I looked over to Uncle Nasser who was stood talking to the lady who had opened the door.
“Can I go to our room for a bit please? I’m tired,” I asked, putting my hand up and rubbing my forehead as the sweat dripped from me.
There were four rooms off the hallway to the entrance, Uncle Nasser came over and guided us to one of them which was a small room.
As we walked in all we could see in the way of furniture were three bundles of sheets and blankets laid out on the floor made up to look like beds.
“You’re bloody kidding me!” Issy said in a sharp tone.
“Just leave it, we’ll deal with it later, let’s just put our stuff down and have a rest,” Yas said, flinging her bag on one of the bundles of blankets. Then Yas turned to Uncle Nasser, who was stood outside the door watching us.
“Do you mind? We need some privacy,” she said, shutting the door in his face. We all sat down on a bundle on the floor claiming our right to a bed each.
“This is crap! I can’t believe Dad did this to us, I think we should call him and tell him we want to go home,” Yas sighed, looking around the room.
The room was painted an off white; it looked like it had been painted many years earlier because it was flaking. There were a few little pictures hung on the walls of buildings that we later found out were mosques, and there was a little window that looked over onto a courtyard that was full of junk and litter. It stank!
“I need the toilet,” I said, holding myself like I needed a pee. “Yas, you ask pleeeease!” I begged.
Yas got up and opened the door only to see Uncle Nasser still lurking in the hallway.
“Toilet?” she mumbled under her breath. None of us could be bothered to talk to any of them at that point but it was necessary!
I begged my sisters to come with me so Uncle Nasser walked us all over to a little door next to what looked like the kitchen and opened it.
Inside this tiny square room was a concrete floor with a hole in the corner, with a bucket full of water on the side that had a little jug in it.
“I really need to pee, but I don’t know what that is.” I turned to Uncle Nasser, a look of desperation on my face.
He sharply called out and the female who opened the door came running out of one of the rooms, he then said something to her and walked off. The female, who could speak good English and was called Sofia, went inside the toilet and started to demonstrate to us how to use the toilet, by squatting down and showing us that we needed to pee over the hole then use the jug of water to wash ourselves with it.
“Is she taking the piss?” Issy joked as Yas started to giggle, but I couldn’t see the funny side, I was bursting to go to the toilet!
“Pleeeease tell me someone’s got some tissue, I reeeally need to go!” I pleaded, but my sisters just looked at me with smirks on their faces as they shrugged their shoulders.
“I really don’t know why you’re smirking, you will need to go in a minute as well!” I yelled at them, reluctantly making my way into the toilet.
All three of us took it in turn to use the toilet, then went back to our room moaning about how horrible it was to have to use a toilet in that way.
As soon as we got to our room, uncle Nasser came and told us we needed to go and sit with the women in the other room, but Issy told him we were tired and wanted to rest; although he wasn’t happy with us, he left us alone.
We stayed in the room for a bit fiddling about in our suitcases and talking when, all of a sudden, at the same time, we spotted a cockroach running across the room and up the wall! We started screaming and scarpered out into the hallway, bringing Uncle Nasser and the women running from the room wondering what on earth was going on!
“There’s a flipping cockroach in our room!” Issy screamed at them.
Not understanding what she was saying, we stood at the edge of the door and pointed to the cockroach, which was by this time on the top wall by the ceiling.
“It’s OK, it’s OK, no hurt you,” was all Uncle Nasser had to say, then he made his way inside the room to hit the cockroach down from the wall.
We all screamed when he then started flattening it with his shoe! By the end of this I was shaking and my sisters had had enough!
“Can we call our dad please? We want to speak to him now!” Yas demanded, but Uncle Nasser wasn’t listening to any demands.
“No, tomorrow. No phone here, I take you tomorrow, now come sit with us, have food,” he insisted, putting his arm out and escorting us into the room where the other women were sat. We had no choice but to do as we were told, it felt as though if we didn’t do as we were told something bad would happen, we felt scared, almost intimidated.
There were only three women left by this time, and although they all wore long dresses and head scarfs none of these women had their faces covered.
We were happy Sofia could speak good English; the flat belonged to her and her husband, who was Uncle Nasser’s friend. The other two females were her mother-in-law and her husband’s grandmother.
We couldn’t eat the food they cooked that day because we didn’t know what much of it was; although we liked the rice it was too spicy for us, so we ate very little and ended up eating bread with a cup of tea. After we ate we decided we were going to bed and went to our room for the night.
It had been a long day for all of us and we were tired. We took as many clothes as we could and stuffed them under the door to try and stop any cockroaches from coming in to our room through the gap under the door.
As we lay down on our blankets and went over the day’s events, we couldn’t believe what had happened to us. We decided we would ring Dad first thing in the morning and let him know what was going on. Obviously things must have changed since Dad was last here. Dad couldn’t know how bad things were now, otherwise he would never have brought us here. There were no fruit trees, no beautiful streets and the heat was unbearable!
We tried to fall asleep that night but it took forever because the floor was made of concrete and we only had blankets to sleep on. The ceiling fan was buzzing around but just like the airport, it was making lots of noise but bringing no relief to the heat.
