“Why don’t you ever bother to return our greetings?” I countered. “Don’t you know how rude that is? You see us on the path but we don’t exist, is that it?”
“You bad, impolite girls!” she exclaimed. “What rubbish d’you think you’re saying?”
She reached out to grab Mona, but before she could do so we picked up sticks and clods of earth and started to pelt her. She cried out, more in shock than pain, and started to run. We chased after her, cheering, until she had disappeared around the corner. That was our second victory, but our triumph was to be short-lived. Unfortunately, the Arab girl lived next door to one of our teachers. Once she had described her attackers, the teacher knew exactly who we were.
The following morning at assembly the headmistress announced that six girls had beaten a girl from the secondary school. We each had to step forward, as she gave us six cracks on the back with a stout stick. It really hurt, but none of us so much as let out a cry or a yelp. We knew if we did the others would hear it and laugh. I stood up straight as I walked back to the line. I noticed that some of the Arab girls were sniggering. I looked them right in the eye—letting them know that I’d seen them and wouldn’t forget it.
After my tutor, my favorite teacher was a young Arab lady called Aisha. She taught English to the older girls, and I was really looking forward to starting her lessons. Often, Mona and I would walk part of the way home with her, and she was always chatty and kind toward us. One day Miss Aisha had a big pile of notebooks, and we offered to help her carry them. This time we went all the way to her house, and it turned out to be one of the posh, English-style homes in the exclusive quarter.
She invited us in. She flicked a switch on the wall, and as if by magic lights in the ceiling lit up. We washed our hands with running water, before being treated to a slice of cake and some pop. As we ate, I looked around me at the smooth walls, and the smart, glossy furniture. The walls of my uncle’s house were of rough, homemade mud blocks, whereas here they were of bright red bricks. In the rainy season we would add a fresh layer of mud to the outside, in the hope that it would prevent the walls being washed away. But there was no danger of such a thing happening to this building.
As I looked around at Aisha’s beautiful house, I realized that we inhabited separate worlds and lives, ones that only ever collided at the school. Each of these houses had electricity and water, things that the rest of the town’s inhabitants could barely dream of. I wondered why these houses seemed reserved for Arab families. They were a minority in Sudan, so how was it that the best homes and the best jobs were reserved for them? I remembered what my father had told me—that the British colonists had given all the power to the Arabs. Well, from what I could see little had changed since then.
Each of these “Arab houses” had a team of servants cooking and cleaning. Invariably, those servants were black Africans. The Arabs did little work themselves. Often, the women wouldn’t even go to the market: They each had a driver, and they would send them with a shopping list. They had a life of indolent luxury, and that was the life that Sairah’s family led. So when I had turned on her at school, it must have been almost as if one of their servants had done so. That is what had made it so unbearable for them.
The next time Mona and I walked past the exclusive district, I picked up a stone and hurled it over one of the fences. As Mona and I made a run for it, there was the sound of glass shattering behind us. I wondered why I had done that. It was because I resented those Arabs their luxuries. I wanted to break their windows and break into their cozy lives. I wanted them to know the harsher side of life that we lived on a daily basis.
Reports of my rebellious activities started filtering back to my uncle. He told me that it was right to stand up for myself, but I didn’t want to get a reputation for being a troublemaker. At the end of my second term my father came to collect me. When my uncle told him the story of my fight with Sairah and the Arab teachers, he laughed so much I thought he’d burst. My uncle asked him how it was that he had such a tough daughter? Any girl who had grown up around Grandma Sumah was bound to turn out like this, my father explained.
On the drive home we passed by the local school, and I caught sight of the barefoot children sitting under a tree. Before I could stop myself, I found myself thinking that I was better than them. If there was a storm their lessons would have to be canceled, but at my school they continued regardless. And while they had only the one teacher, we had the lovely Miss Shadhia for math, Miss Aisha for English . . . I realized that I felt different now. I felt worldly-wise and superior, as if I had lost much of my village innocence.
When I got down from my father’s Land Rover, I was acutely aware of how smart my school uniform must seem. I felt oddly dislocated—as if I didn’t fit in anymore. Yet at the same time I knew that I wasn’t part of the town. Over the next few days I tried to cover up my insecurity by boasting to the other kids. My school had a roof, proper buildings, everyone wore smart uniforms, and we had lots of clever teachers. It was miles better than theirs.
Eventually, the neighbor’s children started badgering their parents to be sent to the big school. As soon as my father heard about this he sat me down and gave me a stern talking to. I was not to tease the others, he warned. Not all families were as fortunate as we, and most didn’t have the money that we did. I shouldn’t be so arrogant and so conceited, he told me. I apologized. I felt ashamed. But I still didn’t feel as if I fit in.
I tried to rekindle my friendship with Kadiga, but things were different now. She would be getting married in three years’ time, whereupon she would go to live in her husband’s village and motherhood would quickly follow. Our lives were going in opposite directions. It was the same with the other children. They treated me as if I had abandoned the village and rejected their ways. Perhaps this was their way of getting back at me.
