busy..

It has been busy here around the farm, the planing season is quite hectic, but I still managed to make  cheese; the process took 5 days and the cheese can be kept to mature for a long time, if wanted..... 

For more photos and stories from around the farm, click on the link in the previous post. 

May 2013

Shush..

 

This is a tiny fraction of the preserves (10 types of tomato sauces, pizza sauce, 15 types of chutneys and pickles, 6 types of jams, juices, preserved bell peppers and fruits, etc)  I made last summer and fall. All veggies and fruits came from my farm :) 

To read more about my life on a farm living sustainable and off-grid living, click  here. 

This blog will stay active, just sometimes I forget to update it. More posts and photos coming soon. 

Shall I stretch a hand or bother not!

An extract from my collection of short stories: The Scent of Cloves.

The scent of the fragrant cloves exuded in all directions

Shall I stretch a hand or bother not!

I had no idea what that meant but I had heard the men in the Souq sing it many times during their games of Siza, winking at each other and laughing loudly. I even heard auntie Salmeen hum it during the couscous-making days.

I sang louder, unable to stop myself.

“You are going to get a good Libyan beating,” my mother shouted from the kitchen. “That filth you picked up!” She came out of the kitchen shaking a large wooden ladder in her hand. “Shame on you,” she said waving the ladder in her hand. I picked up my sandals and fled the house.

I sat on the doorsteps of our house, trying to put on my sandals. Opposite our house was the Jahmas’ house, empty and derelict. The house had remained empty since the day the Jahma family moved to Benghazi many years ago. To the right of the Jahmas’ house stood Hajj Faytouri’s with its shiny front door. To the left, there was the house of Burnia family – the young widow Fathia’s family. This house was smaller than the other houses but looked more presentable with its newly painted white walls and shiny blue door and windows. The front door was open and a crowd of shabby-looking kids were peeping through and giggling. A cacophony of sounds seeped though. A mixture of female chattering, the feeble singing of an old lady, occasional and feverish outbursts of drum-playing, and a muffled ululation, now and then.

The scent of the fragrant cloves exuded in all directions

I hummed the words tenderly, then loudly, testing the forbidden words. “But why are they forbidden! Where is the filth!” I tried to understand. I liked the scent of cloves very much, especially the ones my mother used mixed with sandalwood, musk, and attar of roses and put on her hair, hours before my father’s arrival from his weekly business trips to Benghazi. Could it be the stretching of the hand! I stretched my both hands and hummed the words again.

Shall I stretch a hand or bother not!

My mother’s hand grabbed my arm from behind the partly open door and pulled me inside the house.

“Take this to Hajja Gernas and tell her my mother sends her greetings and this parcel for Fathia. Tell the Hajja my mum can’t attend the wedding because my father isn’t here and she can’t leave the house without his permission.”

My mother never left our house without permission from my father, or during daytime. All her visits took place at night. She handed me a big yellow parcel. “And don’t lurk there like the offspring of the riffraff or I’ll send your brother Abdullah after you to mince you up!” She opened the door slightly and pushed me out. “Hurry up, I have thousands of things to tend to,” she whispered through the door and closed it quickly.

I hugged the large bundle my mother had wrapped up in a red headscarf and crossed the street towards the house of Burnia family. I passed the group of children, still peering through the door, and entered the house. The vestibule was dark. I staggered a little, blinded by the strong daylight in the street and the sudden darkness of the vestibule. I opened my eyes and proceeded towards the courtyard; the strong light in the open yard hurt my eyes again and I closed them.

“What do you want?” a voice startled me. I opened my eyes and there was Little Mas’oud, wearing a new white suit and holding a yellow rubber duck in his hand.

“Where is Aunt Gernas?” I stared at the duck.

“She is in there,” he pointed at a pale blue door with one hand and squeezed the duck with the other.

