Growing Up Bin Laden - Jean P. Sasson [114]
My growing children were always hungry, but I tried to relieve the our tension with a little teasing, once telling my boys that they would soon be clucking like chickens, for eggs were the only food in ample supply and my sons ate endless boiled eggs.
Lacking a built-in system of water was an inconvenience I shall never forget. In the early days we had to fetch water from a mountain stream, but that was nearly impossible for such a large group of people. After a few weeks, Osama arranged for a small truck to deliver water. Since females should not be seen by men not of our family, someone bored a small hole in the wall of the building for the delivery man to poke a pipe through to let the water in. My daughters and I jumped about in a funny way, as it was essential for us to be exceedingly nimble to take hold of empty plastic jugs to fill one then the other without spraying ourselves with water.
Never once did I complain to my husband, even as I washed our dirty clothes in cold water in a big metal bucket, or cooked rice on the paltry one-eyed burner, or cooled our perishable food in a mountain stream. I diligently swept the floor with an odd brush that someone had covered in a nylon mat. I had never seen such a broom, but it served the purpose.
I never complained even as I stifled screams when my smallest children ran recklessly on the mountain’s edge.
I never complained although my abandoned possessions often came to my mind. I never mentioned how I longed for my little treasures, my beloved books, the beautiful golden coins given to me each time I gave birth to one of my children. My secret stash of photographs of my children was painfully missed. Since the day we had married, my husband’s rulings on cameras and photographs swayed back and forth, first saying no to picture taking, then saying yes, and then no again. Picture taking was my one little sin, and from the early days of my marriage I always managed to capture the sweet images of my beautiful babies. Those pictures were some of my most cherished items that I knew were gone forever. I longed for some scented shampoos and soaps, but had to wash with the roughest detergents. I often thought about the pretty dresses that I had so joyously worn in the privacy of my home. I even missed my black abaaya and black veils and scarves, for as soon as our feet climbed the rock mountains of Tora Bora, Osama decreed that every member of his family must assume native dress. Even his wives would discard our familiar abaayas so as not to stand out from native women. And so he sent his drivers to the nearest village bazaar to purchase the Afghan chadris or burqas, those tentlike covers with a latticed slit for the eyes. I greatly preferred the black flowing abaaya with head scarf and face veil to the billowing pastel-colored burqa. But Osama said that I must become a burqa-clad woman, and so I did.
Every day was very similar to the next for my two sister-wives and myself. We three would pray five times each day, and after our chores we might meet to read the Koran, or to sit and look over the mountains to watch the forest animals around us, wondering what their lives were like. My little daughters, Fatima and Iman, spent much time with me and I entertained them by sharing fun tales about my childhood in Syria. The favorite times for my daughters, though, were when their brothers would take the time to sit in a circle and describe the life outside the rock walls of our home. My little girls mostly shared purdah with their mother, unless there were no strangers on the mountain and they were free to play with their brothers.
Even though I missed the life I had known before, there was nothing to do but to adapt. My life was for my family and so I did what I had to do. This did not mean that I blamed my husband, for I did not. He was in a situation where his presence was not allowed in most countries. He had to live where he could, and that place was Afghanistan.
Looking on the bright side of