I had always felt so at home in the village, with my people all around me. I had always felt as if I were safe, and that no one could look down on me. At school I was always so eager to return to the simplicity of the village. But now that I was here, I almost felt as if I wanted to return to the big town. I felt as if I was living in two worlds, as if I were split between two people—the simple village girl and my big-school, city-girl persona.
I think my father must have picked up on some of my disquiet. One day he returned home with a black box sitting beside him in the Land Rover. As soon as I saw it my heart leapt for joy. I knew exactly what it was: It was a TV. I used to love watching TV at Mona’s place. The first time I saw these tiny people moving around in a black box I thought it was magic, especially when I realized that I could actually hear them talking.
At Mona’s house we’d lie on the floor, and the adults would lounge on the beds, and often we’d fall asleep in front of the TV. We’d watch anything—children’s programs, cooking, even football—until the screen went blank. We felt that if we missed anything we’d never get to experience it again. Since returning home I’d found myself getting bored with the long evenings spent by the fireside with nothing to do but talk.
Our TV set was given pride of place in the center of our living area. My father wired it up to a car battery and it flickered to life. It was as if he had brought a little bit of the town into the village. There was a music show on, with drummers playing and women dancing. Mo, Omer, my mother, and I settled down to watch. We stopped eating and drinking and chatting, and we stared at the flickering blue-gray light, the noise of it filling our ears.
For the first half hour or so Grandma was with us. She tried to chat away and poke fun at what was happening on the TV, but all she got in reply was a series of grunts. We remained glued to the screen. Eventually she lost patience, jumping to her feet and declaring in an angry, bitter voice that the TV was an evil abomination. Still no one responded, and so Grandma went and stood right in front of the screen. Now she had our attention.
“This cursed thing!” she declared. “Look at you—like ghosts, or zomb
ies!” She turned on my father. “And you—you spend your money on a curse! On a curse! This is haram—this dancing and people with skimpy clothing. We should spend our time as a family—talking and eating and telling stories. Not watching this rubbish!”
No one said very much. We were used to Grandma’s tantrums. All we hoped was that she would go away and leave us to watch in peace. But Grandma was having none of it.
“You!” she declared, pointing at me. “Go fetch some wood. The fire’s almost finished. And you, Mohammed, go fetch some fresh water.”
“But we’ve only just started watching,” I complained. I reached over and grabbed the last of the wood and threw it onto the fire. “There! Now can I watch?”
“What rubbish is this?” Grandma cried. “This haram TV! Children lying around and refusing to obey their elders. It teaches them nothing but the very worst!”
My father could stand it no longer, and he cracked up laughing. “It’s just a television. . . . Everyone has one in the big towns.”
“It’s just nothing!” Grandma retorted. “You carry on like this and you’ll damage your mind, and you’ll damage your children! Look at you all.”
“Well, I just hope one day I catch you watching it!” my father retorted. “It’ll be just like the radio. At first you never like anything I bring. Then you decide it’s the best thing ever, and that it was all your idea in the first place . . .”
At that, Grandma stomped off angrily to her hut. As she did so we fell about laughing. My father was being naughty, but what he said about the radio was quite true, of course.
Word about the TV spread around the village like wildfire. As evening approached on the second day, children started arriving in droves. When there was no room left for anyone to sit, adults began taking the standing room. My father connected the battery and turned on the TV, and a deep hush settled over the crowd. Fuzzy voices echoed out of the black box, as row upon row of little faces stared into the eerie, flickering light.
Some of the children screamed in surprise when music blared out, or the tiny people spoke in loud voices. At the fence a row of old people were peering over, gazing in disbelief at the scene before them. Like Grandma, I guessed they were trying to work out what witchcraft my father might be up to now. It was made all the more mysterious in that the crowd of children half-obscured the TV’s screen from view.
My mother went around giving the children biscuits and cups of milk. Some families had brought their evening meal with them, and they proceeded to have a makeshift TV dinner in our yard. A week after the arrival of the TV something like a hundred people tried to crowd their way in. They were mainly children, and some had traveled from many miles away.
As more and more arrived, I heard a distinctive cry of rage. Grandma had finally lost her patience with all this TV madness. She came charging out of her hut with a big stick, driving the nearest before her. She beat a path to our gate, where she stood barring the way and resolutely rejecting all who came before her.
“No! No! Go away!” she cried. “There’s no more space! No space! Go home! Go home!”
All that night Grandma remained on guard. And in a strange way she seemed to have found a role for herself in our post-TV world. She had become the keeper of the gate. Yet the children were not to be put off so easily. Their first response was simply to come earlier the following evening. But Grandma changed her tactics to deal with this new threat. Those who had been there one night would be turned away the next.
Grandma would peer into a new arrival’s face, before declaring: “You came yesterday! Why are you coming again today? You go home!”
But while one group of children was being refused entry at the front, others would be shinning up a tree at the back, and leaping into our yard. Inch by inch the ground would be taken up—some sitting, some standing, and some lying on rugs that they had brought with them. The tide of watchers seemed unstoppable.
No one ever argued over which channel to watch, as there was only ever the one. Finally, so many kids crowded onto my bed that it collapsed with a loud crack. Of course, once we realized that no one was hurt we fell about laughing.
