I was given permission to share this with you all by the brother who wrote it. It is written by someone that my family knows personally, and it takes place in ash-Shihr, Yemen, where we lived for two years. This is the reality that most Americans want to ignore, to[…]
This afternoon I sat in the backyard and breathed. I breathed in the sound of cicadas surrounding me with a swirling crowd of pure joyous sound. I breathed the fur trees at my back, bending to whisper in each other’s ears, words lost on the low moan of the wind.[…]
I’ve made a commitment to commit my Yemeni Journey to paper, and try to get it published in book form, insh’Allaah. This has become a priority for a number of reasons. One is simply that my heart bleeds for my second home and its beautiful, strong people. Yemen faces so[…]
Last night the moon rose large and luminous over the pine trees behind the neighbor’s house. Always beautiful, whether showing a sliver of bare shoulder above a gown of star speckled black or staring down at us, full-figured and lovely, proudly flaunting the rich curving body of night. Body of[…]
As Muslims, we don’t celebrate birthdays- no cakes, presents, parties. But that doesn’t mean that the birth of each child isn’t special. On the contrary, I remember the day (or night, more often than not) that each of my eight children were born, and thank Allaah always for the gift[…]
When my husband and I began our first, tentative inquiries to each other when we were contemplating marriage, one of the things that came up and immediately bonded us was our desire to homestead. We wanted to get some land and raise our family away from the hustle and bustle[…]
Alhamdulillah, just a short post to let you all know that Yemeni Journey won Storycircle Network’s Superstar Blogger Award! Insh’Allaah I will be adding a Superstar Blogger badge to my page soon. Without the encouragement and support from the women at Storycircle, Allaah knows best if I would have begun[…]
Early morning, the time of the Fajr prayer, is one of my favorite times of day. This has been the case no matter where I’ve lived- in windy Wisconsin winters with snow tinted pink with the sun’s first rays, or in the foothills of the Rockies, where the mountains clasped[…]
The sound of life here in America is almost deafening at times. Last night I found myself suddenly wide awake. The air had that middle of the night feeling, as if the world was holding its breath, waiting for some silent signal before it let its shoulders down with a[…]
Last night I went to sleep to the sound of rain against the windows. This morning I awoke to the same sound. To me, it was the sound of home. Yesterday afternoon Khalil and I went for a walk in our quiet, tree-filled neighborhood. I couldn’t help myself- I kept[…]
