by Jean Sasson
When we finally retired, we found that there was not enough space for all of us to have conventional beds, so we slept on mattresses tossed on the floor, ending with wall-to-wall mattresses in the bedrooms. In the morning it was necessary to roll up our mattresses for storage in order to walk around in the room.
The attached outdoor garden was generously laid out, with plenty of space for a group of boys to play. Unlike Saudi Arabia, which has little in the way of garden vegetation, there were some trees, thick bushes, and flower beds dotting the edge of the garden. In fact, everything about the physical grounds of al-Riyadh Village was to our liking, including a large empty lot a short distance from our home that we hoped to use as a soccer pitch.
Things were looking up.
Despite these early positive signs, worries nibbled at my mind. What about the mares we had left behind? When would our stallions arrive in Khartoum? Would our father purchase additional horses in Sudan? Would I find friends in this new environment? Would I be required to attend public school?
School was my principal concern. What if my Sudanese school experiences deteriorated into something even more hideous than I had already endured in Saudi Arabia? I prayed that our father was too occupied with his businesses to find a school for us.
Within a few days my brothers and I received the sobering news from one of our father’s drivers that we had already been enrolled in school. But when we learned that we would be attending the finest private school in all the country, the Al-Majlis Al-Afriiki Ta’leen Alkhaas school, our spirits lifted.
When we were fitted for our school uniforms, I noticed that they were in much the same style as the uniforms worn by the Sudanese military. Later I was told that the Sudanese government had a policy that young boys should be trained to be soldiers.
We were thrilled when we learned that we would be picked up in our compound by a school bus. The lucky six to attend the school with me were my full brothers Abdullah, Abdul Rahman, Sa’ad, Osman, and Mohammed, the youngest to be registered at age seven. Eight-year-old Ali, our half-brother who was the firstborn son of our Auntie Khadijah, was also enrolled at the same school.
On the first day of school we were anxious but excited. After prayers we rushed home to slip off our thobes and put on our uniforms. The moment we were properly dressed, we dashed to the bus stop to wait for the bus we were told to expect. A very long white bus appeared promptly at 6:30 A.M. Schools in hot climates begin and end early, with school hours from seven in the morning until one in the afternoon. We clambered aboard to receive the biggest shock of our lives. There were girl students on the bus!
My brothers and I thought we must have boarded the wrong bus. Almost instantly we saw that there were boys as well, all dressed in uniforms identical to our own. Not knowing what else to do, we stumbled forward, noting that the girls and boys were not sitting together.
Even so, such a thing would never have been allowed in Saudi Arabia, where everything in public life is segregated by sex, including weddings, parties, restaurant seating, and schools. In Saudi Arabia the girls have their schools and the boys have theirs. Should a girl require a course taught only by a man, the only way she is allowed to take the course is by satellite or pre-taped video. I have been told about some highly conservative female students who even wear their veils when viewing a male teacher on tape.
Many Muslims believe that if an unrelated male and female are in the same room together, there are really three creatures in attendance, the third being the devil himself. Nothing good could come from such mixing, or so we Saudis are taught.
In Sudan, the female students were required to sit on the left side of the bus and the male students on the right. My brothers and I hurriedly found seats, saying little as we glanced around the bus. I admit I cast my eyes more than once on the girls’ section but noticed that most of the girls were careful to keep their eyes chastely averted from the boys. Occasionally a bold girl might lift her eyes and her face would crinkle with a shy smile, but for the most part they talked and laughed among themselves. I never found the courage to attempt a conversation. I soon realized that the bus driver seemed to have eyes in the back of his head and was quick to reprimand any student who made an attempt to converse with the opposite sex. My father’s stern image appeared in my mind. I believed that once he discovered that his sons would be in close proximity to girls not of our own family, we would be unceremoniously pulled from the school.
Would the first day be our last?
My father frowned upon formal education for females. His own daughters were not allowed to attend school, but instead were taught some basics at home by Auntie Khairiah, who was an educated woman.
I wondered if we might share our classrooms with the opposite sex. If so, I knew our school outing was doomed. Thankfully that was not the case, although we did catch fleeting glimpses of the girls as they changed classes. Everything was relaxed in the playground, giving the girls courage to slip away from their assigned area to venture into ours. Surprisingly, none of the teachers sent them back where they belonged. Yet if any boy tried to sneak into the girls’ playground, he would be reprimanded and marched back to our section of the yard.
Our new world was strange, indeed.
To our great relief, students and teachers alike were friendly and respectful. Our Sudanese school routine was simple but enjoyable. Due to the early hour, all the students were fed breakfast upon arrival. After our simple morning meal of boiled eggs, cheese, and flat bread, we once again attended prayers, for the government of Sudan was an Islamic regime. Classes followed, with classroom teachers who were firm, soft-spoken, and kindly. No instructor sneered that we would not receive good grades even if we earned them. No instructor threatened my brothers or me with a caning. No instructor encouraged the other boys to tease us.