I woke up the next morning and for a split second before I opened my eyes I prayed that everything that had happened had been a bad dream, but as soon as I tried to move I knew it wasn’t. My back was in agony from sleeping on the floor.
I looked over at my sisters and saw they were lying there with their eyes open, just silently staring at the ceiling. I sat up to stretch but my back was as stiff as a plank of wood!
“Oh my God! Anyone’s back hurting as much as mine?” I moaned in agony.
“Yep!” they both replied together.
“I really want a shower, but I’m scared they’re gonna take me outside and hose me down,” Issy said sarcastically.
“Oh c’mon, they must have a shower!” I said, looking over for reassurance.
“Did you see a shower hanging from anywhere in that toilet? Because all I saw was a bucket and a jug!” Issy continued. “Anyway, I’m going to ask because I stink!” she said, sniffing her armpits.
We got up and dressed, then we started to dig out our toothbrushes and stuff from our bags. We headed towards the door to take the clothes away that we had stacked up against the door the night before, but as we picked the clothes up we nearly died with shock as cockroaches emerged from inside the clothes and started running around the room disappearing into our beds!
We squealed in fear, running around the room, grabbing each other in panic, then as quickly as we could we opened the door and ran outside into the hallway.
Sofia was stood in the kitchen doorway, a look of complete shock on her face as we ran out jumping around.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, worriedly, as we continued to scream.
“Bloody cockroaches, they’re everywhere!” I sobbed, tears running down my face, “I can’t take this anymore, I want to go home. I want my dad!”
My s
isters hugged me while I cried like a baby, I could feel them shaking and saw that they were trying hard to hold back their own tears.
“It’ll be OK Moo, I promise, we’ll go and clean the room, won’t we Issy?”
I could see Issy had no intention of cleaning anything; she was just as scared as I was! Yas stroked my hair while she tried to calm me down.
“How are you going to clean them? They are everywhere, I hate them!” I sobbed.
Sofia came over to me. “It’s OK really, they are harmless, I will spray your room so they won’t come in any more, is that OK?” she asked.
She went into the kitchen and came back with some spray. “See, this will kill them all, you go in the other room and I will clean your room,” she told us with a smile.
Sofia went and sprayed our room; she also picked up our shower stuff we dropped in our panic to get away from the cockroaches.
When Issy asked where our uncle was she told us he had gone out and would be back later. So then we asked her if we could have a shower and just like Issy had thought, there was no shower.
Sofia then showed us the routine of having a shower, which meant we would have to boil water in a huge saucepan on a tiny stove, and then transfer it to a huge bucket. Then we would have to pour it over ourselves from the bucket with a jug while washing ourselves. It took a while to get used to, but when you’re hot and sweaty you will do anything to cool down!
After we had all showered we had some bread and cups of tea as there was very little much more we could find that we liked to eat.
Sofia then showed us around the flat. The kitchen was tiny, it had a tiny sink with a hosepipe that came from a hole in the wall and had a tap attached to it. The cooker had two cooker heads with a small oven; they also had a small fridge. There was no washing machine, and when we asked her about one she didn’t have a clue what we were talking about!
Most of the flooring in the flat was very old tiles and they had a few little rugs here and there; there were no beds and no chairs or tables or cupboards, their clothes were all in big trunk-like suitcases in the side of their bedrooms. In the main room where everyone sat, there were mattresses with covers on them on the floor and that’s where everyone sat. The room had a nice big rug in it. Sofia’s mother-in-law and grandmother spent most of their time in their own room; it looked like they shared a room at the time because we had taken somebody’s room.
That day while Uncle Nasser was out, we asked Sofia questions about why the women wore those black clothes. She told us that almost all the women in Yemen wore that black long coat to cover up. It was called an ‘abaya’, a one-piece long coat with a head covering called the ‘niqab’ which covered the whole face except the eyes, and then there was a veil to cover the whole face. The head scarf was called the ‘hijab’ and that was always worn inside the house. She told us it was worn for religious purposes because they are Muslim women, but not all women wore it even if they were Muslim.
She told us those who choose not to wear it get frowned upon by some people because they are looked upon as bad girls or not from a good family. Sofia said women can wear whatever they want underneath their abayas or when they were alone at home.
The long dresses that the men wore are called ‘zennas’ or ‘thobe’; also clothing that was their tradition was a skirt called ‘footah’ which they wrapped around their waist and was held up with a belt. Mostly the men wore sandals or flip-flops with this clothing because of the heat.
After Sofia had cleaned our room we got ready and decided we were going out to try and phone Dad, after all our uncle did promise us we could call him today; we also wanted to go out and have a look around.
Just as we were about to leave Sofia stopped us; she warned us that our uncle told her we weren’t allowed to leave until he came back. She assured us he was just worried we may get lost or get hassled by men because women didn’t go out alone in Yemen, they only went out accompanied by men or in groups of women and that’s only if they are covered.
We were furious, but not with Sofia - she was only doing what she had been told - we were angry with our uncle for not allowing us out of the house. This was supposed to be our holiday, but now we were told we couldn’t leave the house unaccompanied.
