I was heavily pregnant and was due soon but nobody knew my due date and Umie Ayesha really didn’t want me to go, but I insisted. I didn’t care about Salah or anyone else, all I cared about was that I was seeing my sister!
Everyone was already at Dad’s house when I got there. Yas and Farouse were at the front door waiting to welcome me. Nebat looked the happiest I’d ever seen her with her little baby boy, whom she had named Neshwan. Farouse looked happy, although I could never imagine how she could be happy with a man who had done what her husband had done to her.
Then I sat down with Yas, who told me she was pregnant again. She had become pregnant straight after her last miscarriage. I could see the pain in her eyes. She told me she was fed up and was scared of losing another baby and she wished she had never become pregnant! She had begged Abdul to allow her to take birth control but he refused, saying he believed she would have a healthy baby soon and he wasn’t willing to give up until she did.
Although I did my best to comfort her, I could never imagine the pain she was going through because I’d never experienced it myself, and would never wish to. I remembered how worried I was when I was having the nightmares that something bad would happen to my baby and I prayed every night that my baby would be safe, but nothing I’d felt could feel the same as what she was going through. She had had two miscarriages and now she was worried at the thought of having another. I felt so guilty. I was happy that my baby was OK and nothing had gone wrong in my pregnancy, but how could I feel such happiness that my baby was OK when my sister was in so much pain over her babies?
Dad came in to welcome us to his house and as I looked at him, I couldn’t have hated him more! It was his entire fault that Yas was in so much pain because he was the one who had brought us to this country and put us in this situation. I’d always despised my Dad for what he had done to us but for some reason I always wanted his approval and yearned for his love. He had destroyed our family, and now he was causing the same pain to his new family.
Amina was half the woman she was when she first married Dad. She had come to the village full of life and fun, but now she hardly spoke and when she did you could see the pain in her eyes. Her daughter Samira was also at the house at that time, we had met her a few times and got on well with her. She was very young and very beautiful; it must have been heart-breaking for her watching her mum being abused by our father. Dad never physically abused Samira, but he never hesitated to beat her mother in front of her and that was just as bad!
Every time Dad spoke to Amina, you could see her flinch in fear as if he was going to hit her. She had fled to her uncle’s house many times to get away from his violence, but she would always be sent back because Dad would go and pay what was called ‘binding money’. This is a fee paid to the female’s family if she has been severely beaten by her husband. If the husband paid the fee he could have his wife back and it didn’t matter whether or not she wanted to go back. It was up to her family.
Uncle Salah looked a lot like Uncle Nasser but I got on well with him. He was quiet and didn’t have much to say but he was never horrible to us. Nobody liked him much and it was at this time that we found out it was because he was a member of a group called ‘The Muslim Brotherhood’, a group opposed to the regime of the government of the time. Although he and Uncle Nasser were both in groups that fought against the government, Uncle Nasser was thought to be fighting for something totally different to his brother and they didn’t get on!
While Uncle Nasser had been welcomed to sneak back into the village under the security of darkness and keep contact with his family, Uncle Saleh had endured many years of being made an outcast by everyone. Even Dad didn’t like him much and kept his distance from him. He refused to allow him to work in the fields with him, but then Dad had become cruel and nasty to everyone. Dad didn’t like anyone anymore.
I went into labour in the middle of the night, I’d been woken hours earlier by something crawling up my right arm and then I felt a sharp pain that made me cry out! I smacked whatever was on my arm, crushing it with my hand then flinging it across the room while shaking in fear. We were all asleep in the same room and as I screamed everyone woke up and started lighting candles and searching to see what had bitten me.
“It was a spider! I know it was!” I cried over and over again. I’d always been terrified of spiders and now my arm had started to swell very slightly at the sight of the bite. “I’ve been bitten by a poisonous spider!” I sobbed, thinking I was going to die.
“I found it!” Nebat shouted out from across the room.
When she brought it over and examined it she could tell straight away it wasn’t a spider. It was a tiny white thing and I’d crushed it enough to injure it but its tail was still wagging. “It looks like a scorpion!” she said, crushing it to death. That made me cry even louder, scorpions were very poisonous in Yemen! “It’s a baby one, it wouldn’t have done much harm, all we need to do is cut the poison out!” she said, trying to calm me down.
“Cut what?” I gasped in horror!
Nebat had done nothing to calm me down; in fact, she had terrified me even more. Gran was called from next door to cut the site of the wound which had swollen very slightly. She was cursing me for being such a stupid girl and letting myself get stung, as if I’d invited the scorpion over to play! She was also not happy with me for constantly crying like a baby while she sliced me with one of Dad’s old razor blades.
Gran made about six cuts, sideways, up and down; all I knew was that they were deep and painful! As she was tending to me Nebat was busy crushing garlic, getting it crushed as smooth as she could to push deep into the wound once Gran had finished cleaning it. Yas sat next to me all the time, holding my other hand and telling me to be brave; I could tell she was just as scared of losing me as I was of dying. Gran sucked on the wound, spitting out any blood that she collected in her mouth. Then she took the garlic, pressing and rubbing it as deep as she could into the cuts she had made, before wrapping the wound up as tight as she could with strips of old sheets! After I was all bandaged up, the candles were put out and we were told to go to sleep, but I couldn’t!