“I’m having a new dad and tons of toys. We are moving to Benghazi,” Little Mas’oud pulled out his tiny tongue and squinted his eyes.  Then he fled into the other part of the courtyard and disappeared into one of the rooms. I walked towards the pale blue door, pushed it gently and stepped in. It was dark again.

“Who is it?” a feeble voice asked. “Isawda? Is that you Mas’oud?”

Aunt Gernas, Fathia’s mother, was sitting in the corner of the dark room surrounded by many bright-coloured cushions. She was wearing a grey Libyan Reda - a piece of garment wrapped up around the body and tied up with a long red string called Shemla- and a multi-coloured chiffon shirt underneath. She had a yellow and green scarf tied around her head and tufts of bright orange, henna-dyed hair stuck out from both sides. She wore three huge silver ring earrings on each ear. Her face was covered in tattoos. A thick zigzag line travelled from beneath her chin and disappeared inside her bottom lip. Three medium-sized dots decorated both temples. A hocked-cross that resembled the swastika nestled between her eyebrows. Her hands were busy knitting something, while her eyes were closed. She was blind.

“It is me, Fatima, the daughter of the Ferjani family. My mother sends her greetings and this for Fathia.”

“Ah! Fatima! Come darling.”

She put the knitting needles aside and I landed the bundle on her lap.

“She shouldn’t have troubled herself,” Aunt Gernas stretched her hand and touched my face. Her hand was decorated with henna and the smell of henna nauseated me. Her hand travelled to my head and stroked my hair. Then, her other hand caught one of my hands and lifted it to her lips and kissed it tenderly.

“May Allah protect you from the evil eye. May your mother see you a bride. Take the parcel to Fathia. She is in the eastern room with the other women.” 

Yes We Can

Today the world rejoices the death of an evil man and his twisted ideology, Osama Ben Laden. This man and his evil ideology brought so much suffering and pain to everyone. Today the sun will shine on a world free from one evil man.

A soul in Torment

An extract from a story called A Soul in Torment in my Second Collection of short stories:

"Najma motioned to me and I approached hesitantly. She said, “You are a very pretty girl. Who is your father?”

I said, “ Ahmed.”

She asked again, “Ahmed who?”

I said, “Ahmed Khair-Allah.”

“Ah! The son of the ugly Mardhyia! Who is your mother?”

“Hamida”

“Ah, the beautiful Hamida! Just like her mother Mariam. Don’t play with the boys girl. A pretty girl like you should never play with boys. Boys do bad things to young girls. In few years a good man will pay a handsome dowry for you and make you his woman.”

I hated her immediately.

“Jamila! What are you doing here? Bothering Hajja Najma. Go and ask your mother to make us tea,” my grandmother said.

“No, no Mariam. Un café con biscotti!” Said Najma to my grandmother.

My grandmother smiled and said, “Bahi, my dear. You are killing yourself with coffee and cigarettes.”

The year I turned ten Najma visited us in our flat in Benghazi. We were busy preparing for my sister Widad’s wedding. My grandmother Mariam and aunt Karima were bent over their Singer sewing machines making sheets, pillowcases and curtains for Widas’s trousseau, from early morning.

The day Najma came my mother was making me a dress on her old treadle machine. Her mouth was full of pins and cut-up red velvet and scraps of tissue-paper patterns and lace surrounded her. She made me stand still and turn for endless fittings, which she called provas but pronounced as brovas.

“Come Jamila for a brova,” she said.

When Najma entered the room I was standing on a chair for one of my mother’s endless provas. I was tired and restless and all I wanted to do is go out and play with my new bicycle. She was squatting beneath me, her fat varicosed legs bulging from beneath her dress.

“Girl, can’t you stand still for few minutes?” My mother said around the pins in her mouth.

“She can’t. Lei è un’anima in pena,” said Najma.

