Yassmin’s Story

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Yassmin’s Story Page 16

by Yassmin Abdel-Magied


  My headmaster’s next words surprised me: ‘I told them you were one of our best students, and that if they were going to act this way their kids shouldn’t be at our school in the first place.’

  I was lucky to be at an institution led by someone with such a uniting vision. That headmaster was my first sponsor; he put himself on the line for me in a way white males of privilege rarely do for young brown and Muslim women. I didn’t fully appreciate at the time the way he normalised this kind of support at a wealthy, largely Anglo, Christian school, but I am forever grateful for his backing and his foresight.

  I still left that conversation feeling slightly uneasy, recalling the exchange I had had with my father. Did people really see me as an aimless, rowdy troublemaker? I didn’t see myself as different, but my actions were obviously having an effect on the people around me in ways I didn’t fully comprehend. I guess I didn’t exactly understand my actions either. It’s frightening how vulnerable we are at such a young age, and also how I could be so affected by the response of some parents.

  I feel fortunate to have dabbled in ideologies as a teenager, as it allowed me to find my feet, to be fully aware of the path I chose and to figure out what I believed in, independent of my parents’ and friends’ beliefs. My parents, realising that I had energy, sought to also find outlets for it, and after a fairly varied start, Youth Without Borders (YWB) became the main one.

  It never occurred to me that I couldn’t do something because of my age, which partly comes down to my belief in fate. In Islam, everything happens for a reason, and even if the reason is not clear at the time, it is ultimately for our best. The certainty that you can face every challenge and opportunity means that, rather than questioning every event, we spend our time looking for the message, the test or the meaning and then get on with dealing with it.

  We also deeply believe that Allah does not test us with things that we cannot handle, which means that whatever adversity we face, we know we can make it through – we just have to figure out how. It’s like being in a game and knowing you have all the weapons and potions to get you through the level; you just have to find the right combination.

  That may be why, Alhamdulillah, I haven’t had to struggle with anxiety over whether I could do something, even when people questioned my capacity, age or skills. In my mind, this was meant to be – Allah has blessed me with opportunities, so I have a duty to a higher power to make the most of them.

  Not everyone is comfortable with the fact that my motivation is religious. Does my motivation matter, if I think it comes from a good place and the results are virtuous? If people have a problem with organised religion, should they have a problem with the work I do? I don’t think so. But then again, you can’t please everyone, and I have work to do.

  So, that’s the driver – wanting to serve the world and in doing so serve Allah in whatever way I can, using the skills I’ve been blessed with. I understood from a very early age that my family was privileged because we had moved to Australia, and we were well educated. I knew that I wanted to somehow use that privilege to pay it forward, to give back. I recognised the need, and then found a way to do something about it.

  Chapter 12:

  Back to Sudan: Teenage Struggles

  ‘Yasseen! Oh my god, can you move your elbows? You keep hitting me with those bony things!’ My brother was squeezed next to me on the intercontinental flight from Australia to Sudan. This would be my last trip back to the homeland with my entire family, although I didn’t know it at the time. I was fifteen.

  As we walked out of the plane down the steps and into the bus to take us to the terminal, I could smell the sand in the air and feel the dry heat I was taking into my lungs. Oh, Sudan, you bittersweet land – I missed you.

  My family and I stood in the citizens’ queue with our green passports. I was proud to have both Sudanese and Australian passports; I liked the idea of having as many passports as possible. Each one was an identity I could slip into when it suited me: I could be the ‘cool brown Aussie chick’ in the United States, the ‘demure and slightly aloof Sudanese woman’ in the United Arab Emirates, and anything in between. I kept begging my father to apply for an Egyptian passport so I could as well, but he was never interested. ‘I’m not Egyptian!’ he’d say, not seeing the point of another green passport. The Egyptian passport would only give us bragging rights and cheaper tickets into the Pyramids, but I got those anyway by smiling sweetly at the guards … Hijab or not, a smile from a lady seemed to go a long way!

