Been thinking a lot about my mother lately, hard to believe she’s been gone so many years. It seems like yesterday, last week, a month ago at most I midnight called her knowing she would be awake, playing solitaire at the kitchen table we spent so many hours eating, laughing,[…]
The night is cold, rain pelting against the small windows, filling strategically placed pots to overflowing, candlelight flickering and dancing against whitewashed walls worn to gray. I sit wrapped in the blanket my husband bought me the second day we were in Yemen, listening to the symphony of water, light[…]
I sit dumbfounded by your arrogance unveiled you paint the world with your own thick brush blur lines between cultures, traditions personal freedom lost so we all become blind followers of the Western ideal cover girl clones you want us to breathe the fetid air you expel spent, lifeless, carbon[…]
I Spill My Life I spill my life onto blank white pages Line after line of I did this Thought this Loved this Hated this Dream this I spill my life out Onto blank pages One after another Until the call comes Mama she says Mama I need you[…]
A new telling of an old story… I have always loved stormy weather. As a little girl I would run outside and stand under the eaves at the first sign of rain, sticking a hand or foot out into the downpour despite my mother’s strict order to stay sheltered. The[…]
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[…]
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[…]
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[…]
What could be more rewarding than helping a woman bring a tiny life into the world? The birth of baby Yasmeen has gotten me thinking again about a long-term dream of mine- to be a midwife. I have had all my babies in hospitals, but several of my pregnancies and[…]
Yesterday, on September 27, a new little person entered the world. My eldest son, Mujaahid, and his wife, Hiyaat, had a new baby girl. She was delivered at home, with a midwife and Hiyaat’s mother present, and by all accounts she is a big baby; Mujaahid added that she is[…]
