Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [29]
THE NEXT MORNING I met yet another new student. Shaima worked for the World Bank and had called Faris looking for a place to improve her writing. Faris recommended my class.
Shaima smiled. She was very pretty, with a narrow face, long doe-like eyelashes, and full lips. She wore a balto and hijab but left her face bare. It was a terrific relief to speak face-to-face with a Yemeni woman for more than a few fleeting seconds. We sat down in the conference room, and I ran through everything we had covered so far. She asked what else she could do to improve her writing, and I told her to read something in English every day. “It doesn’t matter what—read something you enjoy. But make sure it’s written by a native English speaker.” I wrote her a list of newspapers and websites.
Shaima had had an unusually privileged life for a Yemeni. She received a full scholarship to the American University in Cairo, although her mother forced her to turn it down because she was too worried that Shaima would come into contact with drugs and alcohol. But Shaima did manage to go to university and then graduate school—in Jordan. Though she was thirty, she still lived with her parents, in the upscale neighborhood of Hadda. “We are stuck to our families until we are married,” she told me.
I enjoyed talking with her and sensed that she could become a real friend. Worldlier and more independent than my reporters, she could move about with greater freedom. She also was the only Yemeni woman I knew who owned a car—a Mercedes.
When I was through with Shaima, the women took me to one of the back offices, where they had spread out newspapers on the floor. They locked the door and lifted their veils, smiling at me.
“You don’t think it’s wrong?” Enass asked me. “To sit on newspapers, since that is your work?”
“Oh no,” I said. “We line gerbil cages with them.”
Three of the four girls hiked their black abayas up to their waists in order to sit comfortably. All were wearing blue jeans.
They handed me a rolled Jordanian sandwich of pickles and falafel and watched closely as I took a bite. “Do you find it delicious?” Arwa asked anxiously. I assured her that I did.
Zuhra then launched into one of her high-speed monologues, telling me about her seven brothers and sisters, her hopes for her future, and her criteria for a husband.
“I expect never to marry,” she told me. “I expect that. Because I will never compromise my career. And I will only marry a man who will support my career. But he must also be religious. There are very few Yemeni men like this.”
Zuhra and I were the last to finish our sandwiches. “Because you never stop talking!” said one of the other girls.
A PILE OF WORK awaited me the next morning. Faris had asked me to go over the most recent issue in detail and critique it for the whole staff. I spread out the paper on Sabri’s dining room table and, for three solid hours, read and took notes on every page, every story, every line. I was becoming obsessed with my students’ stories. I thought about them when I was lying in bed. I mentally corrected them while riding in cabs. I found myself thinking of a crucial prepositional phrase that would make Zuhra’s beauty parlor story perfect as I swam laps at the Sheraton.
By the time I finished writing my critique and covering the paper with circles, cross-outs, and blue ballpoint scrawl, I was zinging with energy. It was Thursday, which most Yemenis have off, as Thursday and Friday are the weekend. The Yemen Observer staff, however, worked every day except Friday.
I arrived at the office early, anxious to speak with Hakim before class. Faris seemed to have special hopes for him, thinking he could help revolutionize the paper. But so far he had done little to distinguish himself, other than to argue with me in class, rarely in constructive ways. He claimed