  The wait for the visa desks was exhausting and dreary, hundreds of passengers forced into three lengthy, disorganised lines. Families around me had dressed their young children up in little suits and fancy dresses: for some, plane travel is still a luxury that you should look classy for. A film of fine dust covered every surface, a characteristic of life in Sudan. The tiled floor felt cool through the thin soles of my sandals and as we inched forward I pushed my hand luggage across the ground with my foot. The queue snaking out of the women’s bathroom made me glad I’d taken care of business on the plane. Flushing public toilets were now filed to a memory: squatting was the name of the game, and although it’s reputedly better for your bowels, I prefer a porcelain bowl.

  I tried to avoid people’s eyes as I looked around; making eye contact with strangers has different connotations in Sudan and I hadn’t yet readjusted. Eye contact, particularly from a woman towards a man, is a strong sign of interest – or at least it invites people to approach you. But any teenager wants to have a bit of fun, so even with my parents standing next to me, I scanned the room, deciding who was cute. The trolley boy caught my eye and smiled. I quickly looked down, acting the part of a demure Sudanese girl (I was dressed the part too, in a long skirt and flowing top), but was smiling as I looked away, knowing he’d be watching. Yassmina was learning how to flirt! Cheeky, and definitely not very Islamic!

  It was eventually our turn to be dismissively called to the counter and my father passed our passports over to the officials behind the counters.

  He checked each photo against the individual and when he got to mine, he lifted his eyebrows. ‘Are you sure this is you?’

  I looked at the photo. It was from when I was nine, a turquoise scarf hastily wrapped around my head and a childlike grin beneath a nose and forehead shiny in the studio lights.

  I nodded and he shook his head slightly in disbelief. We waited until he was done with the paperwork, the two-fingered typing uninspiring. Although the computer was aged, the passport scanner looked brand new: not so behind the times after all.

  We walked through the turnstile to a hall of baggage carousels surrounded by huge boxes, cling-wrapped and duct-taped suitcases, and assorted bric-a-brac. When Sudanese families travel, they bring back everything they possibly can: gifts for every single member of the extended family, furniture, bedding, machinery. You name it, someone has brought it in. This is largely because good quality items often can’t be found in the markets in Sudan, so travelling is an opportunity to buy the things people in Australia take for granted. When someone announces they are travelling overseas, they’re usually inundated with requests. Shoes, underwear, baby clothing and toys are the requests we often get: simple, everyday items. Online shopping is out of the question. Not only do people not have mailing addresses (houses don’t have numbers and streets don’t always have names – and I don’t think I have ever seen a postal service), but credit cards don’t work in Sudan. Sanctions make the life of the average Sudanese person much more difficult than one would expect.

  As I waited, my fellow travellers hurtled past me, rushing towards the carousel for their luggage, and, hijabs Jalaleeb (the plural of Jalabeeya) flicking me as people whisked by. I was overwhelmed by the kaleidoscope of colour that the Sudanese around me wore, and the diversity of the people who called this country home – a diversity that meant a different definition of beauty than the one I was used to. Here, I fit the stereotype of beautiful more than I did in Austr
alia, and I was still skinny and short enough at fifteen for people to not be intimidated by my size. By my next visit, after I finished university, my increased size and height would make me much less desirable in Sudanese terms. It was nice to fit what was normal for a while; as much as I revelled in being a novelty at school, it was sometimes wearying.

  Luggage in hand, we walked out and were almost immediately greeted by an enthusiastic group who had forgotten what we looked like but loved us all the same – aunties, uncles and cousins, who ushered us to the car, babbling excitedly about having us home.

  ‘Faiza?’ My mother’s sister called me by my mother’s name and I shook my head, laughing. ‘La’a, I’m Yassmina!’ I said in Arabic, smiling at her shock over how I’d grown. We all piled into a couple of cars and drove to my maternal grandmother’s house.

