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To HP, who showed me the pencil.
—AP
Thank you, God, for this gift. I dedicate this book to the children at St. Mary Kevin Orphanage Motherhood in the small town of Kajjansi, Uganda. These brave children have shown me resounding Joy.
—SWE
PART 1
OUR FARM
South Darfur, Africa
September 2003–March 2004
WHEAT
Finally, I am twelve.
Old enough to wear a toob.
As soon as I wake,
Muma whispers a birthday wish.
“Blessings for all the years to come, Amira.”
My mother has been awake for hours,
starting early with farm chores.
On this birthday morning
bright
as the sun’s first yawn,
ripened wheat
sways.
Its golden braids
are woven with the promise
of a hearty harvest.
Ya, wheat!
Our greatest crop.
Our gleaming pride,
stretching tall,
glinting beneath the sun’s smile.
Ya, wheat!
You will make
flour,
loaves,
golden cake.
Ya, wheat—such abundance!
Our village glistens,
greets me
with a wink that shines bright
on this new day.
On my new year.
DANDO’S DELIGHT
As this special morning stirs,
I watch
a sparrow.
She juts
from the wheat’s strands,
rustling.
Dando runs up from behind,
scoops me into strong arms,
folded loaves,
inviting me to ride.
“Come, girl child, fly!”
I squeal.
“Dando!
I’m now too old and too big
for this little-girl game!”
“Amira Bright,
it is true that you are taller,
but you are never too old
to greet the sky.
Up, up, girl!”
He swings me,
long legs,
okra-toed feet,
dusty,
flailing.
High up,
delighting.
“Show the other birds
how precious you are,
Amira Bright!”
My insides flip-flop.
Dando shouts,
as if proclaiming a great truth:
“Amira Bright—yaaaa!
Girl child, rising.”
In Dando’s arms,
I can fly.
In Dando’s arms,
I am bright.
Up, up so high.
All of me.
LOST TOOTH
When we were six,
and small,
and filled with silly giggles,
Halima’s tooth came loose.
She wanted it gone.
She asked me to help.
Halima, my so-close friend.
Together we wiggled and tugged
the tiny,
wobbly speck of white
that hung tight.
That tooth was stubborn.
It wouldn’t give.
Halima yanked at it.
So hard, she tried.
Oh, that tooth!
A little bitty pest with a mighty will.
One day,
I told Halima to open her mouth
as wide as a yawning hyena’s.
I pinched the tooth
between my thumb and biggest finger.
Bent back that baby thing,
jerked it—pop!
Halima’s tooth flew from her,
landed in the sand.
We sifted through cream-colored grains,
searching.
But it was truly gone.
Halima said, “Aakh—that hurt!”
I said,
“Yes, but you are free of it, Halima.
It’s time to be happy!”
DIZZY DONKEY
“Let’s play dizzy donkey,”
Halima said.
We faced each other,
fingers laced—and we spun!
Heads back,
noses up.
Whirling girls
together.
Twirling,
giggly-tipping,
sideways sky,
tummies churning,
turning us
into
dizzy donkeys.
OPPORTUNITY
I thought silly giggles
and dizzy donkey
would always be.
But today
Halima and I
must say good-bye.
Her father is determined
to find something more.
I hear him tell Dando
he wants to go from small to big,
from village to city.
He’s looking for something he calls
Opportunity.
Halima’s father no longer wants to sell his wares
at our small weekly village market.
He’s eager to meet customers
in Nyala’s bustling bazaar.
Patrons who,
every day,
will pay
higher prices
for his salt, sugar, coffee, and corn.
He wants to live among lively people,
and cars
and things fast and shiny.
And,
Halima’s father,
he’s always mumbling something
about leaving before it’s too late.
Halima’s mother, a weaver,
is excited
to show off
her patterned fabrics
to city women and wealthy foreign visitors
with big wallets.
Words flap from her
like giddy chickens escaping their pen.
She is so squawky, that woman.
Especially when she talks about life in the city.
Today I wonder
if Halima’s mother
has wing feathers
hiding beneath her toob.
SCHOOL
Halima tells me
that with the money her parents earn
they will be able to afford to send her
to Gad Primary School,
on the outskirts of Nyala,
Darfur’s largest town.
There’s word in our village about Gad.
Much of it scorn.
Some, praise.
Talk of Gad is a burlap sack
of mixed opinions.
Gad is a school that welcomes girls.
Gad pushes past tradition.
I want to go to Gad.
I’ve never seen that school.
I know of it only through village rumblings.
Whenever Halima speaks of Nyala
and of Gad,
I am reminded that she is truly the child
of her mother,
flap-flapping with excitement
about her new city home and school.
My friend’s parents are modern people,
not stifled by tradition.
Most others in our village
are nothing like Halima’s mother and father.
Most are as closed-minded as donkeys
who will not turn their eyes to see anything
beyond what is right in front of them.
Most are small, not big, in their thinking.
This is especially true of Muma.
When it comes to schooling,
my mother is the most tight-minded of anyone.
