I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced

11. When I Become a Lawyer…

September 16, 2008

The wind is blowing in Sana’a, the wind at summer’s end that heralds the return of cool evenings and the first sprinkles of rain. Once again, my little brothers and sisters will be able to play in the puddles with the other neighborhood children. Outdoors, the trees will soon turn yellow, and the blanket peddlers will reappear at the intersections.

For me, this wind is finally a back-to-school wind, the moment I have so longed for. I had trouble sleeping last night; before dropping off, I was careful to fill my new brown cloth backpack with brand-new notebooks. On a scrap of paper, I practiced writing my name, and Malak’s name, too. I thought a lot about my former classmate, but unfortunately I’m registered at a different school, so I won’t see her.

In my dreams I saw crisp blank notebooks, colored pencils, and lots of girls my age all around me. My nightmares finally stopped a few weeks ago; I no longer wake up in a sweat, weeping, my mouth dry, thinking about the door bursting open and the oil lamp being knocked over. Instead, I’ve been dreaming about school, like a wish you say boldly out loud, hoping it will finally come true.

When I opened my eyes this morning, the first thing I felt was my heart beating excitedly. Then I tiptoed off to brush my teeth and comb my hair. The other women and girls of the family were still sleeping, lying in a row on the floor in the little back room. Next door, in the main room where the men sleep, flies were buzzing around. Before I put on my new schoolgirl’s uniform-a long green dress and a white scarf-I ran cool water over my face for a long time.

“Haïfa, rise and shine, we’ll be late!”

Her hair every which way, half her face creased by the pillow, my little sister has trouble waking up. While I dash to the door to wait for the taxi, Omma helps her dress and put on her shoes. Now she can’t find her head scarf. Never mind, she’ll wear a different one-a bit stained, it’s true, but we’ll do better tomorrow. The driver is already here, sitting behind the wheel. The international humanitarian association that is paying our school fees and moving expenses has sent him to be our “school bus.”

“Are you ready?” he asks us.

“Yes.”

“Well, let’s go!”

Now my heart is really pounding. I grab my backpack and pull it proudly over my shoulders. Before climbing into the taxi, we kiss Omma, to whose dress little Rawdha is clinging as she waves bye-bye to us. Suddenly she spots some sheep trotting along in the distance and lets out a peal of laughter. Our little concrete house, at the very end of a no-exit dirt road, is behind a Coca-Cola factory and a field where half the land lies fallow, so shepherds bring their flocks there at daybreak.

Sitting side by side in the backseat, Haïfa and I smile conspiratorially at each other when we hear the engine start up. Without saying a word, we both know that at this moment we are insanely happy. And nervous. I’ve waited so long for the day when I could finally draw new pictures, learn Arabic, study the Koran and arithmetic. When I had to leave school last February, I knew how to count to a hundred. Now I want to learn to count to a million!

My nose pressed to the window, I glance up at the pure blue sky. This morning, the wind has chased away every cloud. The streets are astonishingly empty; the shopkeepers haven’t raised their corrugated-iron curtains yet. For once, the old neighbor who constantly complains about the stream of journalists coming to our door hasn’t come out to spy on us from his front steps. The corner bakery is still closed, with no one waiting in line. Most unusually, this year classes are beginning around the same time as Ramadan, and half the city is still asleep.

This is the first time I am fasting between the morning and evening prayers, like the grown-ups. For a few days at the beginning it wasn’t easy, especially because of the heat that dries out your throat and makes you very thirsty, and I even thought I might pass out, but I’ve quickly learned to love this long month of reflection and celebration, during which our lives differ from the normal routines we follow the rest of the year. When the sun dips behind the houses in late afternoon, we eat things suitable for Ramadan: dates, shorba-a barley soup-and floris-little turnovers of potatoes and meat. And we stay up late, sometimes until three in the morning! At night the restaurants are packed with people, and the neon signs for clothing and toy stores stay lighted for long hours. Downtown, not far from Bab al-Yemen, it’s so crowded that it’s almost impossible to move.

When I awoke this morning around five o’clock, for the first prayer of the day, I thanked God for not abandoning me these last few months. I asked him to help me remain in good health and have a successful second year in primary school. I also prayed for help for Aba and Omma, for them to earn some money so that my brothers can stop begging in the streets, and Fares can smile again the way he used to. If only school could be compulsory for all children; that would keep boys like him from being forced to hawk chewing gum at red lights. I also thought a lot about Jad, my grandfather; I miss him, but I told myself that up above, he must be proud of me.

The taxi has just turned onto the main avenue, the one leading to the airport. Once we’ve gone through the army checkpoint, we peel off to the right, passing several concrete houses whose flat roofs sport satellite dishes. Maybe one day there will be a television in our home, too. The driver presses a button and the rear windows open automatically. In the distance, I can hear girls singing, their voices growing louder as we drive along.

