by Shyima Hall
This was the first time I had ever been to a park. When I was with my family in Egypt, we played only in the streets or in vacant lots. I am not even sure if my area of Egypt had anything similar to a park.
The first time I took the boys was the first time I went outside my captors’ home. It was quiet, and that surprised me. There were few cars on the road and even fewer people walking by. At my captors’ home in Egypt I had expected the outdoor silence, because they’d lived on a great estate with no other buildings nearby, other than the servants’ houses. My only other living experience had been in the middle of town, and there was always a lot of noise and activity there.
Sometimes moms or nannies who supervised other children who were playing asked about me. One lady in particular took special notice. She was a beautiful Asian woman, and after watching me for a time, she said something to me. I didn’t speak English, so one of the twins said, “She is a sister from another mother. She lives in Egypt.”
I was terrified, and my heart felt as if it were beating through my shirt. I didn’t know if the lady suspected anything or not. While I wanted out of that household, my fear of what might happen to me—and to my family—if the lady said anything was so huge that I could barely breathe. I began to gather our things and asked the boys to come with me back to the house, but they weren’t ready, they wanted to stay and play. With my heart still thumping, I gave them each a bottle of water and sat back down to wait for them.
The boys must have seen the long, speculative look the woman gave me and must later have said something to The Mom. After that we were allowed to go to the park only after The Mom glanced across the street and saw that no one else was there.
Next to the small park was a much larger park with a swimming pool. In the summer I often took the boys there to swim. The fact that I stayed on a lounge chair with the towels and food did not make me stand out, because many other people sat near the pool rather than going into it. The twins often invited me into the water, but I didn’t know how to swim, and I was sure that The Mom and The Dad wouldn’t approve.
I did not have any “nice” clothes to wear to the pool, and I was always somewhat self-conscious about how dirty my clothes were. Once in a while I caught people looking at me with odd expressions on their faces, and that made me feel bad. I still didn’t speak any English, although I had picked up the stray word or two from the twins and from observing other kids at the park and at the pool. “Hi” was one of those words. I often wondered how I would get help for the twins if something happened, because I couldn’t convey the nature of an emergency to anyone. I then debated what I would say if anyone approached me. But no one ever did. Everyone was too busy. They were excited about the pool and didn’t pay any attention to me. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.
Because I could not understand any of the conversation around me at the pool, I began studying people—the way they walked, their body language, the way they interacted with one another. Even though I was ten, my interactions with groups of people had been limited. With my biological family I’d mostly interacted with my younger siblings and my mother. With my captors I rarely saw anyone outside the near or extended family. That’s why going to the pool became such a fascination for me.
From my chair I’d often glance away from the twins’ antics in the pool to watch how teenage girls were with one another. I’d watch as a boy and a girl walked together, to try to find out if they were brother and sister, friends, or boyfriend and girlfriend. I watched older women, couples, and the lifeguards—who were, in actuality, older teens in a position of some authority. I watched grandmothers, people of different races, and young children.
While relationships between people were still somewhat of a mystery to me, those trips to the pool went a long way in developing my social skills. Even though I could not communicate verbally with anyone who did not speak Arabic, I could now better understand what people were saying with their eyes, their smile, the way they walked, and how close they stood to the person next to them.
These trips to the park and to the pool were fun for the boys, but I was still expected to get my work done. On days when I took the boys out, I worked far past midnight. If I ever thought that my duties would be lessened because of the boys’ activities, I was wrong. I never brought this up to The Mom or The Dad, though, because I didn’t want to be yelled at or, worse, slapped. My feelings didn’t count, never counted. I was just Shyima, the stupid slave. I didn’t exist.
CHAPTER FIVE
One day I came down with a terrible upper respiratory infection. I don’t know if it was a bad cold, the flu, or strep, but I felt miserable. I had a high fever, I was coughing, my nose was running, my entire body ached, and I was weak and light-headed. I told The Mom I wasn’t well, but she just said, “Oh, everyone gets that” and dismissed my concern.
I had nothing to compare this illness to, and no one to tell me any different. That’s why I didn’t think too much about it—until the next day. The next day I felt far, far worse. By day two I had no voice and it hurt to swallow. Imagine this, on top of my other symptoms. Plus I was wheezing and congested and had an even higher fever than the day before. But I was still expected to do all that I did every day. The Mom didn’t allow me any downtime, which meant no time to rest and recover. Not only that, but The Mom refused to acknowledge that I was sick and denied me any medication such as an antihistamine, aspirin, or cough syrup.
I began to cry. There was no one to support me, to guide me, and because I had never been this sick before, I didn’t understand what was going on with my body. Since I had begun living with my captors, I had been careful to always toe the line. I wanted to do the best job I could, because I was continually threatened with harm to my biological family—and with beatings and jail time for me—if I were not the perfect little slave. In fact, I was so afraid of getting into trouble for some small, unintentional infraction that I regularly got the shakes—especially when The Mom was around.