She does not like the idea of Gad,
or any place where girls learn
to read
or write,
in Arabic or English,
or think beyond a life
of farm chores and marriage.
Muma,
born into a flock of women,
locked in a hut of tradition.
That hut.
A closed-off place
with no windows for letting in fresh ideas.
Sometimes I want to ask,
“Muma, can you breathe?”
PINCHED
This morning,
Halima’s family has loaded their oxen
with everything they own.
Tin pots.
Grain buckets.
Sleeping straw.
Firewood.
Saying good-bye to my
so-close friend hurts
worse
than yanking a tooth.
When her oxen’s hind parts
become a rippling blur on the horizon,
I’m pinched
by two feelings at once.
Aakh—
I will miss my so-close friend.
Aakh—
I do not like being left behind.
I wish I were the one
leaving our village,
going from small to big,
searching for something called
Opportunity.
From inside me comes a tug—pop!—
I cry.
THE WAGER
Dando and Old Anwar
have made a bet.
Who can grow
the most tomatoes
by picking time?
“My fruits are always
more plentiful
than yours,” says Old Anwar.
Dando would brag
about his tomatoes
all day
if he didn’t have other work to do.
“Your tomatoes
are green knots of nothing.
You may have
more, but it is more of what is paltry.
My tomatoes are more.
More plump.
More beautiful.”
Old Anwar says,
“Proud man, it is ugly to be so boastful.”
My father’s hands rest firmly at his hips.
He’s having fun ridiculing Old Anwar.
“Your little green rocks, struggling on their vines.
You believe they are tomatoes.
I believe they will crack the teeth
of anyone who dares to bite into them.
How do you expect to feed people
with those gnarly things?”
Dando won’t stop.
“You should use what you are calling tomatoes
as washing stones
to pound stains from your clothes.”
Old Anwar is wearing a gray jallabiya.
He waves his fist,
right up to Dando’s face. “Bah!”
Dando leans hard toward Old Anwar.
He scowls.
“Bah to you and your lumpy tomatoes!”
Old Anwar stomps off,
dust rising
from his sandals.
FRUITLESS
Why do grown-up men argue about such silly things?
Tomatoes don’t care
which ones in their group are green or gnarly,
or small,
or red or plump.
They’re just fruits.
They don’t know anything
about being ugly or pretty.
Old Anwar and Dando,
friends who have fun arguing.
Old Anwar has been our neighbor
for my whole life.
But then this tomato wager started,
and brought with it a war.
A war about tomatoes!
So dumb, this tomato fight.
CONTEST
In the evening before I sleep,
Dando comes to my pallet.
“Dream of good things, Amira Bright,” he says.
I ask,
“Why do you and Old Anwar fight about fruits?”
Dando tries to reason with me,
but he is not convincing.
“We are not fighting. We are having a contest.”
WAR
My father tries to explain something
that is more twisted
than a tangled
skein of raggedy thread.
“Amira, we are living in a time of war.”
I’ve heard the elders talk of this.
But Dando is doing more than talking.
He is telling.
I listen.
Like a mangled mess,
Dando’s words are
hard to follow.
I can make no sense
of anything he says.
He uses strange terms:
Persecution
Rebellion
Genocide
I understand a little more
when Dando explains,
“There has been fighting for land.”
I say,
“It’s senseless
to fight over something
Allah has made for everyone.”
Dando nods.
“That is only part of the reason
for this war.”
My father chooses words
as if he is carefully selecting only
the most primed tomatoes.
“Brothers are killing each other
over the belief
that in the Almighty’s eyes
some people are superior.”
Dando’s words:
Twisted
Tangled
Raggedy
Knotted
Nonsense
AS I SEE IT
Harder I listen,
still trying to piece together
this nonsense puzzle.
I say it as I see it:
“This war you tell me about,
it is like the battles
between you and Old Anwar.”
Dando flinches.
I say it as I see it:
“Fighting about tomatoes is such
foolishness!”
Dando is quick to dismiss
my reasoning.
“Amira, my bright daughter,
Old Anwar and I are not at war.”
I say it as I see it:
“You are.”
CHORES
There’s a bad part
about turning twelve.
In the eyes of my family,
I’m nearly a grown-up.
This means
I must work even harder at farm chores.
Muma says
I’m to accept these duties with grace and obedience,
and not a speck of complaint.
And so, I do.
Daily, I do.
I haul
sacks of grain
from our storage hut
to the animal corral.
I weed
every coarse,
thick-rooted shoot
that chokes our
leafy greens.
I husk
corn and millet,
and anything with a hull
that needs my nimble
fingers
to remove its shell.
I peel
potatoes, onions, pumpkins, squash.
I chop-chop-chop
all of these
for making them sing in a pot.
And now, since I’m
nearly grown,
I have a new chore—
raking cow plop
to spread at the base of our crops.
This special duty
has brought me happy friends—
flies who like to cluster
on the freshly gathered,
still-moist mounds.
I wish
our cows
didn’t eat so much grass.
I wish
our ample animals
would give me less to work with.
BIRTH STORY
When Dando tells of my birth,
he smiles as wide as a moon’s crescent.