Grandma came storming over. “I told you! I told you! This evil thing!
I told you—it will damage your home, your mind, your beds—everything!” Our house had become like the village cinema. Sometimes I’d joke with the others to bring some money next time, or Grandma wouldn’t let them in. But there was no way that my father would ever have dreamed of charging anyone. It just wasn’t in his nature to do so. Week after week it went on like this, until a man on the far side of the village purchased a much bigger TV set, and started to charge people for watching it.
When she heard about this Grandma declared what a clever man he was. Our TV remained free, though, and lots of the village kids still came to watch. It was only a black and white thing, but to them it was like magic. Most of the children couldn’t understand a word, for there was no Zaghawa language programming. So I’d translate for them what was being said, and they soon got to know most of the shows by heart.
My favorite was an English children’s program badly dubbed into Arabic. There were two sisters who were trying to find their long lost parents. Officers from Scotland Yard came to help, riding on horseback and wearing smart black uniforms. The most amazing thing was that each of the sisters had their own handsome boyfriend. No wonder Grandma thought that the TV was teaching us the wrong, haram things.
If a cartoon came on we’d shout to each other: “Come! Come! Film Cartoon has started!”
Even the adults loved the cartoons. Our family favorite was Tom and Jerry—though we nicknamed it “Mo and Jerry,” with Omer being Jerry the mouse. Whenever we watched we’d each choose to be one of the characters. Sometimes we’d argue about who was going to be whom. Strangely enough, Grandma’s hatred of the TV barely seemed to diminish with time. She loved her radio set, but she treated the TV with real loathing.
Now and again I wondered why this was so. Part of me knew that some of what Grandma had said was true. Unlike the radio, the TV killed all conversation. If Grandma had been in charge the TV would have been banned, and we would have learned far more from talking to her for an evening. She was a brilliant mathematician, adding and subtracting in her head without ever making a mistake. It was from Grandma that I had inherited my gift for math.
Whenever my father was away Grandma would still try and put her foot down. She’d hear one of us switching on the TV and come charging over to chase us away.
“Don’t sit in front of that evil thing!” she’d yell. “Stop it! Stop it!”
If my father was away in the Land Rover we’d have no car battery to power up the TV, and then Grandma would come to find us and prod us with her stick.
“Ha! Ha!” she’d declare, gleefully. “So what’re you going to watch today, a blank screen? Time to sleep early! Or maybe this family can actually learn to talk to each other again!”
One evening I was watching a music show with my father, when suddenly he jumped to his feet.
“Look, look!” he exclaimed, jabbing a finger at the screen. “Rathebe! It’s Rathebe—your namesake!”
Sure enough, a caption declared the performer to be “Dolly Rathebe,” the black South African jazz singer. Her hair was a wild Afro, and her arms and legs were covered in bangles. She was singing a raunchy, funky jazz song, and strutting her stuff as she did so. Because she was singing in English, I couldn’t understand a word.
“You named me after her?” I asked, in amazement. “Why? Look at her. She’s wild!”
My father laughed, his eyes shining with excitement. “You only see her image, but I can understand the words. She sings about the rights of the black man to Africa. She sings about Nelson Mandela’s struggle, about the black man’s fight for freedom in South Africa. And what the white man is to South Africa, the Arabs are to Sudan.”
My father was an avid watcher of anything to do with race and politics in South Afr
ica. He reckoned that the South African resistance offered a model for how we Zaghawa, the Fur, and other black African tribes should resist the Arab domination of our country. He was keen to share with me his dreams of a free and golden future for Sudan.
And in me, little Rathebe, he had found a disciple who was eager to learn.
CHAPTER NINE
The White Eyelash Attack
By the end of our first year at school Mona, Najat, Samirah, Makboulah, and I had got the measure of the Arab girls. There were still arguments, of course, but we had learned to stand our ground. They tried telling us that all things from the village were bad—that it meant poverty, sickness, and ignorance. We countered that the city was empty and unfriendly, a place where no one cared for their neighbors. The city was dangerous, like a wild animal. But in the village you could relax among family and friends. At the end of such discussions we’d conclude that we lived in a parallel universe to them.
The Arab girls still tried to scold us if we spoke in our tribal language. They tried telling us that our Arabic was polluted by our native tongue, and poked fun at our pronunciation. But all we had to do to retaliate was to start abusing the Arab girls in our tribal language. We’d tell each other that one had a face like a horse, or another had a nose like a crooked bird’s beak. In no time at all we’d be killing ourselves laughing. While they didn’t understand the words, the Arab girls got the gist of what we were saying, and it drove them wild.
The Arab girls teased us that we had no freedom to fall in love—we just had to obey our parents and marry whomever they chose. They said that we village girls had to break free and live. We accused them of being loose and immoral, of going out with boys before they were married. We even hinted that we knew that they might do things with men prior to marriage. Certainly, the teachers allowed us to have no contact of any kind with boys. Making friends with boys was strictly haram—forbidden—as school was simply for study.
Tears of the Desert Page 12