Shortly after nine each morning, students were given a break when we were free to meet other boys and to purchase a snack from the school canteen. Since our father had banned American soft drinks, my brothers and I were sure to purchase a can of cold Pepsi and a packet of crisps, or potato chips.
Since our school was one of the most expensive private schools in the city, many students came from wealthy families. Yet there were others whose families were of the professional class and in a few cases the poorer working class. Even if it meant pinching pennies and saving from their small family budgets, Sudanese parents made extreme efforts to give their children a good education. That meant there was a varied assortment of boys at our school, making the experience much more interesting, at least to me.
There were sports and games before the day ended. For the most part, my brothers and I greatly enjoyed playing with the Sudanese students, who were friendly. Yet there was one schoolyard game that I’ve never forgotten, mainly because it required a brutality that was not found in any other activities.
The boys would be selected for two teams. There was an assigned safe area. The teams would line up at a distance from the safe area with the goal being for various players to reach the safe area by outrunning the members of the other team. If one was unlucky enough to be caught, he would receive a physical beating. Those whippings were not your typical schoolyard thrashings. No, the physical poundings were painfully meaningful. Those slow of foot came away with black eyes, bent noses, and massively swollen lips.
From the days when my aim was to outrun my long-legged father in the hat game, as well as my time in Saudi Arabia when schoolyard bullies had chased me, I had learned to fly like the wind. As I studied the brutality of this new game and the distance I would need to sprint to safety, I knew I must run faster than ever before. When my turn came, I could have easily qualified for the Olympic trials. My feet practically flew over the playground and I outran them all.
I often asked those boys why they participated in such a violent game, but their only responses were affable grins and convincing talk that the game was steeped in their culture. The Sudanese believed that boys must not only be schooled
, but should also be strong and hard, and that nothing toughened a body like a good beating. Obviously adults shared the boys’ opinions, because teachers would observe without interfering even when a boy was beaten bloody. No parents came to the school to complain about their injured children. Years later when I heard of the brutal Sudanese wars and the fighting among the various tribes, I understood that Sudanese boys really did need to learn physical endurance. In real life adult male Sudanese fighters ripped into each other with the ferocity of hungry lions.
After all that strenuous activity, we would all board the bus at one o’clock in the afternoon for a pleasant ride back to al-Riyadh Village. The same boys who had beaten each other silly on the playground maintained a perfect demeanor. I was astounded. In my Arab world such a beating would never have been forgotten, leading to years of fierce reprisals between entire families and even whole tribes. In the land of my birth, brutal tribal wars have been ignited over less.
The new country we now called home was fascinating. I enjoyed staring out the bus windows at the noisy street scenes. Colorfully dressed Sudanese appeared to be celebrating. Not only did men mingle with women, but such boisterous public gatherings are unknown even among men in Saudi Arabia. In the country of my birth, most of life is hidden behind the privacy of high walls.
Besides regular school, we older boys had additional classes back home. Our father had employed three instructors to teach his sons, each teacher highly qualified in such subjects as world affairs, maths, geography, history, and Arabic. One of the three was a Moroccan, whose expertise was religious training. All three men were patient and kindly and we boys respected them greatly.
The lessons were given in the guest house, which was one of our father’s villas used mainly to lodge his numerous visitors from the Muslim world and from Europe. The guest house climbed three spacious storeys, with twenty-two large rooms and a square footage much larger than our family home. The house was painted a light pink shade with a distinctive shiny black gate.
Inside the guest house there was a special room set aside for teaching, where my brothers and I spent three hours every afternoon. Tired of too much school, I retained little of what I read, dreaming of freedom to watch the sunset or play soccer.
In addition to our private residence and the guest house, our father had two other houses in the al-Riyadh Village area, all close to our family home. Those two villas were large as well and served as housing for some of our father’s many employees, mainly administrators, drivers, or security guards, with most of the men former Mujahideen veterans of the Russian-Afghan war. My father had not only employed the same veterans who had lived on our farm in Jeddah, but had brought in others. The ones who did not live in our area were scattered around the country in other housing.
Other than the few men who had worked on our father’s farm outside Jeddah, we had rarely been around our father’s soldiers. Besides, I was too young during my years in Saudi Arabia to fully comprehend everything I witnessed. Suddenly, I began to understand more of my father’s world, with its vast business and political interests, and people from many countries paying homage. It was in Sudan that I believe our father began to think of his sons as potential future partners, and it was there that we were first invited to take a peek into his convoluted world of politics and commercial activities.
After spending more time with our father at his offices, we began to meet the Mujahideen and slowly learn something of their life histories. That’s when we discovered that few of those former soldiers were allowed to return to their own nations.
Every soldier had an interesting story.
While the Afghan-Russian war was raging, governments in the area assisted my father and other organizers by sending groups of young men to fight at the front. The youthful soldiers were full of ideals, being given every reason to believe that they would be rewarded for giving up their schooling, their careers, and possible marriages, all to answer the call to violent Jihad, to assist their Muslim brothers in need. During their fighting years, they were showered with talk of glory, but after winning a war that everyone had told them was impossible to win, their governments discarded them. Some soldiers’ passports were not renewed, while others trying to go home were turned away at the borders.
