I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorce Part 1

I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorce.

Nujood Ali;Delphine Minoui.

Nujood, a Modern-Day Heroine.

Once upon a time there was a magical land with legends as astonishing as its houses, which are adorned with such delicate tracery that they look like gingerbread cottages trimmed with icing. A land at the southernmost tip of the Arabian Peninsula, washed by the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. A land steeped in a thousand years of history, where adobe turrets perch on the peaks of serried mountains. A land where the scent of incense wafts gaily around the corners of the narrow cobblestone streets.

This country is called Yemen.

But a very long time ago, grown-ups gave it another name: Arabia Felix, Happy Arabia.

For Yemen inspires dreams. It is the realm of the Queen of Sheba, an incredibly strong and beautiful woman who inflamed the heart of King Solomon and left her mark in the sacred pages of the Bible and the Koran. It is a mysterious place where men never appear in public without curved daggers worn proudly at their waists, while women hide their charms behind thick black veils.

It is a land that lies along an ancient trade route, a country crossed by merchant caravans laden with fine fabrics, cinnamon, and other aromatic spices. These caravans journeyed on for weeks, sometimes months, never stopping, persevering through wind and rain, and the weakest travelers, the stories say, never came home again.

To see Yemen in your mind's eye, imagine a country a little larger than Syria, Greece, and Nepal all rolled into one, and diving headlong into the Gulf of Aden. Out there, in those tempestuous seas, pirates from many lands lie in wait for merchant ships plying their trades in India, Africa, Europe, and America.

In centuries past, many invaders succ.u.mbed to the temptation to claim this lovely land for themselves. Ethiopians came ash.o.r.e armed with their bows and arrows, but were swiftly driven away. Next came the Persians, with their bushy eyebrows, who constructed ca.n.a.ls and fortresses and recruited various native tribes to fight off other invaders. The Portuguese then tried their luck, and set up trading outposts. The Ottomans, who later took up the challenge, held sway in the country for more than a hundred years. Still later, the British, with their white skin, put into port in the south, in Aden, while the Turks set up shop in the north. And then, once the English were gone, Russians from colder climes set their sights upon the south. Like a cake fought over by greedy children, the country gradually split in two.

Grown-ups say that this Arabia Felix has always been the object of envious desire because of its thousand and one treasures. Foreigners covet its oil; its honey is worth its weight in gold; the music of Yemen is captivating, its poetry gentle and refined, its spicy cuisine endlessly pleasing. From around the world, archeologists come to this country to study the architecture of its ruins.

It has been years and years now since the invaders packed up their bags and left, but ever since their departure, Yemen has experienced a series of civil wars too complicated for the pages of children's books. Unified in 1990, the nation still suffers from the wounds left by these many conflicts, like a sick old man, trying to get well, who has lost his bearings and must learn to walk again. Sometimes you even wonder who makes the law in this strange land, where many girls and boys beg in the streets instead of going to school.

Yemen's head of state is a president whose photograph often decorates the display windows of shops, but power in this country lies also with tribal chiefs in turbans who wield enormous authority in the villages, whether it's a question of arms sales, marriage, or the commerce and culture of khat. Then there are those explosions in the capital, Sana'a, in the chic neighborhoods where the diplomatic representatives of foreign nations live, people who drive big cars with tinted windows. And in Yemeni homes, of course, the real law is laid down by fathers and older brothers.

It was in this extraordinary and turbulent country, barely ten years ago, that a little girl named Nujood was born.

A tiny wisp of a thing, Nujood is neither a queen nor a princess. She is a normal girl with parents and plenty of brothers and sisters. Like all children her age, she loves to play hide-and-seek and adores chocolate. She likes to make colored drawings and fantasizes about being a sea turtle, because she has never seen the ocean. When she smiles, a tiny dimple appears in her left cheek.

One cold and gray February evening in 2008, however, that appealing and mischievous grin suddenly melted into bitter tears when her father told her that she was going to wed a man three times her age. It was as if the whole world had landed on her shoulders. Hastily married off a few days later, the little girl resolved to gather all her strength and try to escape her miserable fate. ...

