Growing Up Bin Laden - Jean P. Sasson [27]
My siblings and I hated such impractical directives, although my mother never complained.
There was one place where the sons of Osama bin Laden lived a fairly normal life. That was on our farm, located only a short drive south of Jeddah. Father built a family compound on the farm. The land was vast and the compound was large, with many buildings. The family homes were all painted a lovely soft peach to blend in with the calm color of the desert. There was a mosque on the compound because my father could not miss the five required daily prayers. My father’s favorite building at the farm was the stables especially built for his beautiful horses.
My father loved the outdoors. He very carefully laid out an orchard, planting the area with hundreds of trees, including palms and other varieties. He also created a costly man-made oasis, cultivating reeds and other water plants. My father’s eyes would sparkle with such happiness at the sight of a beautiful plant or flower, or pride at the spectacle of one of his prancing stallions.
It’s good we had that farm to play on, because toys were forbidden, no matter how much we might beg. Father would give us some goats to play with, telling us that we needed nothing more than God’s natural gifts to be happy. On one happy occasion he came walking in with a baby gazelle.
My mother was not pleased when my brothers and I slipped the gazelle through an open window and into our farm house. The coat of the gazelle was shedding, and when my mother found gazelle fur on the furniture, she raised her voice, which was unusual for her. Later we realized that she was pretending to be angry because we caught her secretly smiling at our antics.
I remember once when Father was given a baby camel as a gift. We were enthusiastic to have it on the farm, but soon realized that it was too young to be taken from its mother. The poor baby was so lonely and cried so pitifully that my father decided to take it to one of the farms belonging to his brother. But the baby camel was attacked by the other camels there, so he couldn’t share their home. We never knew the outcome of this sad story, but I was haunted by that baby’s misery for many days, as I have always loved animals and become terribly sad if one suffers.
Then one day one of my father’s half-brothers arrived unexpectedly at our farm, his vehicle stuffed with toys! We had never been so excited. For us, it was Eid (a Muslim holiday similar to Christian Christmas celebrations) a hundred times over! My father hid his anger from his brother, but not from us, remaining annoyed until all those toys were destroyed. But our uncle’s kindness had made for one of the happiest days of our lives. Looking back, I suppose that our uncle felt sorry for us.
My father relented when it came to football—or soccer as Americans call it. When he brought a ball home, I remember the shock of seeing him smile sweetly when he saw how excited his sons became at the sight of it. He confessed that he had a fondness for playing soccer and would participate in the sport when he had time.
There was a second game, called the “hat game,” that we sometimes enjoyed with my father. I’d bounce with glee when my father would instruct my oldest brother to go outside and mark the ground for the hat game. My brother would mark a line in an area of the yard where the sand was intentionally compacted to be nearly as hard as concrete.
My father would follow and place a man’s hat on the line. Then he would go to the opposite side of the line and stand there, looking serious as he sized up his competition, his young sons.
My brothers and I would gather and stand in a row on the opposite side of the line, equally serious. The point of the game was to defeat your opponent in retrieving the hat, then run safely back to the starting line. Each person competed separately. At the countdown, the first boy in line would dash to grab the