Zumorrodah
- I Became a Creative Writer -
- My Friend’s Story -
A Short Story from An Interview
Today, I want to write about this wonderful friend of mine whose face radiates beauty and innocence. She is almost 20 years old and she also comes from my hometown. She is displaced with her family in Sana’a, just like me. She has calm deep eyes despite her young age. She does not look a lot like her sister. She is serene and does not talk much, but when she speaks, she is light years beyond her young age. She has big ambitions and dreams that make me expect a bright future for her with full faith that she will accomplish her aspirations. She is true to herself and she knows what she wants and how to work towards it. She aspires to become a famous writer whose work is translated into many languages. She knows how big the dream is and how much work it will take for her to get there.
She enjoys a high sense of self-value and pride. She does not settle with compromise. Sadly, life is not always like that. She may have to be more pragmatic. She is now in her first year of college, studying nutrition. She did not want that major at the beginning. However, she is really enjoying it now. She writes from time to time. She writes short stories and studies so hard. She brings a lot of joy to her mother’s heart especially that she worked so hard for her and her siblings.
Have you recognized the friend I am talking about? It is Zainab Ba-Sultan.
- Dahes and Al-ghabra 1 -
Corresponding Thoughts to the Story Collection Titled “Blouza: The Blouse” by Reem Mohajed
To me, this war is another Dahes and Al-ghabra. War is ugly in all its names , meanings and forms. War eats everything does not exclude anyone. Despite all of this, there are those who still benefit from war in their own ways. Some people’s catastrophe is others’ opportunity. Warlords and arms dealers make so much out of the continuity of this war. We have seen wonders throughout this war. We saw those who used to own nothing and now have capital and properties. We saw those who used to be wealthy become poor and short of basic necessities.
I choose here to write about theft and robbery of houses during the war.
This collection of short stories that we read in class was extremely painful and made all war scenarios pass before my eyes like film footage of the most painful memories of my life. It made me relive the details all over again, all the cruelty, the agony, the horrifying sounds, the bombardments, the destruction and all the screams that shook our old neighborhood in Taiz.
I remembered the houses that burned and fell apart only to become homes for ghosts after their owners had to flee the shelling that used all types of weapons. These houses did not survive the brutal looting. We heard the noise and saw belongings being taken from neighboring houses. These were the belongings that people left behind with hopes to come back, expensive belongings whose fate changed just like that of their owners’. None of us saw any of this coming. We lost our loved ones, our families and friends in this damned war. We suffered so much and struggled with a lot. War is a fire that burns everything on its way. Nobody is safe. Those who survive death, end up living with wounds that even time cannot heal.
I still have faith in God’s mercy upon those who try to survive and struggle to stay and start from scratch every time.
[1]Dahes and Al-ghabra is a war that took place for 40 years around one century before Islam in the Arabian Peninsula. What started as a dispute over commercial interests and routes, ended with a 4-decade war. Dahes and Al-ghabra became a reference, in Arabic, to often describe pointless brutal wars.