Earl had swept her off her feet a few months after she had settled with relatives in Arlington, Virginia. At the time, she had been strikingly beautiful, tall, lithe instead of boney thin, with classic Somali high cheekbones, aquiline nose, dazzling white teeth and smooth skin the color of coffee with just a drop or two of milk. Her eyes, while sparkling, contained a glimmer of bad experiences, horrors seen and confined deep within her.
She had come to the United States in 1993 as a refugee, seeking asylum from the tribal killings, rapes and famine that had ravaged southern Somalia following the overthrow of Siad Barre, the country’s dictator for life. Together with her parents, two younger sisters and her little brother, they had fled south from Mogadishu, first by car crammed full with food, clothing and some household possessions. Then on foot, with little food, less clothing and only a pot, a few bowls and utensils. Along with thousands of other innocent civilians who were from the wrong tribe, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, they had arrived in Kismayo, on the coast just north of the Bajeuni Islands and the Kenyan border. It was a backwater port with remnants of Arabic architecture from the time when it had been a way station used by the Sultan of Zanzibar, to transport slaves from the east coast of Africa to the Arabian peninsula. South of Kismayo, the Kenyan Army had sealed the border, closing the land route to safety. Somehow, her parents had avoided the squalid misery of the refugee camps ringing the port and managed to book passage for their four children on a Kenyan tramp steamer heading for Mombassa. The cost was $500 U.S. dollars per head. Her parents stayed behind, waiting for the border to open. Or for another ship. That was the last time she had seen them.
The Kenyan government at first refused the ship permission to land its cargo of displaced humanity. There had only been enough food on board for three days, more than sufficient for the usual one day’s voyage. By the eighth day anchored in sight of Mombassa, even with rationing, Amina and her siblings had been reduced to eating newspaper. Kenya finally yielded to a combination of international pressure, bad publicity and payoffs in the guise of foreign aid.
The family’s luck changed when they disembarked. Amina’s oldest brother, Bashir, an American citizen and a flight mechanic for Northwest Airlines in Minneapolis, had contacted a friend in Nairobi. This man, this stranger had taken them in, protected them from the random street sweeps by the predatory, corrupt Kenyan Police lusting for bribes, sex, or both, and shepherded them through the U.S. immigration process. They miraculously arrived in New York City, in early December, where Bashir met them. Amina was 17 years old at the time.
She, her sisters and brother, lived with Bashir and his wife and their three children, all crowded into their small house, enduring the long harsh Minnesota winter. It hadn’t been the numbing cold that bothered Amina as much as the lack of daylight. She missed the twelve hours of sunshine, the fragrance of the bougainvillea and the sound of the Indian Ocean. She attended a community college, trained as a nurses’ assistant and earned her diploma, a piece of paper that permitted her to work in hospitals and nursing homes for little more than minimum wage. Bashir had given in to her constant imploring for warmth, sun and flowers and agreed to let Amina live with his wife’s sister’s family in Arlington, a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Amina had in turn agreed to go to night school and continue her education.
And then she met Earl in a jazz club in the District. She had gone one Friday evening with some of the girls from her licensed practical nurse class. Earl played the clarinet, was handsome and knew it. He was used to the company of beautiful women. He was slightly taller than her, with a dancer’s narrow hips and a long torso. He was attracted to Amina not only by her looks, her exotic aura and her soft voice with the lilting British accent, but also her inaccessibility. She was gorgeous, unattached, and a proper Muslim Somali young woman. Sex without marriage was not even a possibility. She had broken with her Somali culture and Islam merely by dating without supervision. Earl wooed her constantly, professed his love and stopped going out with all his other women. He flew Amina down to New Orleans, for a chaperoned visit, to meet his Aunt Lucille who had raised him. By the time he proposed, Amina had been won over.