As the hours went on I could feel the pain in my stomach and back getting worse and the fear that the poison and gone through my body was terrifying me. I crawled over to Yas.
“Yas I think I’m dying!” I cried, shaking her to wake up.
Yas sat up. “Don’t be stupid, Moo, why do you think that?” she whispered.
“I’ve got really bad pains in my stomach and my back hurts, I think it’s the poison,” I cried.
Yas woke Nebat up and told her what was happening. Nebat told me she thought I was in labour, once again a very tired and very unimpressed Gran was called in! My labour was slow so the only two that panicked were Yas and I. Yas was worried about me, and I worried about myself!
The contractions only happened once every few hours but I didn’t know anything about labour; even though I’d seen Warda give birth all I knew was it hurt and there was lots of blood, nothing else!
The next morning the decision was made to take me back to Ziad’s house to give birth there. Abdul was also at the village because he had come with Yas, so he and Granddad volunteered to drive me back home. I’d hoped to stay at Dad’s house to give birth because at least I would have Yas with me, but I wasn’t allowed. I was shoved in the back of a jeep with Abdul and Granddad while some stranger drove us back home.
The journey was uncomfortable and on the way I had a contraction, but nobody cared. Granddad kept asking Abdul if he was OK because the ride was bumpy, but I wasn’t asked if I was OK! As we came to the rocky turn in the corner in Ziad village I slid off the seat to my knees, holding on to the car seat as I had yet another contraction, while Granddad shouted at me to get back up and sit on the seat! I ignored him and as we pulled up to the house I was still on my knees, holding on to the seat.
I was left with Umie Ayesha as Granddad and Abdul went straight home. Straight away
she went on about how she should have never let me go, what if something would have happened to me! She got even more upset when she saw my arm bandaged up!
My labour went on all day and through the night and all the next day. The contractions were slow, long and painful and when nothing happened by the second night the decision was made to take me to the hospital in Rada’a. The hospital was horrible. It was small and dirty, and as we went into the room where I was told I was to give birth, I was horrified to see nothing but a long thin wooden table with no pillow or blanket on it. Surely I wasn’t going to be asked to lay on that?
The midwife came into the room; she was really fat and middle aged and scared me as soon as I saw her. She had a tone to her voice that made you never want to argue with her; she ordered me to take my trousers off and lay on the table!
I turned to Umie Ayesha for support but she told me to do as I was told, so I did. I climbed onto the table and lay back but it was the most uncomfortable I’d been since going into labour. The table was barely wide enough to take my body and I was wobbling as if I was going to fall off! I rested back to put my head down but I couldn’t, it caused me too much pain to stretch my body out so I sat up and got down off the table.
The midwife immediately shouted at me, making it clear that if I didn’t do as I was told she would slap me! She ordered me back onto the table where she dipped her hand into some water before doing an internal examination, which was so painful and uncomfortable. I lay back on the table and Umie Ayesha tried to tell me to stay calm and do as I was told, but as she did I had another contraction which felt much worse than all the rest! I got up and slid down off the table screaming in pain, but just as I did the midwife slapped me across the face, really hard, ordering me to get back up on the table!
I started screaming abuse at her calling her every name I could think of, telling her if she touched me again I would rip her face off and much more! I could hear Umie Ayesha apologising on my behalf but I just carried on screaming the place down until the contraction was over. This carried on for several hours and I refused to get back on the table… in the early hours of the morning I gave birth to my beautiful baby boy, Tarek.
Chapter Fourteen
Losing a Child
Tarek was born on the 11th of April 1980. Since the day I became pregnant I’d prayed for a little girl. I wanted to call her Ismahan, Issy. She could never replace my sister, but I would tell her how much her aunty was loved and why she took her name.
When they told me I had a boy I had one second of disappointment, but when I saw him, I could never begin to explain the love that filled my body the second I laid eyes on him. He was the most perfect being on the planet and he belonged to me!
“Pass him to me,” I begged as Umie Ayesha wiped him down. She told me to be patient but I couldn’t! I’d watched them cut his cord, which had already made me cry because I was convinced he was in pain. Now he was screaming the place down and I wanted to hold him so that I could comfort him. I tried to get up to take him off her but I couldn’t move; I was still in a lot of pain and I didn’t realise there was more to be done after the baby had come out!
“Stay down and stay still!” she shouted at me, gently pushing me back in the position I was in while handing me my baby to shut me up. “Here take him, but be gentle.” Tarek was covered in blood and other stuff and I didn’t have a clue what it was, but that didn’t stop me from covering his body with kisses.
“I love you soooo much,” I sobbed over and over again.
The midwife told me to stay still while she removed my placenta. The placenta is an important part of a ritual after a women’s birth and they needed mine intact. Mine was extremely important because they needed it for a special occasion.
Umie Ayesha didn’t need to show me anything about being a mother; it came naturally to me from the moment my baby was born. Tarek became my whole world. My child was a piece of my heart and I felt every breath he took. When he was in pain I felt his pain, and when he smiled I smiled with him.
