, and they were all staring at me!
Once the staring and gossip had died down, the women made way for dancing in the middle of the floor and the celebrations continued until early evening. When the sun started to go down I heard a big noise come from outside. It sounded like a powerful lawn mower and then all of a sudden the lights came on. I was happy as I thought to myself, “At least they have electricity in this village.”
When all the guests had gone, I was surprised to see lots of women left in the house. I thought maybe they were family guests staying for the wedding, but later I found out they also lived in the same house! After everyone had gone I was taken back into the room I’d been in before; this was now my room. Dad came in quickly and said he was leaving but promised to come see me in a few days.
I looked around my new room; it was the top floor room and it had big glass windows with shutters. When opened not only did they look over the village but also miles and miles of hills and mountains in the distance. The room wasn’t huge, but a good size, and was kitted out with brand new mattresses and cushions and had a beautiful brand new rug that covered the entire floor. There was no bed, just a mattress on the floor made up into a bed that Ziad had laid on earlier.
There was a big stereo on the window sill with cassettes next to it, lots of them! There were lots of bottles of creams and toiletries all around the other window sills and a few books. Ziad’s clothes were neatly folded and hung over pillows in the corner, not a crease in them! I made my way to the cassettes and got excited when I saw there was lots of English music.
Ziad came in as I was looking through his music collection. He closed the door behind him and then came over to where I was stood and picked up a few cassettes. “There’s only a few I don’t want you to touch but you can listen to the rest,” he said as he sorted through them and put a few to the side.
“Why, what are they?” I asked, pointing to the ones he had moved.
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