Now that I was extremely sick, however, I knew that if I were going to help myself, I had to be brave and step outside my tightly wrapped boundary. I also understood that I had to be sneaky about it. From previous family illnesses, I knew The Mom kept medicine in a big cabinet in her bathroom. I, of course, could not read Arabic, much less English, which meant I didn’t know what the different medicines were, or what they were for. Except for one.
When the daughters were sick, I sometimes saw them take what I now know was DayQuil. I knew where that medicine was on the shelf and knew what it looked like. It came in tiny packets, maybe ten to a box. If I took one, would The Mom notice that one of the packets was missing? I was terrified but knew I had to take the risk.
I waited until The Mom was busy somewhere else in the house before I went to clean her bathroom. Then I quickly, cautiously took a packet out of the DayQuil box, quietly closed the cabinet door, and went into the bathroom in the upstairs hall. There, with trembling fingers, I opened the packet, swallowed the pill, and drank water directly from the sink to wash it down. Then I threw the packet into the trash and gathered the rest of the waste out of the can and brought it down to the big garbage bin in the garage. I didn’t know if it was from fear or if it was from my illness, but my heart raced throughout the entire process.
The DayQuil did help some, but it was more than a week before I felt better. Now I understand that I have a weak immune system. This might be due to genetics, or it might be because I was not able to eat balanced meals when I was young. Or it might be that because I was overworked and underfed, my body has never been able to right itself. Whatever the cause, every year in May or June, I regularly come down with a bad cold. My throat swells and I become ill enough that I am often hospitalized.
Today I am grateful for health care, for the medical professionals who treat me, and for my friends who care for me and support me, because I know too well what it is like not to have that. It is easy to take these things for granted, but I never d
o. Ever.
• • •
As they had in Egypt, the days here in the United States wore on—and on. Birthdays and holidays came and went. The school year started and ended. I had stopped thinking about a future away from The Mom and The Dad and their entitled children. I only wanted to get through the next minute, the next hour, the next day. Some people might have turned to religion for comfort, but even that was denied me.
When I lived with my mom and dad when I was young, we were not heavily into religion. We were Muslim—as were most of the people in our town—but we went to the mosque only on days of celebration, even though my mom prayed what seemed like all the time. My captors, however, made many empty gestures toward practicing their Muslim faith.
My captor family regularly went to the mosque to pray. I did think a lot about the fact that this family acted religious, quoted the prophet Muhammad at the drop of a hat, and read the Koran every day, yet never did a good turn and were disrespectful to others. Never once were they kind to others. Even now it amazes me that they treated people like crap, yet they prayed with their prayer beads several times a day. My thought was that obviously the prayer beads were not working.
The family’s behavior during the holy month of Ramadan was a good example of how they were. Ramadan is observed during the ninth month of the Islamic calendar year, and among other things, observers are supposed to fast every day from dawn to sunset. Observers are supposed to abstain from eating, drinking, smoking, and swearing during daylight hours, but I never saw much evidence of this with The Mom or The Dad or their family. Yes, there was less food and they went to the mosque more often, but that was about it. They were still the same entitled, demanding people.
Even though religion was not a huge part of my young childhood, I found familiarity and comfort in it and was sad that my captors did not allow me to participate in any of their religious traditions. I was never allowed to go to the mosque when I was with this family.
If I had not been utterly exhausted at the end of the day, I might have tried to keep up with some of my own religious traditions. But I was always mentally and physically drained to the point where I couldn’t find the strength to even think about it. One day, though, my Muslim faith was unexpectedly brought to the forefront. That day was to become forever ingrained in people’s minds as 9/11.
I was in the kitchen that morning when the oldest daughter in the house cried out, “Oh my God!” as she stared at the TV. There was a lot of yelling and screaming after that, enough to bring The Mom and The Dad downstairs from their bedroom. They were watching the horrific events unfold on an Arabic news channel, and I was able to pick up some of what was going on, although I didn’t understand much of it. I understood the Arabic words but not the context in which they were said.
This was the first time I had seen my captor family shaken. They were unnerved by what the terrorists had done, and they soon became frightened. Right after 9/11 it seemed as if all Americans were leery of anyone who looked as if they might be from the Middle East. Even though the United States was founded on the principle of freedom of religion, it was not a good time to be Muslim.
The family mainly stayed in the house in the days and weeks following the attack. When The Mom went out for groceries, as she eventually had to do, she took off her head scarf. This was the first time she had ever done this in public. She didn’t allow her hair to be completely uncovered, though. She wore a hat. There are many Hispanic people in Southern California, and I think The Mom tried to blend in with that population.