  The main road was now bitumen, an improvement since our last visit when Khartoum only had a single asphalt road. We cruised along until our turn-off onto a dirt road, or ‘zugag’ as it’s known in Sudan. These roads are more like alleys, paths created by the repeated travel of cars, donkey-drawn carts and trucks. I recognised the right-hand turn-off to my grandmother’s house, preceded as it is by a large empty lot covered in desert shrub and thorns, the long spikes catching rubbish from across the area. Piles of plastic dot the landscape as far as the eye can see, every crevice witness to the strange juxtaposition of poverty and consumerism.

  The surface of the alley is rutted and potholed but also familiar. The rattle of the vehicle as it navigates the terrain is almost soothing. If a car lasts in Sudan, it can last anywhere, my mother always told me. When you think about the amount of stress the suspension and shocks go through on a daily basis, you can understand the sentiment.

  The wheels create a dust cloud around us as we drive. This fine brown dust settles on all surfaces in Khartoum. This isn’t the sand of the beach or the Dubai dunes; it is a fine silt that covers everything and anything, and means the air ducts in the cars are never opened and the house must be cleaned every single day. It is also why wearing a white Jalabeeya is a mark of cleanliness and a point of pride for men. The Jalabeeya is a cotton, floor-length tunic, usually with long wide sleeves, that both men and women traditionally wear. It’s airy and comfortable, and can be worn as pyjamas or as a classy, traditional event outfit, depending on the design. For men, it’s the Sudanese version of a suit, and having a Jalabeeya that stays white in a dusty world means you take pride in your appearance and come from a clean home. The Jalabeeya is an equaliser; the simple cloth is something even the poorest man can wear with respect and pride.

  The uncle who picked us up is wearing a bright white Jalabeeya. With one hand on the steering wheel, he lifts his right hand off the gear stick to gesticulate at the kids running in front of the car as they play soccer in the street, yelling at them to move and be careful. We pass three or four houses on the right, all fenced in by large walls topped by hooped barbed wire. The walls, although towering and thick, are made from mud-based brick and rendered with paste that cracks almost immediately in the harsh Sudanese environment. The weather chips the paint on almost all houses, giving even the most well kept building a slightly worn look.

  We pass the local mosque on our left, right across the alley from my grandmother’s house. This fence is sturdier, and the green dome and minaret of the mosque stand high above the neighbourhood, an obvious landmark. A few neon light bulbs are affixed to the side of the mosque, spelling out ‘Allah’ in Arabic. Their glow flickers as we drive past.

  Town planning seems non-existent in this neighbourhood. My first memory of my maternal grandmother’s house is of a single, tall brick building in a large, empty space. The block, as is traditional in Khartoum, is a number of storeys. Three, to be exact, topped by a flat roof, on which are a couple of beds where we sleep in summer under the night sky. The structure of the house is similar to the one I lived in for the first year and a half of my life in Sudan; the main family house is downstairs and the next two levels consist of small apartments for the sons and daughters and their families, as is traditional. My mother designed this house when she was working as an architect in Sudan, although she insists they used the wrong plans. ‘They wanted a design straight away so I sketched something super quickly and gave it to them. I was going to change a whole lot of things. Open up the kitchen, all sorts of other modifications, but by the time I got a chance they had already put down the foundations!’

  The houses on the block grew with the community. Every time we returned to Sudan, there would be another new house on the street. Although it meant the area was growing, I slightly resented these newcomers. Who were these people, building in the open spaces where we’d previously played soccer? There’s still one block left open and undeveloped adjoining my grandmother’s house; there’s nothing between the left side of the house and the mosque apart from shrubs, meaning the flickering light bulb spelling out ‘Allah’ can still be seen from my bedroom window on the second floor, reassuring me with its faint light. We turn at this empty lot and drive alongside the house, past the first gate, permanently blocked by an old rusted VW, and the Zeer, the Sudanese version of a public drinking water fountain – two deep clay pots filled to the brim with water, held half a metre off the ground in a simple metal frame. The top is covered by a small mesh roof, the whole contraption placed in the shade with a metal drinking cup, or cause, on top. The clay pots are wide open at the top and cylindrical for half their length, tapering down into a soft point, to keep the water cool throughout the day, so that anyone at all can come drink if they’re thirsty. This includes people walking by, Raksha [tuk-tuk] and taxi drivers, family members, street children and the like. The water is topped up daily by the owner of the Zeer, often the people whose house it sits in front of – in this case, my grandmother and her family. In the fifty-degree summer heat that Sudan is accustomed to, the thirty-litre pots are filled up two or three times a day.