Then it was her turn to introduce Earl to her family. She had started with Bashir, as the oldest brother in the U.S. Their visit to Minneapolis was a disaster. It unleashed a torrent of phone calls from siblings and distant members of her family in the Somali diaspora, who would never even meet Earl. It didn’t matter. Her uncle, one of her mother’s brothers, who lived in Toronto called and berated her for even thinking about marrying outside the faith. Her brother, Abdulaziz called from Sweden, where he was a chemical engineer in a paper factory. He told her marrying a non-Moslem African-American would be a terrible mistake. An aunt, on her father’s side living in Dar-es-Salaam, called at 3 am in the morning, claiming that Amina’s father had come to her in a dream and said he would disown his daughter for forsaking Islam. None of them could change her mind. She was in love.
Bashir and his wife visited her in Virginia and politely met with Earl a second time. Bashir even accompanied Amina to a club and heard Earl play. Afterwards, Bashir had talked frankly to Amina. Sadly, he admitted he was too Americanized now to forbid her to marry Earl. It had been his fault for letting her move from Minnesota to Virginia, too far away for him to have supervised her and prevent her from going astray. He could not and would not force her to come back to Minneapolis and lock her up until a marriage to a Somali could be arranged between families. He said she was no longer his little sister memorizing the Holy Koran without understanding it. She was now an adult with an obligation to use her mind and reason to learn the true meaning of the Koran. She should also use the intelligence that Allah had given her and let her mind rather than her heart guide her. He laid out all of the reasons why she should not marry Earl. Most significantly, something she already knew, a marriage by a Moslem woman to a non-Moslem man was not recognized by Islam. She would be abandoning her faith in the eyes of all Moslems. She would be alienating herself from many in her family when family was so important to Somalis. Earl drank and smoked and his life style as a jazz musician put her at risk of becoming a bad Moslem. Even if she continued to observe and practice Islam on her own, Earl would be a poor role model for their children and it would be difficult for her alone to raise them as good Moslems.
But Bashir had promised her, that if she went ahead and married Earl, contrary to the Koran and against his advice, he and his wife would not reject her. She was still his sister. He had asked her to promise him three things: she would, as soon as possible, apply for U.S. citizenship as the wife of an American citizen; she would practice her faith; and she would continue her education in nursing and become more than just a nurse’s assistant. He had kept his promise and always been a source of support, both financially and emotionally, during the nine years of her marriage. She had only become a U.S. citizen.
They had been married in a civil ceremony by a Justice of the Peace in Arlington. Of course, no Imam would marry them. A wedding in a Baptist Church was totally unacceptable to her. Earl was not a practicing Christian anyway. The first several months of their marriage had been a whirlwind of new experiences, living with a man, her man, lovemaking, traveling around the country, watching Earl play in clubs, being introduced as his wife to musicians who, she noticed, were accompanied by women who were not their wives. She began to feel that she was too different in many ways. Despite Earl’s pressuring her to dress “sharp” so he could show her off, she was uncomfortable and dressed much more modestly than the other women, although she no longer covered her head and shoulders with a scarf. In Memphis, at the barbecue place they said was the best place for wet ribs, she was the only one in their party who ordered lamb instead of pork. She was the only woman who didn’t drink. She did try smoking to fit in, coughed a lot and was the butt of many not so good natured jokes. When she became pregnant, Earl thought it would be better if she stayed home “for her health and that of the
ir baby,” he had said.
She had been alone in their apartment, in Washington, D.C., when Bashir called to tell her their parents had been murdered, trying to make their way back from Kismayo to Galkayo in the northeast. They had been in a mini-van stopped by militia of a Habr Gidr warlord outside Baidoa. They and the other passengers were first robbed and then separated according to clan. As Mijertain, her parents didn’t stand a chance. They were gunned down by Habr Gidr teenagers, high on drugs, crazed with the power they got from their AK-47s, unrestrained by any moral authority of their tribal elders, and illiterate in the teachings of Islam. Her parents’ bodies, and those of the other dead passengers, were left to bloat in the tropical heat by the side of the road. Someone, a Habr Gidr himself, who had known their father and worked with him at the Ministry of Agriculture in Mogadishu, had buried their parents and sent word of their deaths to their clan elders in Galkayo. Amina, overcome with grief, sat in her apartment alone, wailing and clutching her swollen belly with the grandchild of her murdered parents kicking inside.
