Growing Up Bin Laden - Jean P. Sasson [60]
And who knew? Perhaps the scary time would come when my children and I would find ourselves running from aggressive warriors, thankful for the lessons we had learned from Osama. Wouldn’t everyone be surprised when my children and I popped up alive because we knew how to endure the harsh desert climate without water supplies or without the benefit of modern conveniences?
Of course, I did not want my little children to suffer thus, so I said many prayers to God, asking that such a thing should never come to pass.
Chapter 11
Family Affairs
NAJWA BIN LADEN
Our oldest sons became young men during the Khartoum years. They excelled in sports that young men enjoy, soccer and martial arts, and other similar hobbies. All our sons were good swimmers; in fact, the boys used to swim across the Nile River for fun. This is no small feat, for the Nile may be narrow but its waters are tricky with unexpected currents. The Nile was near al-Riyadh Village, so it was not uncommon for them to go there with their father for a swim. Other times they would ride out into the desert to race some of their father’s cars. All our sons were taught to drive by the age of eight, which is expected in Saudi Arabia. They became skilled hunters, easily capturing animals in traps or killing them with one shot.
I remember once when they built a trap to try to capture a bird known as the Shaheen hawk. I knew about the Shaheen hawks from the time I was a small girl because Arabs favor that predatory bird above all others. Shaheens are trapped alive in the open desert to be trained to swoop to earth to catch rabbits, quails, and other small creatures. I’ve been told that they are very particular how they pick up their prey and actually present their owners with the creatures without taking a bite, or even making a scratch. I know little else because I am not a hunter.
Much of what we had been accustomed to changed during those Sudan years, but mainly for the boys. The women of the family remained inside our homes and focused on our female activities, as we had always done, and always would. My daughters, Fatima and Iman, were still very young, so they were content to scamper around in our large home, mimicking their mother in her daily routine. Both girls provided a lot of amusement to our household as they were of the age to perform a lot of cute baby tricks. Osama took a lot of joy from those baby girls and let them crawl the length of his long body and even tweak his beard. Those were very happy times, rare moments I had not witnessed for many years. Watching my husband and our daughters, I thought perhaps all might work out well for the bin Laden family in Africa.
There were scary times as well. For the first time in our married life, Osama became so ill that I feared for his life. Mysteriously, he contracted malaria. From where we could not guess, as anytime he was in an area that mosquitoes were known to inhabit, he always used a mosquito net.
His sudden illness was frightening for me because my husband was famous for being the most healthy man in the world. In fact, up until that time, I cannot recall his ever making a single complaint of pain, not even of a minor headache or toothache.
He had been traveling for business and soon after returning complained of a fever and nausea and pains in his joints. For the first day or two, we believed that he had contracted a strain of flu. But he became too sick, shivering with chills one moment and sweating with fever the next. Soon Osama had difficulty standing. He even turned a peculiar shade of yellow. But even after turning yellow, he refused to visit a doctor of medicine. Soon, though, Osama concluded that there was no other explanation than he had been bitten by a female mosquito carrying malaria.
My own heart thumped loudly at his diagnosis, for I knew the outcome for many malaria victims. After he returned home, he was so feverish and ill that he had no thoughts of further protecting himself.