I blushed even though I didn’t understand what she said. My mother removed the pins from her mouth and heaved herself up. She moved with a ponderous matriarchal discomfort, her over-sized thighs swung like two gigantic cushions. My mother gave Najma lavish loud kisses while Najma stood still for them as if she were a soldier giving a salute to his chief ....)

To be continued.

Autumn 2010

Permeate

In her regal new dress and hairdo, she stood next to the car and posed for a photo.

He directed the brand new digital camera in her direction and shouted: Cheeeeeeese.

She wrinkled her huge nose and stretch her almost-lipless mouth into a line of a smile.

He pressed the button.

She wrinkled her nose again.

He thought to himself: "why wrinkle the ugly nose? Is it the Cheese?"

He checked the photo and murmured into himself: "God, isn't she ugly? No matter how much make-up she smears on her ugly face, no matter how many nice clothes she puts on on her midget-y figure, no matter how many pieces of expensive jewelry she wears, no matter what, she will always be ugly, ugly, ugly. Her ugly soul seems to permeate to her exterior look. Ugly inside and outside!"

He looked at her and shouted: "Nalganik Shayna, shayna, wal Jamal khatiki."

Not an extract :) 

Amor Senza Baruffa!

A while ago I wrote a story and the main character in the story is a short dark woman who has a huge nose and almost no lips. She keeps shouting in Italian: Amor senza baruffa fa venire la muffa. Which roughly translates as: Love without scuffle is like mould on the wall! This crazy woman is haunting me and keeps popping up in each story I write but I’m fighting her off, suppressing her, as I don't want her to take hold of my stories. I liked her the first time I created her but now she is becoming a nightmare. Anyway, here is an extract from another story I wrote in the same cafe, but not haunted by the crazy woman:

((The Egyptian wife Laila, now no longer young or petrified, fitted nicely among the large family, like a pair of old comfortable slippers. She spoke fluently the North-eastern Libyan dialect, only few lapses gave in her Egyptian root, and excelled at all sorts of North-eastern cuisine. She also became a great flogger of her children, like her sisters-in-law: Nuria, Mbarka, Aisha, Salma, and Salha. The sisters-in-law would pounce on their children at any sign of wrongdoing or misbehaviour, thrashing them with great energy and zeal. Olive tree branches, carefully selected and trimmed into perfection, were used during the flogging sessions. The flogger often spoke while performing:
“I will mince you up if you ever do it again.”

“I will crush your skull if you touch things that don't belong to you.”

Abusive remarks for the child’s paternal grandmother, aunts, and uncles were also used with great enthusiasm:

“You are just as wicked and mischievous as your paternal grandmother, the witch.”

“You and your paternal aunt Fawzia, the scorpion, are like two peas in a pod, both ugly and useless.”

During each flogging session the other sisters would come out into the courtyard to watch, rocking ugly crying babies in their jewellery-laden arms or patting their swelled up bellies and say without sincerity:

“Stop it woman, you are killing the child.”

“Yea, stop it, you will damage the child.”

The flogged child’s screams would fill the inner courtyard and travel to the men’s quarter, summoning Hajj Salim, who would knock at the door of the women’s quarter and shout:

“Ya Allah. Hajja Halima! Tell the women to stop it or by Allah Almighty I will come in and beat the hell out of them.”

The flogger, now tired and satisfied, would stop. The small crowd of sisters and their children would disperse, unsatisfied. The flogged boy or girl would seek comfort from Grandma Halima, smearing her immaculate Reda in tears and snots.

But Laila the legendary flogger did not hurl abuse at the child’s paternal lineage or used a carefully selected and trimmed olive tree branch. She rather used a thick medium-sized piece of rubber water hose locally known as Tubo. The Tubo left an intricate chequered design of various hues on the child’s skin: black, dark purple, sallow, and green, speckled with yellow, just like mignonette flowers. ))

When I finished this part, I burst laughing, people in the cafe ogling me, as if I was a mad woman!

“Amor senza baruffa!” Oh God, no, she is haunting me again. Better go and throttle her.