Seven months pregnant, Amina had flown to Minneapolis to be with her brother and his family, and her younger sisters and brother to honor their parents. The traditional three day mourning period was extended to seven to allow her brother, Abdulaziz, to come from Sweden, and aunts and uncles and cousins to travel from around the U.S. and Canada to pay their respects, cook and sit with the family. Even in this time of grief, many of her relatives shunned her. A few, some of whom had condemned her for marrying outside the faith, had commented on the disrespect of Earl’s absence, even though he was not Moslem. She heard the whispering among the women that no Somali husband would have acted in such a way. She ignored it. She had no reply. She had asked Earl to come but he said he had a “gig in Kansas City,” everyone would be speaking a foreign language and he hadn’t known her parents anyway.
When their baby was born, Earl didn’t hide his disappointment that it wasn’t a son. He was insensitive when they discussed what to name her. Amina insisted on naming their daughter after her mother. Earl favored any “normal” name. Mariam sounded too foreign, he said. Mariam is the same as Mary, mother of Jesus she explained. Earl’s response was “it sounded too Jewish.” “Jesus and his mother were both Jewish,” she snapped back in frustration and anger. That was when she realized the depth of Earl’s ignorance.
In the first few years of their daughter’s life, Earl had more out of town gigs, which lasted longer. When he came back, he was restless and short tempered. He gave her money grudgingly and complained about doctor’s bills, clothing, everything and anything about their daughter. Amina stopped asking for more money and turned to Bashir for support, until she could get a job.
In a way, it had been a relief when Earl walked out on her and Mariam, then nine years old. Amina had felt neither grief nor panic but a sense of freedom to return to the person she knew she was. She had taken stock of her position and given up their apartment in Washington, D.C. She had moved back to live in the townhouse with Bashir’s wife’s sister, Medina, her husband Jama and their family in Arlington. They provided a support network for Mariam, which was essential if Amina was going to go back to work. Now that she was back again in the Somali community, she covered her head, prayed at home and attended mosque on Fridays.
The first week in Virginia, Medina had put charcoal from the barbecue grill into the meersham dabtab and burned unsi, the Somali fragrance of spices, incense and herbs to perfume the apartment and the women’s hair and clothing. The smell triggered a rush of memories of her home in Mogadishu, helping her mother make her own special unsi, their kitchen looking like her chemistry lab at Benadir High School. The odor was both comforting and sorrowful. It made her accept the permanent loss of her mother and recognize that she herself had been dead to her culture during her years of marriage to Earl. She made sure, the next time Medina mixed unsi, they taught Mariam.
She was a CNA, a certified nurses assistant, and they were in demand. At first she had worked for an agency and was assigned, as a day shift nurses aid, to take care of Mrs. Landau, an elderly Jewish widow who lived in Silver Spring. When she started, Mrs. Landau was able to dress and feed herself but needed help washing and getting up from the toilet. Amina took her on long, slow walks when the weather was good and sat and talked with her, when it was not. She went shopping with her and also prepared her meals. Mrs. Landau’s mental condition deteriorated over the next several months to the point where her family moved her to the Bethesda Hebrew Home for the Elderly. Amina was hired by the family to stay with Mrs. Landau during the day, talk to her, take her out for walks around the Home’s grounds, feed her in the cafeteria, and give her an extra measure of care beyond what the nursing home staff could provide. When Mrs. Landau died, Amina saw no need to return to agency work for $10.50 an hour without benefits, when the agency charged clients $22 an hour for her services. Instead, she applied for and was hired as a full time nurses assistant at the Hebrew Home. That had been more than two years ago.