DELPHINE MINOUI.

April 2, 2008.

My head is spinning--I've never seen so many people in my whole life. In the yard outside the courthouse, a crowd is bustling around in every direction: men in suits and ties with bunches of yellowed files tucked under their arms; other men wearing the zanna, the traditional ankle-length tunic of the villages of northern Yemen; and then all these women, shouting and weeping so loudly that I can't understand a word.

I'd love to read their lips to find out what they're saying, but the niqabs that match their long black robes hide everything except their big, round eyes. The women seem furious, as if a tornado had just destroyed their houses. I try to listen closely.

I can catch only a few words--childcare, justice, human rights--and I'm not really sure what they mean. Not far away from me is a broad-shouldered giant wearing his turban jammed down to his eyes; he's carrying a plastic bag full of doc.u.ments and telling anyone who will listen that he has come here to try to get back some land that was stolen from him. He's dashing around like a frantic rabbit, and he almost runs right into me.

What chaos ... It must be like Al-Qa Square, the one in the heart of Sana'a where out-of-work laborers go, the place Aba--Papa--often talks about. There it's every man for himself, and they all want to be the first to snag a job for the day at dawn, just after the first azaan, the traditional summons to prayer called out five times a day by the muezzins from the minarets of their mosques. Poor people are so hungry they've got stones where their hearts should be, and no time to feel pity for the fates of others. Still, I'd like so much for someone here to take my hand, to look at me with kindness. Won't anyone listen to me, for once? It's as if I were invisible. No one sees me: I'm too small for them; I barely come up to their tummies. I'm only ten years old, maybe not even that. Who knows?

I'd imagined the courthouse differently: a calm, clean place, the great house where Good battles Evil, where you can fix all the problems of the world. I'd already seen some courtrooms on my neighbors' television, with judges in long robes. People say they're the ones who can help people in need. So I have to find one and tell him my story. I'm exhausted. It's hot under my veil, I have a headache, and I'm so ashamed. ... Am I strong enough to keep going? No. Yes. Maybe. ... I tell myself it's too late to turn back; the hardest part is over, and I have to go on.

When I left my parents' house early this morning, I promised myself not to set foot there again until I'd gotten what I wanted.

"Off you go--buy some bread for breakfast," my mother told me, giving me 150 Yemeni rials, worth about 75 cents.

As a matter of course, I pinned up my long, curly brown hair under my black head scarf and covered my body with a black coat, which is what all Yemeni women wear out in public. Trembling, feeling faint, I walked only a short way before catching the first minibus that pa.s.sed along the wide avenue leading into town, where I got off at the end of the line. Then, in spite of my fear, for the first time in my life I climbed all alone into a yellow taxi.

Now this endless waiting in the courtyard. To whom should I speak? Unexpectedly, over by the steps leading up to the entrance hall of the big concrete building, I spot what look like a few friendly faces in the crowd: their cheeks dark with dust, three boys in plastic sandals are studying me carefully. They remind me of my little brothers.

"Your weight, ten rials!" one of them calls out to me, shaking a battered old scale.

"Some refreshing tea?" asks another, holding up a small basket full of steaming gla.s.ses.

"Fresh carrot juice?" suggests the third boy, breaking into his nicest smile as he stretches out his right hand in the hope of earning a small coin.

No thanks, I'm not thirsty, and what's on my mind has nothing to do with how much I weigh. If they only knew what brings me here ...

Bewildered, helpless, I look up again into the faces of the many grown-ups hurrying past me. In their long veils, the women all look the same. What kind of a mess have I gotten myself into?

Then I notice a man in a white shirt and black suit walking toward me. A judge, perhaps, or a lawyer? Well, it's an opportunity, so here goes.

"Excuse me, mister, I want to see the judge."

"The judge? Over that way, up the steps," he replies, with hardly a glance at me, before vanishing back into the throng.