“Here we are,” announces our chauffeur, parking in front of a big black iron gate.

The trip has taken barely five minutes. I feel a thrill of excitement and apprehension. Now the girls’ song is so close that I recognize the words: an old nursery rhyme I must have learned last year. Behind this gate is my new school.

“Good morning, Nujood!”

Shada! What a surprise! I throw myself into her arms and hug her tightly. She made certain to come witness this great day. If only she knew how reassured I am to see a familiar face.

The gate opens onto a large graveled courtyard embraced on three sides by a gray-brick two-story building housing a dozen classrooms. All the girls wear the same green and white uniform that Haïfa and I have on. I don’t know anyone, and it’s intimidating. Shada introduces me to the principal, Njala Matri, a woman veiled in black, except for her eyes.

“Kifalek, Nujood? How are you?”

Her voice is both gentle and confident. She invites us to follow her to her office at the far end of the courtyard. A pot of plastic flowers sits on the red tablecloth of the conference table, and a large poster of President Ali Abdullah al-Saleh decorates the main wall. At a desk, a teacher sits typing on a computer keyboard. After closing the office door, Njala Matri lifts the niqab from her face. She’s so pretty! She has blue-gray eyes and milk-white skin.

“Nujood, you are welcome here. This school is your home.”

I’m beginning to relax a little. The principal explains to us that the school, which is financed by donations from local residents, accepts about twelve hundred students each year, and has between forty and fifty per class. Here, she insists, the women teachers listen to their girl pupils, who even have the right to speak to them after class if they feel the need to ask questions of a more personal nature.

Hearing that, I feel relieved. I had begun to believe that I would never manage to return to school. One teacher had even opposed my attendance at first.

“You understand, she’s not a little girl like the others,” this teacher had whispered to Shada when we’d first visited the school. “After all, she’s had relations, you know, with a man. That might have an effect on her classmates.”

Shada must have considered other offers, and very attractive ones, but in her opinion they were too extravagant: studies abroad financed by an international organization, or attendance at a private school in Sana’a. Was I really cut out for that? Was I ready to leave my family, especially Haïfa? No, not now. Not yet. So I chose the school in the nearby neighborhood of Rawdha, so that people would stop staring at me, so that I would be treated like everyone else, like my little sister.

“Well, hi there, Nujood! Oh, you are sooooooooo cute!”

Oops-not this time, I guess! A woman with blue eyes, perfect posture, and a mauve scarf awkwardly draped over her short hair has just appeared in the middle of the courtyard. Surrounded by schoolgirls, she’s waving her hands around and talking loudly, but the words pouring out seem like gibberish. Must be a foreign language.

Shada explains to me that she works for Glamour, an important American women’s magazine. She has come all the way to Yemen because of me. I’m going to have to tell my story again. Over and over. And once again, my face will freeze when we get to those personal questions I always find so painful to answer. And that anguish I try so hard to stifle will well up deep in my heart.

All of a sudden, the bell rings. Saved! Pointing with a stick, one of the teachers, Najmiya, signals to the girls to line up along the wall. I hurry to obey. Then she ushers my group into a classroom, where she invites us to sit down at the desks lined up there in two sections. I choose one next to a window: not up in the front of the room, nor all the way in the back, but in the third row, next to two new classmates whose first names I haven’t yet learned. My eyes glued to the blackboard, I try to decipher the letters our teacher has just written in white chalk: Ra-ma-dan Ka-rim. Ramadan Karim! Happy Ramadan! Like a puzzle finally solved, the words slip back into place in my memory. And my racing heart returns to its normal beat.

While the teacher is encouraging us to recite the words of our national anthem, I suddenly focus on the rustle of turning pages. This is the true sound of school, found again at last.

For a moment, I think about a story the principal told Shada a little while ago.

“Last year, one of our thirteen-year-old pupils left school suddenly, without giving a reason. At first I thought she would be back. And then the weeks went by, but we never heard any news of her. Until the day a few months ago when I learned that the child had gotten married and had a baby. At thirteen!”

With the best of intentions, I’m sure, Njala Matri had been careful to whisper this to Shada so that I wouldn’t hear her, but what she doesn’t know is that for the last few weeks I’ve been formulating a plan. Yes; I’ve made up my mind. When I grow up, I’ll be a lawyer, like Shada, to defend other little girls like me. If I can, I’ll propose that the legal age for marriage be raised to eighteen. Or twenty. Or even twenty-two! I will have to be strong and tenacious. I must learn not to be afraid of looking men right in the eye when I speak to them. In fact, one of these days I’ll have to get up enough courage to tell Aba that I don’t agree with him when he says that, after all, the Prophet married Aïsha when she was only nine years old. Like Shada, I will wear high heels, and I will not cover my face. That niqab-you can’t breathe under it! But first things first: I will have to do my homework well. I must be a good student, so that I can hope to go to college and study law. If I work hard, I’ll get there.

