I spent my whole childhood, or at least until I was six, thinking that living in refugee camps was all that existed for any person,’ writes Senia Bachir Abderahman, in an account that describes how her family came to live in the south-west Algerian desert, following the Morrocan occupation of Western Sahara in 1976. For Abderahman, ‘home is a far-fetched, ideal, dream-come-true state of mind’.
The night has just worn its black coat with bright stars. My grandmother Aziza and I sit on the cold soft dunes of the Algerian desert. She points with her fingers to the wide sky and starts to explain the Saharawi astronomy. Though she is completely blind, she still can sense the position of each star, which she once knew so well. She usually tells me and my brothers about the legends of her family, especially of my great-grandfather who used to be one of the most famous traders in the region. She tells us about their nomadic life and how they used to travel across the desert to exchange goats, sheep, camels and other valuables. At times, she tells us fairytales to make us fall asleep. But, on this night she chooses to tell me a different kind of story, a story that does not make me fall asleep, but one that awakens me and leaves me wondering and pondering on her and my own life.
She takes me back to when she was a young lady and a mother of three daughters and three sons. Like many women in her community, she married at the age of 12, but did not give birth to my mother, her eldest, until she was 20. The number 12 seems to be significant in her life. Even though her name means ‘the dearest one’, she was commonly known amongst her family members as ‘the stubborn one’. She was called so because when her mother was pregnant with her, she ‘refused’ to come to this world until she was 12 months old. It was certainly unusual considering that babies are born after nine months. She was the eldest in a family of five girls and one boy. As a wife, Aziza did not give birth immediately after getting married, which raised concerns amongst her family. But she was lucky enough to have an understanding husband who did not divorce her for that reason. In her community, one of the most important aspects of marriage was to give birth to many children, especially boys. Also, it was common for the husband to divorce his wife if she was ‘infertile’ without considering the possibility that the problem may be his own impotence.
As a mother and a wife, Aziza’s day usually started early in the morning by milking the camels, goats and sheep. ‘Everything was green and the air was so fresh,’ she tells me when comparing the countryside of Smara in the now Moroccan Occupied Territory with the desert of Smara refugee camp, where she has lived in exile for the last three decades. Though she is now blind, she still can sense the dryness and emptiness of the Hamada [Editor’s note: this is the name of this part of the Sahara desert). She tells me things about my homeland, a land that I have never set foot on, and can only fantasise about.
In Smara’s countryside, she was surrounded by the El-Fogra. Although Western Sahara consists mostly of desert areas, Aziza grew up in beautiful, green landscapes next to serene beaches. I think to myself as she speaks, she will never enjoy seeing all of this again! It is very hard for me to imagine where she once lived and enjoyed her youth. For an hour we go back two decades in time to the village of her origin. The hour, however, passes in a glimpse, just as so many of Aziza’s stories. Her fantasies, fairytales, recollections and memories intertwine with one another. She starts to lose interest, and suddenly starts to talk about when her life would change forever.
One morning in January 1976, something unusual happened. The day before, Aziza had heard rumours that the Moroccan army had attacked the northern region and forced people to flee. She did not really pay much attention, nor did any other member of her family, for they lived in the safe countryside and thought no one would bother them. In addition, Western Sahara had just gained independence from the Spanish after over a century of occupation. Everyone thought: Who would come to occupy their country, especially Morocco, their neighbour? They were mistaken in thinking so. On that day, the whole Frig [Editor’s note: frig denote an especially large collection of nomad tents rather than the usual small familial clusters of tents] was forced to abandon their families, properties, animal herds and the rest of the village. Aziza described the Moroccan soldiers as ‘having strange looks and indeed looked unmerciful.’ They were equipped with forces, guns and tanks and they came in groups. In that instant, her husband left to join other men to fight for their land of the Western Sahara. Like the rest of the Frig, she ran away with her children. The village became very unsafe and they could see other people in the distance being tortured and their sons taken away by the Moroccan soldiers.
She and her three daughters and three sons had to cross the desert to seek refuge in Algeria. They had to cross on foot – no camels, cars or any other means of transportation could be used because they were afraid of airplanes dropping bombs on them. During their journey, they walked at night because it was dark and no airplanes would be able to spot them. Even walking at night was dangerous: Snakes, scorpions and other dangerous desert insects lurked in the naked desert sands. During the day, they could not walk because they could see military airplanes flying over their heads and every then and now, they heard a bomb in the distance. They had to hide behind trees, if they were lucky enough to find any, and rocks when resting from the long walks at night and feed the children with the little food they could carry with them. ‘Lala and I took turns watching for airplanes, while the other one napped,’ Aziza tells me. Lala, my mother, was only 12 years old and she was the oldest child, while Brahim the youngest was eight months old.
Three days passed and they started to run out of food and water. So, surviving meant eating whatever could be found in the desert. Not long after that, Brahim died of dehydration. Still, they had to continue for fear of worse things happening. Just two days after Brahim’s death, while taking a break, the other two young boys died in a landmine explosion. ‘Half of the family was gone. It was a true devastation and heartbreaking,’ she tells with tears in her eyes. The tragedy did not end there. As my tears continue to drop, she says: ‘And then I lost my sight.’ On the following day, as they continued their journey, an airplane dropped a bomb just few metres in front of them. Since Aziza was in the lead, the ashes sprayed into her eyes and she lost her sight forever. Despite all of this, they could not stop. With a smile and tears in her eyes, she says, ‘The next day two men came on a truck and took us to the camps.’ A month after they arrived at the refugee camps in the southwest Algerian desert, she received the message of her husband’s death in one of the battles between the Polisario and the Moroccan army.
I quietly cry some more and then hug her. It was then I realised why she was so protective of her eldest grandchild. A widow with no sight, she was the mother and father for her three daughters whom she had to raise and take care of in the harsh conditions of the Hamada. Since there was no man in the family, my grandmother was the head of the family and her consent on every decision was absolutely necessary.
I was eight years old when I was faced with two options: Continue my education thousands of kilometres away from my family or stay at home and get married shortly after. It was a hard decision and one that I could not make by myself. On the one hand my mother wanted me to finish my education for she saw my potential but on the other hand, it was very hard to convince my grandmother who never went to school that this step was an important one in her granddaughter’s life. It took a very long time of arguing for my grandmother to finally agree on sending me to school, but it was too late. The trucks had just left taking the students to the buses, which would take them to boarding school in northwest Algeria. The place was about a two-hour drive and we did not have a car. I was convinced that the second option was what meant to happen.
It was a scary and an unbelievable scenario for me because school has always been the place where I found true refuge. My day always started very early in the morning by waking up as early as five; I was always the first of my family to get up. Every day, I get very excited about starting a new day in the classroom with the teacher and learning something new and different. My daily routine started with Qu’ran School for an hour and a half after which I left to the regular school. I was the most favoured student for Lemrabet, the Qu’ran teacher. He always gave me special privileges like teaching other people who were much older than me. He liked me because I memorised the Qu’ran verses very quick and always learned more than he expected.
AllAfrica, 06 OCT 2011