I have no choice anymore: I must tackle the staircase now looming before me; it's my last and only chance to get help. I feel dirty and ashamed, but I have to climb these steps, one by one, to go tell my story, to wade through this human flood that grows even bigger the closer I get to the vast entrance hall. I almost fall down, but I catch myself. I've cried so much that my eyes are dry. I'm tired. My feet feel like lead when I finally step onto the marble floor. But I mustn't collapse, not now.

On the white walls, like the ones in a hospital, I can see writing in Arabic, but no matter how I try, I can't manage to read the inscriptions. I was forced to leave school during my second year, right before my life became a nightmare, and aside from my first name, Nujood, I can't write much, which really embarra.s.ses me.

Looking around, I spy a group of men in olive-green uniforms and kepis. They must be policemen, or else soldiers; one of them has a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder. I'm shaking--if they see me, they might arrest me. A little girl running away from home, that just isn't done. Trembling, I discreetly latch on to the first pa.s.sing veil, hoping to get the attention of the unknown woman it conceals. A tiny voice inside me whispers, Go on, Nujood! It's true you're only a girl, but you're also a woman, and a real one, even though you're still having trouble accepting that.

"I want to talk to the judge."

Two big eyes framed in black stare at me in surprise; the lady in front of me hadn't seen me approach her.

"What?"

"I want to talk to the judge."

Is she not understanding me on purpose, so she can ignore me more easily, like the others?

"Which judge are you looking for?"

"I just want to speak to a judge, that's all!"

"But there are lots of judges in this courthouse."

"Take me to a judge--it doesn't matter which one!"

She stares at me in silence, astonished by my determination. Unless it's my shrill little cry that has frozen her solid.

I'm a simple village girl whose family had to move to the capital, and I have always obeyed the orders of my father and brothers. Since forever, I have learned to say yes to everything.

Today I have decided to say no.

Inside of me I have been soiled, contaminated--it's as if part of myself has been stolen from me. No one has the right to keep me from seeking justice. It's my last chance, so I'm not going to give up easily. And this surprised stare, which feels as cold as the marble of the great hall where my cry now echoes strangely, will not make me keep quiet. It's almost noon; I've been wandering desperately in this labyrinth of a courthouse for hours. I want to see the judge!

"Follow me," the woman finally says, gesturing for me to walk along behind her.

The door opens onto a room with brown carpeting. It's full of people, and at the far end, behind a desk, a thin-faced man with a mustache busily replies to the barrage of questions coming at him from all directions. It's the judge, at last.

The atmosphere is noisy, but rea.s.suring. I feel safe. I recognize, in a place of honor on a wall, a framed photograph of Amm Ali, "Uncle Ali": that's what I've been taught in school to call the president of our country, Ali Abdullah al-Saleh, who was elected more than thirty years ago.

Outside, the muezzin issues the midday call to prayer as I sit down, like everyone else, in one of the brown armchairs lined up along the wall. Around me I catch glimpses of familiar faces--or, rather, familiar eyes--from the angry crowd in the courtyard. Certain faces lean toward me in a strange way. They've finally realized that I exist! It's about time. Comforted, I rest my head against the back of the chair and patiently await my turn.

If G.o.d exists, I say to myself, then let Him come save me. I have always recited the five required daily prayers. During Eid al-Fitr, when we celebrate the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting, I dutifully help my mother and sisters with all the cooking. I'm basically a very good girl. Oh, G.o.d, have pity on me! My mind is dizzy with images that come and go. ... I'm swimming; the sea is calm. Then the water becomes choppy. I catch sight of my brother Fares off in the distance, but I can't go to him. When I call to him, he doesn't hear me, so I begin shouting his name. Then gusts of wind blow me backward toward the sh.o.r.e. I struggle, whirling my hands around like propellers--I'm not going to let myself be driven all the way back to where I started, but I'm so close to the sh.o.r.e now, and I've lost sight of Fares. ... Help! I don't want to go back to Khardji, no, I don't want to go back there!

"And what can I do for you?"

A man's voice rouses me from my dozing. It is a curiously gentle voice, with no need to be loud to attract my attention, simply whispering a few words: "And what can I do for you?" At last someone has come to my rescue. I rub my face and recognize, standing tall there in front of me, the judge with the mustache. The crowd has gone, the eyes have disappeared, and the room is almost empty. I have not replied, so the man tries again.