Ever since I ran away to the courthouse, events have moved so quickly that I haven’t yet had a chance to fully understand everything that has happened to me. I will definitely need some time, and patience. Shada has suggested more than once, actually, that I see a doctor who she says could help me, and each time I’ve decided to cancel the appointment at the last minute. It’s upsetting, isn’t it, to go to a doctor you don’t know? So Shada finally gave up.

It’s true that at first I was eaten up with shame-shame, the fear of being different from other people, and a painful feeling of inferiority. I couldn’t help having the strange notion that I’d been going through my ordeal all alone, that I’d been the anonymous victim of something no one else could understand.

But recently I’ve realized that my case was not unique. What happened to me and to that thirteen-year-old schoolgirl-no one talks much about those stories, but there are more of them than you might imagine. A few weeks ago Shada introduced me to Arwa and Rym, two girls who had just filed for divorce. When I saw them for the first time, I gave them big hugs, as if they’d been my sisters. Their stories had a huge impact on me. At nine, Arwa was forced by her father to marry a man twenty-five years older than she was, but after hearing about me on the television, she decided one morning to go for help to the hospital nearest her home, in the village of Jibla, to the south of Sana’a. Rym was twelve when her life was turned upside down by her parents’ divorce. For revenge, her father married her off to a thirty-one-year-old cousin. After several attempts at suicide, Rym found the courage to knock on the courthouse door.

I was proud to learn that my story had helped them find the means to defend themselves, and I feel responsible in a small way for their decisions to rebel against their husbands. Touched by their un-happiness, I empathized deeply with their suffering, and listening to them speak, I saw my misfortunes reflected in the mirror of theirs. I thought, Khalass-enough. Marriage was invented to make girls miserable. I will never get married again, not ever again. Machi! Machtich!

I often think about what happened to Mona. Life hasn’t smiled on her, either. And a week ago, my big sister Jamila was finally released from prison. When she walked into our house, I threw my arms around her. What a surprise to see her again!

She had had to share her cell with criminals, even with women accused of killing their husbands. In our house, though, we aren’t talking about such things, so as not to spoil Jamila’s homecoming. And for the first time in a long while, it’s true, our family is once again complete. After the joy of being reunited, however, the quarreling began again, and the other day my sisters had a spat. Although Mona had finally agreed to sign that famous paper to save Jamila, she couldn’t help being angry at her, accusing her sister of having broken up her family. Nothing will ever be the same again between the two of them, and yet, all this trouble is the husband’s fault. Sometimes I think that one day I will have to speak to Fares and make him promise that if he gets married, he will be the sweetest of husbands.

A plane crosses the sky, leaving behind a long white trail that puffs up as I watch it. Meanwhile, the plane goes on its way, and will surely land soon at the nearby airport. Perhaps it has come from France, or maybe Bahrain? Which of those two countries is closer to us, anyway? I’ll have to ask Shada. One day I, too, will fly away in the sky, and I’ll go to the far ends of the earth. It seems that at least three hundred people can fit into an airplane. A neighbor who just returned from Saudi Arabia told me that the inside of a plane looks like a huge living room, where you can read magazines while you order your meal on a tray. In the plane, he added, everyone eats with real cutlery, just like in the bizzeria!

The teacher’s high-pitched voice finally rouses me from my reverie.

“Who would like to recite the Fatiha, the first sura of the Koran?” she asks, addressing the en tire class.

With an enthusiasm I haven’t dared feel for a very long time, I quickly raise my hand, stretching high so that everyone can see me. It’s strange; for once I haven’t bothered to think something over before acting. I didn’t ask myself what Aba would think, or what people might say behind my back. I, Nujood, ten years old-I have chosen to answer a question. And this choice is mine alone.

“Nujood?” says the teacher, turning to look at me.

My eagerness has caught her eye.

Taking a deep breath, I launch myself from my seat, ramrod straight, and begin rummaging through my memory to find the verses of the Koran I learned last year.

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful,

the Most Compassionate.

Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Universe,

The Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate,

Sovereign of the Day of Judgment!

You alone we worship, and to You alone we turn for help.

Guide us to the straight path,

The path of those whom You have favored,

Not of those who have incurred Your wrath,

Nor of those who have gone astray.

A solemn silence now reigns in the classroom.

“Bravo, Nujood. May Allah protect you!” The teacher applauds, encouraging the other pupils to do the same. Then she looks over at the other side of the room, seeking a new candidate.

With a smile, I sit down again at my desk. Glancing around me, I can’t help heaving a great sigh of relief. In my green and white uniform, I’m only one of fifty girls in this class. I am a pupil in the second year of primary school. I have just started classes again, like thousands of other little Yemeni girls. When I go home this afternoon, I will have homework to do, and drawings to make with colored pencils.

Today I finally feel that I’ve become a little girl again. A normal little girl. Like before. I’m just me.