When we got back to the village Sofia and Noriya were waiting to escort me upstairs like an old woman! I’d never felt better and could have run around the village, but it was custom that if you had a baby you got treated like a queen for 40 days, which was fine by me! I was taken upstairs and put in the opposite corner to grandmother Dobia and covered with a blanket while my baby was laid beside me, and that was where I was to stay.
Umie Ayesha had carefully wrapped my placenta and brought it back home with her. Usually it was buried to ensure the mother is able to get pregnant again but because mine was in perfect condition and I’d become pregnant so soon after getting married, mine was considered good luck. Sofia had been married for over 20 years and had been unable to get pregnant. It was believed that if she ate a healthy placenta she would become pregnant, so Umie Ayesha handed her my placenta.
The family were over the moon I’d given birth to a son for Ziad, and although they weren’t over the moon with the name they soon came to love it. Tarek Ziad was the name of a great warrior and it was Ziad’s choice to break tradition and not name him after his father or grandfather. They were just happy it was a boy and not a girl; boys are loved much more than girls in Yemen and if you have a son it’s a sign that God is giving you love and wealth!
Tarek became the apple of Umie Ayesha’s eye and grandmother Dobia and her daughters adored him. He resembled the family and they were happy that although he was slightly dark, he wasn’t as dark skinned as his father! He was a big baby and weighed over ten pounds! He was healthy and took to breast feeding straight away with no problem from either of us. Umie Ayesha came and fed him cows’ butter as soon as we got home from the hospital and fed him twice a day. She said it would make him strong and healthy because it was fresh from our cows.
She also showed me how to wrap him up to make sure he slept well; she would wrap him with a sheet really tightly like a mummy, leaving no room for him to move or wriggle. Then she placed him in a baby basket that was made from cow’s skin and shaped like a huge handbag with long strong straps. She then hung him up on a thick metal pole that was nailed to the wall opposite to where I sat; she told me if he cried I was not allowed to pick him up because he would get used to it! I was told I would soon have to go back to work and leave him home with her, and she wouldn’t have time to look after him. She handed me a long piece of string that was attached to the side of the basket and showed me how to rock the basket, banging it against the wall to put him back to sleep if he cried. Then I was told I was only allowed to pick him up if he needed feeding or changing.
Yas came to visit me the next day with Dad and Abdul. Dad and Abdul said a quick hello before going off to eat ghat with the men and Yas came and spent the afternoon with me. She sat next to me that afternoon as the room filled up with women coming to congratulate me on the birth of my son. We sat and chatted all afternoon pretending nobody else was in the room but us, while I showed her my beautiful baby.
Although Yas was hurting that she had lost her own babies she was truly happy for me that my baby was healthy. I was allowed to cuddle Tarek and show him off to my sister for a while that afternoon before returning him to his spot on the wall, where he slept peacefully for the rest of the afternoon. Yas left early evening and I wasn’t allowed to leave my spot in the room to say goodbye to her at the front door as usual, or run after the jeep blowing her kisses. When she kissed me goodbye I begged her to take care of herself and write to me, and I promised I’d visit her soon. We both cried in silence that day, trying not to show our tears in front of the room full of women.
Things were different now; we were no longer the young sisters who struggled to be apart. Although being away from my sister broke my heart, we had become accustomed to the fact that nothing we did or said would change the fact that it would always be this way. We knew we would continue to fight to stay in touch whenever possible, but we were now becoming young mothers who were about to enter a struggle to keep
our own children safe and alive.
Tarek was the light of my life; if he stayed asleep for more than a few hours I would rush over to his basket and poke him to wake him up. I would always get caught and get told off for waking him up, there were always chores that needed to be done, no time to play with my baby.
I wanted to change his clothes all the time, show him off to everyone in his beautiful clothes that his dad had sent him, but Umie Ayesha would always cover him up in a blanket, worried that he would catch the evil eye because he was so healthy and well dressed. He was a big strong baby who never cried and was always smiling, but when he got to about six months old he got a bad fever.
He woke up one afternoon crying, and we knew straight away something was wrong because he was always so good. The sisters tried to cool him down and I left them to get on with it because I had no idea what to do. They had sent for the jeep to take us to the hospital but it was already in Rada’a, so we had to wait for it to come back. In their panic to cool him down they decided to use an old ancient remedy.
Sofia rushed outside and got a chicken, where they proceeded to slaughter it, ripping out its guts and then placing them on the crown of Tarek’s head, before placing a woollen baby hat over his head and tying it up! As I looked on in horror, they reassured me this would suck out any fever from his head.
Hours went by before the jeep turned up and we finally got to take Tarek to the hospital. His condition hadn’t got any better and he was starting to break out in red blotches. When we got to the hospital we waited in the corridor for our turn to see a doctor. It was packed and I was so scared for my baby I was pacing up and down the corridor trying to settle Tarek who was crying in my arms, when suddenly I heard someone speaking English and I realised it was a doctor. I thought to myself, “If I speak to him in English he will see us quicker.” So I walked up to him.
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