Their countries’ leaders apparently feared that the Mujahideen had gained too much knowledge in the art of resistance and war. Perhaps if they returned, they would pose a threat to a repressive regime.
Those brave warriors suddenly discovered that they were men without a country. Desperate for jobs, they turned to my father. Although his own life was in such turmoil that he had to flee his own country, all were given jobs, with good salaries and housing. Many veterans told my brothers and me that our father was the only one who never forgot them and never broke a promise.
Many of the hardened soldiers became our father’s security guards, zealously protecting him and his family. Those burly soldiers looked as though they could kill my slim father with their bare hands, yet they treated him with awe and respect, standing humbly in the background, never speaking until he spoke. Although our father didn’t ask for their reverence, they worshipped him with their whole hearts, driven by the desire to please him.
As sons of Osama bin Laden, we were the beneficiaries of that worship. To protect Osama’s family, every man would have sacrificed his own life.
We were cautious of those guards at first, for their loyalty to our father made us believe that our father’s eyes were in their heads. We were too young to realize that we needed protecting, that there were people in the world who wanted our father dead, and if we were killed during the process, so be it. We believed that everyone on earth—except for those teachers in Saudi Arabia—revered our father, because most of the people we met loved him to the point of worship. “Your father is the prince,” we heard again and again.
Although our father had scores of men watching out for his sons, living in a busy neighborhood made it easier for us to evade the guards. Activity around our home was usually brisk, so we slowly learned ways to melt into the crowd or to slip away when the guards were busy with one thing or another.
Over time, we gained even more freedom. The Sudanese shackles we had so feared were slowly loosened. Did our father finally trust us? Or was he so busy with his various projects that we skipped his mind? I never knew the answer to that question.
To be sure, our father was engaged in many business interests during those years in Sudan. He once astounded us by saying, “Sudan is our home now. I will live out my life in this land.” I remember how odd I felt at hearing his words, wondering how he could bear a permanent break with the land of his birth.
But with his loyalties now attached to Sudan, my father became enthralled with a goal of bringing the impoverished country up to modern standards. From his time in Saudi Arabia, he had seen real economic prosperity and he wanted that success for Sudan. Without the oil wealth of Saudi Arabia, he surmised that fertile areas of Sudan would be the solution to bring the African nation out of poverty. In fact, the region south of Khartoum to the border of Ethiopia was popularly known as Sudan’s bread basket. That is the area where my father had numerous farms, growing many different kinds of vegetables and sunflowers. He also became involved in construction work, farming, and horse breeding.
Soon after arriving in Khartoum our father informed us that he had already purchased a horse farm. It was nothing elaborate like our farm near Jeddah, yet it was only fifteen minutes by car from al-Riyadh Village, so we went to the stables at least once a week. He had purchased a few horses before we arrived, and the stallions exported from Saudi Arabia brought the number to seven. I was delighted with every horse, with my favorite being the stallion named Lazaz, one of the horses my father had managed to bring from Saudi Arabia. The beautiful Adham was set to arrive in Khartoum as well.
Lazaz, which most Muslims will recognize as the name of Prophet Mohammed’s horse, was a pure Arab stallion with a chestnut mane
and tail with a contrasting white blaze and three white socks, on his left foreleg and both back legs. Lazaz was a proud stallion, not the sort of horse that encouraged casual play. His greatest joy was running with his harem of mares and any interruption was a challenge for his human handlers.
I remember the day Lazaz was nearly killed for threatening my father.
Lazaz had recently arrived on a transport from Jeddah and was feeling frisky, for he had not been ridden in several months. He was prancing in a circular enclosure, eager to get away for his own horsey business. My father thought the time had come to take him out for a brisk ride. Lazaz had other ideas. When my father tried to saddle Lazaz, the stallion reared up on his back legs, dancing, angry, ready to attack. My father, who was a great horseman, was equally un-wavering in his aim to reclaim Lazaz.
They were fighting it out, a determined horseman and his equally determined stallion. My heart was in my throat because Lazaz and my father had enjoyed many days of horse-and-rider camaraderie, but now they were suddenly adversaries, unequal in strength, but so similar in willpower.
Nothing my father could do calmed Lazaz. He repeatedly attacked my father, the fury in his eyes flashing threats of violence. Suddenly I noticed that one of my father’s friends had loaded and lifted his weapon, its barrel aimed directly at Lazaz’s head. The faithful man was taking no chances that Osama bin Laden might be crushed by a horse, no matter how valuable or beautiful a stallion Lazaz might be. Thankfully my father saw the man’s action out of the corner of his eye, even as he was busy trying to keep away from Lazaz’s flailing hooves. My father, who loved horses more than any man, shouted, “No! Go! Bring more men!”