  As soon as we had parked the car, I leapt out: ‘HABOOBBAAA!’ I squealed as I came through the door.

  ‘Yassmina,’ she crooned in her soft voice, ribboned with age. She pushed herself up from a lying position on the bed and opened her arms for a welcome hug. Habooba, which is ‘grandmother’ in the Sudanese-Arabic dialect, is a proud woman who brought up eight children; my mother is the fourth.

  Habooba Saida was a beauty in her time and still holds herself with dignity, styling her grey-and-white hair in braids that reflect the traditions of her youth. Her hair is long, a source of pride even though it’s now thin and often covered by a scarf and a towb, the traditional outfit for Sudanese women. The towb is similar to the Indian sari, a piece of cloth that is wrapped around the body and head, covering her modestly, and seen as very feminine in Sudan, usually only worn by married women. Habooba wears only towbs, with a Jalabeeya underneath to match. She keeps them stored in a cupboard locked with a key she guards closely, sleeping with it under her pillow. When we have visitors she sends for one of the grandchildren to fetch a ‘good’ towb – new, neat and pressed – from the cupboard, and wraps it around herself with careful, measured movements.

  She looks after herself this way even though she’s bed bound, due to osteoporosis and the various other illnesses that plague the elderly in poor nations. I can remember when she used to be able to walk around on crutches, then on one trip back to Sudan she was in a wheelchair, and since then she’s been in bed, but she’s still the woman of the house and won’t hesitate to tell anyone how it is. Her white, thin skin is wrinkled and frail but the parts of her body that are always on display – her face, hands and feet – look surprisingly firm. She sits in a cross-legged position on the bed, rocking back and forth, or lies with her head on the pillow – medicine and money stuffed underneath, out of reach of meddling fingers. Her bed is in the main area of the house – Sudanese beds are used the way Australians use couches – in full view of the television and kitchen, positioned so the rest of the family can sit around her. Th
e windows aren’t close enough for her to see the outside world, so family and friends coming in with stories is what brings her vitality and connection. Although she is physically disadvantaged, she is still a strong, commanding presence and a matriarch, and despite being a woman who grew up in a village with very little formal education, her passion for learning, initiative and excellence is unbridled.

  Habooba believed if her daughters were educated they would never be completely dependent on a man, an attitude that would have been considered progressive even in Australia at the time. She was proud of mothering a doctor, two architects, three engineers, a scientist and a pharmacist.

  That trip to Sudan was the last time I went as a child; I was still in school so there was no pressure from my parents to consider my marriage yet, as there would be when I visited after university. Even though my parents would never pressure me to get married immediately, they were asked about whether or not I was interested in marriage in almost every house we visited because I looked older than my fifteen years. My mother would just laugh. I would only find out when someone made an ‘offer’ if I happened to overhear my parents talking about it later. It was kind of exciting to think that someone wanted me to marry their kid, but only because I knew that my parents would never agree to it, which made me feel special. I just wished that they told me when it happened! I suppose it came from wanting to know that, despite the fact that I was ‘different’ in this world, I was someone aunties would want their sons or nephews to marry; perhaps I was searching for reassurance that I was acceptable by Sudanese standards. My parents never told me because they, like their parents, thought education was the most important thing and that experiences like marriage would come later on in life. All in good time.

 

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