"What do you want?"

This time I answer promptly.

"I want a divorce!"

In Khardji, the village where I was born, women are not taught how to make choices. When she was about sixteen, Shoya, my mother, married my father, Ali Mohammad al-Ahdel, without a word of protest. And when he decided four years later to enlarge the family by choosing a second wife, my mother obediently accepted his decision.

It was with that same resignation that I at first agreed to my marriage, without realizing what was at stake. At my age, you don't ask yourself many questions.

One day, in all innocence, I had asked Omma--Mama--a question.

"How are babies made?"

"You'll find out when you're older," she'd replied, sweeping away my question with a wave of her hand.

So I'd simply put my childish curiosity back in the cupboard and gone out to play in the garden with my brothers and sisters. Our favorite game was hide-and-seek, and the valley of Wadi La'a, in the northern Yemeni province of Hajja, offered a wealth of hiding places where we could easily conceal ourselves: tree trunks, big rocks, caves carved out by time. When we were breathless from too much running around, we'd dive into the cool gra.s.s to be soothed by our little nests of greenery, where the sun caressed our skin and tanned our already dusky cheeks. Rested and refreshed, we'd amuse ourselves further by chasing the chickens and teasing the donkeys with sticks.

My mother bore sixteen children. For her, each pregnancy was a real challenge. She mourned three miscarriages in silence, and she lost one of her babies at birth. And because there was no doctor, four of my brothers and sisters, whom I never knew, died of illness between the ages of two months and four years.

Omma gave birth to me the way she delivered all her children: at home, lying on a woven mat, sweating, suffering terribly, and begging G.o.d to protect her newborn.

Now and then, to satisfy my curiosity, she would speak to me of my arrival.

"You were a long time coming out. The contractions began in the middle of the night, at around two in the morning. And the birth lasted a good half day, in midsummer, in withering heat. It was a Friday, a holy day."

But even if I'd been born on an ordinary weekday, it wouldn't have made much difference. There was never any question of Omma giving birth in a hospital. Our village was all the way at the end of the valley, far from any medical facilities, and Khardji was only five little stone houses without any grocery store, garage, barber, city hall, or even a mosque. There was no way to get there except by mule. Only a few brave pickup drivers dared take the rocky path along the edge of the ravine, a road so bad they had to change their tires every two months. So imagine the scene if my mother had chosen to go to the hospital: she would have given birth right out in the open! Omma says that even the mobile medical clinics never risked trying to reach Khardji.

Whenever she was worn out by my questions and forgot to tell me the end of my story, I would spur Omma on.

"But then who acted as nurse in our house?"

"Well, luckily, your big sister Jamila was there. As always, she was the one who helped me cut the cord, with a kitchen knife. Then she gave you your first bath, before wrapping you in a cloth. Nujood is a Bedouin name, people say, and it was your grand father Jad who gave it to you."

"Omma, was I born in June or July? Or right in the middle of August?"

This is the point at which Omma usually begins to get testy.

"Nujood, when are you going to stop pestering me like this?"

And that puts an end to my questions.

Actually, she stops answering me because she doesn't know what to say, since my name does not appear in any way in the official registers. Out in the countryside, people have bushels of babies without bothering with ident.i.ty cards. As for the year of my birth, who knows? By deduction, my mother says today that I must be around ten, but I could just as well be eight or nine. Sometimes, when I'm persistent, Omma undertakes a careful calculation to try to establish the birth order of her children. For her reference points she uses the seasons, the deaths of relatives, the marriages of certain cousins, the times we moved house, and so on. It's a real feat of mental acrobatics.

And so, after an accounting much more complicated than when she goes to the corner grocery store in Sana'a, she deduces each time that Jamila is the oldest child, followed by Mohammad, the first boy (and "second man" of the family, the one who has the power of decision right after my father). Next are Mona the mysterious and Fares the impetuous. And then me, followed by my "pet" sister, Haifa, who's almost as tall as I am. Finally, Morad, Abdo, a.s.sil, Khaled, and the last little girl, Rawdha with the curly hair. As for Dowla, my "aunt" (and my father's second wife, who is also one of his distant cousins), she has five children.