We hung out with Sofia while she cooked dinner and around lunch time Uncle Nasser and Sofia’s husband came back. It was the first time we met him and he seemed friendly enough, he was called Jalal and looked older than Sofia, maybe in his 40s.
Once again we struggled with the food and ate very little but tried not to show that we were struggling, we just said that we weren’t that hungry. After dinner Uncle Nasser got up to leave again with Jalal, but we followed him to the hallway.
“When can we call Dad?” Issy asked.
“I speak him today, he say you wait him, no call father,” he replied as he turned to leave, but Issy grabbed his arm.
“That’s not fair! You said we could call him today, we don’t want to stay here anymore, we want to go home!”
Uncle Nasser aggressively pushed her away from him. “You do as told, stay here!” he warned.
We all began yelling at him, telling him to leave her alone, telling him we wanted to go home. The arguing got so loud that Jalal, Sofia and his mother were trying to calm us down, but all we wanted to do was leave.
“Come on let get our bags, we are not staying here!” Issy’s voice was trembling with rage as she spoke to us, then she turned to our uncle.
“Give us our passports, you can’t make us stay if we don’t want to, we aren’t prisoners!” But he just glared at us, evil in his eyes.
“No passport no goes home, this home, you stay here!”
Issy tried to push past him heading for the door, but Jalal and Uncle Nasser blocked her way while Jalal’s mother locked the door with the key, then she put the key in her pocket.
“You can’t make us stay if we don’t want to, we will just run away!” Issy shouted as we ran into our room sobbing, slamming the door behind us.
Our Uncle followed. “These clothes no more! Trousers only, these long,” he said pointing at our short sleeved tops and skirts. And with that he left the room.
We realised then what a mess we were in. We didn’t know anybody there who could help us and we didn’t even know how to contact Dad because we didn’t have his phone number. We had no passports and very little pocket money. All we could hope for was that Dad would hurry up and get here.
We heard Uncle Nasser and Jalal leave, and peeping through the keyhole of our room we saw Jalal’s mother lock the front door and take the key. We decided to act nice and see if she would trust us, so we wiped away our tears and went out to the other room to sit with them.
All three women were sat in the room by then. Sofia tried her best to convince us that everything Uncle Nasser was doing was for our own good, which Dad had told him to do, but how dumb did they think we were? We knew our Dad better than anyone and he would never tell him to keep us locked up like this.
A while later and the flat started to fill up with women, each time Jalal’s mother would unlock the door to let them in, then lock it again.
Sofia told us it was tradition for female family members, neighbours, and friends to gather in the afternoons for special occasions, and us coming from England was a big occasion. All the women wanted to see the new English girls!
One family that came over were two sisters that lived in the same flats just a few doors down; one of them was a young girl called Nahla, she was around 17. She stood out to us because she was wearing jeans and a long sleeved top and her hair wasn’t covered.
We instantly liked Nahla and started chatting to her because she spoke really good English, she told us she was a student and that her family didn’t make her wear the abaya or hijab because they were more westernised and trusted her to do the right thing.
She was staying with her sister while studying in Aden but her family were from another town. She told us she got hassled a lot and
stared at by both men and women when she went out for not covering up, but she didn’t care, because she still stuck by her religious beliefs and was doing nothing wrong.
The afternoon came and went, and after everyone had gone Uncle Nasser returned with some Arabic cakes and sweets for us. Maybe he did it as a peace offering, but whatever the reason, we took them and ate them because we had eaten very little food since arriving.
Once again that night we slept knowing that whatever we did it wouldn’t keep the cockroaches away, and nothing could take away the dreadful heat.
One day started to blend into another. After about a week our Uncle started to allow Sofia and Jalal’s mothers take us to the shop with them. The thought of running away entered our minds on many occasions, but we had nowhere to go, and no one to run to. We had no choice but to follow orders.
We were also allowed to go and hang out with Nahla and her sister in their flat. We would listen to our English cassettes that we had brought over and teach Nahla the words to the songs and how to dance.
Nahla taught us a little Arabic; she also taught us how to dance the Arabic style and how to put eyeliner on the Arabic way. They used a black gritty dust that was in a tiny thin glass vial, it had a long thin smooth metal pin that you would dip in the dust then gently put it on the corner of your eye, pushing the metal pin back and forward so the black dust would become as eyeliner. It would make our eyes water and the dust would go everywhere, you had to know how to use it and we didn’t! Nahla became our best friend and we saw her every day.
Two weeks passed with still no sign of Dad and we still hadn’t been allowed to phone him. Every time we asked Uncle Nasser he would just say, “He comes soon,” and that’s all we got.
One day when visiting Nahla, her sister was out visiting other relatives and we were alone in the flat. Nahla had often told us about a shop she knew that sold English foods; that day, although reluctant, she agreed to take us out shopping alone without adult supervision.
By that time we had all become accustomed to wearing only trousers and long sleeved tops so off we went, all four of us in our jeans, with our hair uncovered. We knew if we got caught we would get told off, but we didn’t care because we just wanted to go out alone. Walking along the road the car horns were beeping and we were getting shouted at by men, but Nahla just told us to ignore them.
A Father's Betrayal Page 3
