Eventually the trio of settlers turned and walked through a space that the villagers cleared for them toward another, larger group of settlers who were watching from a few yards off.

After they left, we stood there, sleep still decorating our faces, and watched the settlers drive back to the settlement under the cold morning and the approaching dawn. As they got farther and farther away—I will never forget that moment, my child—as they got farther away, people began to laugh, to themselves at first, but as the dark minutes got brighter—for the sun had not been frightened away after all—the laughter grew and grew until it was like a roar of thunder from beneath the minaret.

“God keep Karim Sulayman and his giant American loudspeakers,” cried one man.

“May God be satisfied with him,” agreed several others.

Still giggling, we all returned to our houses.

When the sun had showed itself in full, but not long after that, two men set about fixing the giant speakers affixed to the four sides of the minaret. One had to be removed and needed parts, which would take a long time, and one was knocked slightly from its position and had a couple of bullet holes in it, but on the side so it was not seriously damaged. All day long you could find a few people standing beneath the minaret watching and often muttering praises for Karim Sulayman.

And from that day on, Mawal, during those moments before dawn, when the sun is debating whether to greet Nawara, and the giant blast announcing God’s greatness crosses the fields of the village, I always mutter a praise for Karim Sulayman.

I tuck this story into my pocket, wishing I could stitch it into my skin, like one of the Bedouin tattoos my grandmother wears. Are there stories like this in lovely, tempting America? Do my cousins there even know these little histories? I doubt it.

Stitch in red for life.

Stitch in green to remember.

Stitch, stitch to never forget.

14 KHADIJA Birthday

14KHADIJABirthday

We were at Auntie Maysoun’s new house in Glendale. She decided to make a party for my birthday. She cooked a lot of food and my cousins danced all night. We don’t usually give each other presents, but my American auntie Fay sent me a diary. It’s pale green and has a shell on the cover. She wrote my name on the inside with a skinny black pen: KHADIJA MUNEER.

“Why would anyone want a book with blank pages?” Ma asked me.

“So I can write my own book,” I told her in English.

Ma doesn’t like Auntie Fay.

In the card she sent with the diary, Auntie Fay wrote: “The book is so you can write your secrets and no one will have to know them.”