"Omma's a good laying hen," Mona often says with a laugh when she feels like teasing our mother, and I remember waking up more than once in the morning to find a newborn baby in Omma's bed for her to cluck over. She'll never stop.

Omma does remember, however, being visited once by the representative of an a.s.sociation called "family planning." They gave her a prescription for tablets to keep her from getting pregnant, and she took them from time to time, on days when she remembered them. One month later, though, to her great surprise, her belly began to swell again, and she decided that such was life: sometimes you cannot go against nature.

Khardji is well named. In Arabic, khardji means "outside"--in other words, at the ends of the earth. Most geographers don't even take the trouble to put this microscopic place on any maps. Let's just say that Khardji is not too far from Hajja, an important city in northwestern Yemen, to the north of Sana'a. Traveling between this tiny lost locality and the capital requires at least four hours on paved road, and the same again over sand and rubble. When my brothers used to set out in the morning for cla.s.ses, they walked for a good two hours to reach the school, which was in a larger village in the valley. School was reserved for them, since my father, a very protective man, considered girls too fragile and vulnerable to venture out alone on those almost deserted paths where danger lurked behind every cactus. Besides, neither he nor my mother knew how to read or write, so they didn't really see any need for their girls to learn, either. Out in the countryside, most of the women are illiterate.

So I grew up in the school of the great outdoors, watching Omma take care of the house and itching for the day I would be old enough to tag along with my two big sisters, Jamila and Mona, when they left to fetch water from the spring in little yellow jerry cans. The climate in Yemen is so dry that everyone must drink several liters of water every day to avoid dehydration. As soon as I learned to walk, the river became one of my chief haunts. It flowed past only a few yards below the house, and was quite useful to us: Omma did our laundry there, and rinsed out the cooking pots after every meal in its clear waters. After the men left for the fields in the morning, the women went to the river to wash in the shade of the tall trees. On stormy days, we'd take refuge at home from the lightning and rain, but as soon as the sun's rays broke through the clouds again, we children would dash back to the river, now swollen with water that came up to my neck. To keep its banks from overflowing, my brothers would build little dikes to channel its current.

On their way home from school, the boys would gather branches to feed the fire for the tandoor, the traditional cylindrical clay oven in which we cooked khobz, our Yemeni bread. My older sisters were experts in the preparation of these crusty flatbreads, which we sometimes drizzled with honey, "the gold of Yemen," as the grown-ups say. The honey of our region is especially famous, and my father had several beehives he cared for with astonishing tenderness. Omma never tired of telling us that honey was good for the health and provided energy.

Supper was traditionally eaten around a sofrah, a large cloth spread out on the floor, which many Arab Muslims use instead of a table at mealtime. As soon as Omma had set down the piping-hot stewpot full of salta, a spicy ragout of beef or mutton in an aromatic fenugreek sauce, we would plunge in our hands to roll up little b.a.l.l.s of rice and meat that swiftly vanished down our throats. By imitating our parents, we learned to eat straight from the serving dishes. No plates, no forks, no knives: that's how we eat in the villages of Yemen.

Now and then Omma would take us to the market held every Sat.u.r.day in the heart of the valley, and for us, this was a major excursion. We'd go there on donkeys to stock up on provisions. If the sun beat down too harshly, Omma would wear a straw hat over the black veil that covered a good part of her face. She looked like a sunflower!

We were living rather happily, to the rhythm of the sun. It was a simple life, but peaceful, without electricity or running water. Off behind a bush, the toilet was just a hole within low brick walls. Decorated modestly with a few cushions lying on the floor, the main room of our home turned into a bedroom at night. To go from one room to another, we had to cross the central courtyard, which became our living room in the summer, adapting itself to all our family's needs. Omma would set up an outdoor kitchen there, simmering saltas on the wood fire while she nursed the youngest children. My brothers would study the alphabet out in the fresh air. We girls would take naps on a mattress of straw.