She liked the Hebrew Home and working with elderly people. It was second nature to her, ingrained as part of her culture, to respect and care for them. The attitude of Americans toward the aged was incomprehensible to her. Everything around her proclaimed that the United States was a rich country. The variety and availability of all kinds of foods had astounded her when she first arrived. Huge mounds of vegetables and fruit, regardless of the season, piled high in colorful pyramids in the supermarkets. Processed foods were displayed in bright enticing packages, clean and healthy looking. The pictures of food on the boxes were so real, she had thought even the cardboard would taste better. She still was overwhelmed by the choices and quantities when she accompanied Medina, twice a month, to the huge Costco in Pentagon City. Yet Americans, with all their disposable income and possessions, abandoned their grandparents, parents, or uncles and aunts in institutions, to be cared for by strangers. Sometimes, male attendants were responsible for bathing elderly female residents. She understood that medical professionals were different but, to her, the breach of modesty was unnecessary. Somali homes were traditionally multi-generational. There were always family members around, to provide loving companionship, as well as to do the work of washing and keeping aging parents clean. As poor as we Somalis are she thought, we are wealthy. We respect, provide for and support our elderly.
It was hard for Amina not to be able to give her full care and attention to all of the residents on her floor. She knew she had to follow her supervisor’s instructions, but she looked on each resident as her own mother, aunt, father or uncle. Some of them were basically bed ridden and she had to turn, bathe and dress them. Some needed help walking. Others had to be pushed in wheel chairs. She did what she was told but it hurt her not to be able to spend more time with each one, giving them the respect and companionship she believed they deserved.
She did have her favorites. One was Mrs. Choi, the only Korean in the Home. Prior to coming to the U.S. Amina had never met a Jew. The Jews she had known in Minneapolis and Washington, had all been Caucasian. She knew that the Home was exclusively for Jewish people, but, it never occurred to her that it would be unusual for a Korean to be Jewish. After all, she reasoned, in Islam, people of all races were Moslem. Her uncle, who had been on the Haj, had told her he had met Africans, Arabs, Turks, Mongols, Chinese, Indonesians, even a Norwegian. The vast multitudes on the pilgrimage to Mecca were of every race and nationality, speaking every language under the sun.
Mrs. Choi spoke no English. Her daughter, Grace, had converted to Judaism to marry Stanley Tannenbaum. After Mrs. Choi’s husband had died, Grace had moved her mother from Seoul to the Washington, D.C. area where she had lived with them until she developed advanced dementia and was in need of medical attention. Rumor had it Mr. Tannenbaum had donated a substantial amount of money to the Home. Amina had heard figures from $300,000 to $1 million, so that Mrs. Choi could be there, even though she had never converted. It confirmed her uneasiness about Amer
ican values. If the Tannenbaums had that much money to donate, why not keep Mrs.Choi at home and hire 24 hour nursing care for her? Perhaps the answer was they did not want her around their lovely Potomac home overlooking the river. She knew they rarely visited her.
Mrs. Choi was one of Amina’s favorites because she was always cheerful, smiling at everyone who went by, even though she lived in virtual isolation, unable to communicate in English or Yiddish, the two main languages the residents spoke. Of course, no one at the Home spoke Korean. Amina would brush Mrs. Choi’s long grey, straight hair after dressing her, and sing to her softly in Somali. Mrs. Choi would sit in her wheel chair, nodding her head, smiling, and occasionally alternately talking and singing, in what Amina assumed was Korean.
Amina worked from 6:30 am to 4:30 pm. She preferred this to the night shift. She could be part of her family’s life in the evening, supervise Mariam and help her with her homework. Her work at the Home included bathing, dressing and washing the residents, feeding them breakfast and lunch, getting them mid morning and mid afternoon snacks, served in the tv room or third floor eating area, moving them to their activities, administering their medicines, vitamins, and dietary supplements at all times of day and handling special needs throughout the shift. There was an hour for lunch and two 15 minute breaks usually mid morning and afternoon. Her commute from Arlington was shorter than those CNAs who lived in Germantown or in Prince Georges County, two of the few areas where they could find affordable housing. Still, it required her to leave her house in Virginia by 5:30 am the latest, take a bus to the Metro, the Metro into D.C. and change to the Red Line for her stop at Grosvenor. Once above ground, she either walked if the weather was pleasant or took another bus to the nursing home, when the cold made her uncomfortable.
The Orange Tree Page 2