The oldest daughter refused to remove her head scarf, and there were huge fights between her and The Mom about that. It became an ongoing thing for them to argue violently about, but as the immediacy of 9/11 passed, the amount and intensity of the disagreements eventually lessened.
I found it interesting, though, that my captors did not seem to have any sympathy for the thousands of 9/11 victims or their families. Rather, they were afraid something bad might happen to them. I had to remind myself that we were in the United States in the first place because The Dad had gotten into some bad trouble in Egypt and it was safer for him and his family to leave Egypt. Now the family was afraid they might be deported. They were so afraid to leave the house, in fact, that they stopped going to the mosque. For a religious family such as this to be that fearful, I knew the situation was serious.
As for me, when it finally dawned on me what had happened, I couldn’t believe it. How can anyone of any faith be heartless enough to kill so many people? It was beyond my comprehension then, and still is. Although I had issues with a lot of the Muslim culture, I knew that being Muslim was not about destruction but about loving and serving God. These monsters who changed the course of history are not representative of the vast majority who follow the Muslim faith. Since then I have learned that there are small groups of extremists in many faiths.
One of the problems I had with the Muslim faith and Arab culture in general was that they are both patriarchal, meaning that the man of the house rules. Many men, including most of the Muslim men I had come into contact with thus far, interpreted that as ruling with an iron fist. These men were quick to anger, and the result of their anger was verbal and physical abuse directed at whoever was in their path.
I didn’t realize it then, but my early years, and then my time with my captors, had turned me into an emotionally strong person. The heavy responsibility of caring for my siblings at an early age had made me capable of taking care of myself, and I had developed an odd sort of street smarts. That’s why, as time went on, I began to see these angry Arab men more as cartoon characters who were full of themselves, rather than people worthy of respect. These men were dangerous cartoon characters, though, and I took as much care as I could to stay away from any Arab man.
I didn’t have any concept of other religions then, other than that back home in Egypt I knew there were Jewish people. My parents felt, however, that those of the Muslim faith should not associate with them, and that sentiment was echoed throughout our neighborhood. After my long, long days, when I finally lay in my bed in the cramped, stuffy room in the garage, I prayed to a God of all religions. Every night I prayed, “Please let me go home. I hate the way people treat me here. I miss my family. Please let me go home.”
Most nights I fell asleep saying those words over and over in my head. As the days, weeks, and months passed, I began to believe that God didn’t love me, because nothing in my world changed. I wasn’t sent home, and the family treated me in the same crappy way they always had. The Mom was the worst. She was brutal. While the entire family knew I was there to take care of anything they wanted, The Mom most of all knew how to use that power against me. She made me feel like a nobody, and I was too young and uneducated to have the skills to overcome that negative kind of thinking. I hated each of them, but her most of all.
I began to think that I’d never be able to leave this family, never have a life of my own. I had not a single moment of happiness during this time. Not one. This resulted in my having no feeling, no emotion during the day, but my subconscious must have gotten overloaded, because most nights I had terrible nightmares.
One nightmare sticks in my mind because I have it to this day. In it I am in Egypt with my mom. We are in the middle of the street, and in the street there is a round metal manhole cover that leads to a sewer. In my dream my mom lifts the cover, puts me in the sewer, and then closes the lid. It is dark and damp around me, and I scream and scream. I am afraid, and I don’t understand why my mom has done this to me.
In the weird way of dreams, while I am trapped inside the sewer, I can see outside of it too. I see my mom take a blanket that we had in our apartment—checked with white, light blue, and dark blue—and place it over the lid to the sewer. Invariably, when I wake up from that dream, I am crying.
Even though I would cry out during and after the nightmare, there was no one to hear me, to give me comfort. I’d wake with these horrible images in my mind, covered
with sweat, my heart pounding. Then I’d sit there in the dark and hug myself as I cried.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the correlations between my dream and my real life. In both scenarios my mother essentially threw me away and trapped me in a life I did not want to lead. The result was that I became terrified of going to sleep and I never slept well. That’s something that continues to this day.
• • •
The memory of my family was the only thing that kept me going through these tough times, even though I was often filled with hate for my mom and dad. I thought they should have fought harder to keep me in Egypt. They should have tried to get me back from my captors. But they didn’t. From their perspective what had happened to me was “unfortunate,” but it was an accepted part of life.
I never understood what part of my life as a slave could be acceptable. Many times The Mom told me, “Look at all we are doing for you. You live in a nice house with a dry roof over your head, and we provide you with a happy environment. You are a lucky girl.” I wished she could walk in my shoes for a day. Then maybe she wouldn’t have said such ridiculous things.
While anger at my situation was slowly filling my being, fortunately, I didn’t have too much time to dwell on it. I was too busy being mistreated, getting up way too early, and being yelled at. Because I was the only servant the family had now, if something went wrong, there was no one other than me for them to blame. It made me furious, and I wondered how I could contain all my anger. But I did.