My father was not often at home. He usually rose at first light to take his animals out to graze. He had eighty sheep and four cows, which gave us enough milk to make b.u.t.ter, yogurt, and soft white cheese. Whenever he went to visit our next-door neighbors, he always wore a brown jacket over his zanna and a ceremonial dagger called a jambia at his belt. The men of my country all wear this sharp, hand-decorated dagger, which is said to be a symbol of authority, manhood, and prestige in Yemeni society. And it's true that it gave our father a certain self-a.s.surance, a noticeable dash of style. I was proud of my Aba. But as I understand it, these weapons are more than simple decoration, since everyone wants to be the one wearing the handsomest jambia. And their cost varies, depending on whether the handle is made of plastic, ivory, or real rhinoceros horn. According to the codes of our tribal culture, it is forbidden to use these daggers in self-defense or to attack an adversary during an argument. On the contrary: the jambia may be used to help resolve conflicts and is, above all, a symbol of tribal justice. My father would never have imagined he would ever need his, until that unlucky day when we were forced to flee our village within twenty-four hours.

I was between two and three years old when the scandal broke out. The circ.u.mstances were most unusual: Omma was in the capital, Sana'a, for health problems, and for reasons surely related to her absence--the details of which were unknown to me at the time--a violent dispute broke out between my father and the other villagers in Khardji. During the arguments, my sister Mona's name kept coming up. It was then decided to resolve the conflict in the tribal manner, by placing jambias and bundles of rial notes between the protagonists, but the discussion degenerated and, in an exceptional breach of protocol, blades were drawn. The other villagers accused my family of having trampled the honor of Khardji and stained its reputation. My father was beside himself. He felt swindled, demeaned by those he had thought were his friends. All I knew was that Mona, the second daughter of our family and thirteen years old at most, had suddenly gotten married. What, exactly, had happened? I was too little to understand. One day, I would find out, but at the time I knew only that we had to leave right away--and leave everything behind: sheep, cows, chickens, bees, and our memories of what I had thought was a small corner of paradise.

Our arrival in Sana'a was quite a shock. The capital was a blur of dust and noise that was hard to get used to.

The contrast between the green Wadi La'a valley and the barrenness of the sprawling city was brutal, because outside the ancient heart of the city, with its lovely traditional adobe houses, their windows outlined in lacy white designs, the urban landscape becomes a vulgar confusion of dismal concrete buildings. Out in the street, I was exactly on a level with all the exhaust pipes belching diesel fumes, which made my throat sore. There were hardly any parks where we children could run and play, and you had to buy tickets to most of the amus.e.m.e.nt parks, so only rich people went there.

We moved into the ground floor of a slum building on a garbage-strewn alley in the neighborhood of Al-Qa. Aba was depressed. He hardly spoke. He had lost his appet.i.te. How could a simple illiterate peasant without a diploma hope to support his family in this capital, already collapsing under its burden of unemployed people? Other villagers had already come to seek their fortunes here only to run into a wall of problems. Some men had been reduced to sending their wives and children to beg for coins in public squares. By knocking on doors, my father finally landed a job as a sweeper for the local sanitation authority, at a salary that barely paid our rent, and whenever we were late with that, our landlord would shout angrily at us. Omma would weep, and no one could sweeten her sadness.

When he was twelve years old, Fares, the fourth child in the family, began to want the things all boys long for at his age. Every day he'd demand money to go buy himself candies, stylish trousers, and new shoes like the ones we saw in billboard advertis.e.m.e.nts. Beautiful, brand-new shoes that would have cost our father more than a month's salary! Jolly and rambunctious by nature, Fares kept demanding more and more, and even began to threaten my parents, telling them he would run away if they didn't manage to satisfy his cravings. He was a show-off, true, but he was still my favorite brother. At least he didn't hit me like Mohammad, my eldest brother, who acted like the head of the family. I admired Fares for his ambition, his energy, his way of standing up to everyone without worrying about their reactions. He made choices and stuck to them, even if he had to take on the entire family. One day, after an argument with our father, he left the house and did not come back.