My maternal grandmother passed away on the 9th of
June, 2014 at 3:30am.
As a young child I stayed with my grandma or as we call her
in Sudan ‘Haboba’ (meaning the loving one) for a period of six months while my
parents were away with my sister who at the time needed surgery abroad. My
unmarried twenty something year old uncle lived with her and my young married
aunt came to take care of us. I didn't get attached to my aunt because I was
five and frankly, she couldn't cook.
My grandma used to wake up at the crack of dawn, pray and
then she would go to the kitchen and make something called ‘Kisra’. This is the
traditional Sudanese alternative to bread – it looks like a very thin pancake
and tastes very salty and bitter. I've always hated it but haboba used to make
really nice curry with it which disguised its taste, so I ate it. She also used
to tell me that it was up to me, but if I didn't eat it I would stay young
forever and my hair would never be long (the things I feared the most in life)
At around 1pm she would take a nap, she had a cat who took
naps with her and I remember really wanting to take naps too, but because I couldn’t
I would climb behind her and lay there with my eyes closed for as long as I could,
(probably a couple of minutes) and then entertain myself with the nearest object
until she woke up. At night time I used to get very irritable (when I was sleepy) and she would calm me by telling me a story about the sheep whose sister ate all the grass of a farmer who wasn't her keeper and refused to return home because it was my favorite story - she did this until i fell asleep.
My Haboba had 3 rules.
You had to look nice
always, your hair, nails, outfit – you must be presentable by 5pm at the latest.
You have to tidy your
house/room/wardrobe daily (even if its tidy)
You have to eat. (I later
learned that saying ‘I’m hungry was a scapegoat for any situation)
Everything was very routine and predictable, things were
very organized, she never swore, rarely raised her voice and was the only person
who could tell anyone what to do.
Shorty before she passed away by around a couple of months
she started to mix up peoples identities and forget things, sometimes it was
really funny because she would be gossiping about my mother, with my mother
thinking she was talking to my aunt. But other times it was a little painful
because when someone who used to love you so much doesn't really recognize you,
you can’t help but feel a loss.
My Haboba couldn’t read or write, everything in her life was
very routine, and it seemed to be that her most major concerns were the three
points above, as well as where I was, who I was with, what I was doing and when
I would be back home - but it wasn’t until I grew up that I realized there was
much more to her than what I had previously believed.
My first encounter with her intelligence was when we were
faced with a very awkward family situation – her ability to completely conceal
any negative implications from the children, who were the centre of it all was impeccable.
She ensured the smooth going of all situations and always knew exactly how to
act. Always.
She also knew very well how to gracefully deal with liars,
cheats, people who have wronged her and most of all, what impressed me the most
was her approach towards men.
When it came to anyone, regardless of their intentions, if
they came to her house, she would make sure they were fed, entertained and
welcomed. She had one friend who was a thief and it got to the point where we
all knew, even she knew that her friend comes to our house, steals from her and
then leaves – my grandmother knew this, but if anyone of us pointed it out she always asked us. ‘Did
you SEE her steal anything?’ – then she followed it with ‘Then let her be and
do not talk nonsense’
I had great trouble with this concept at first because my
haboba did not like thieves. She was very anti-theft. If someone asked for
anything she would give it to them, but theft was a red line for her – she used
to brag about how my grandfather would chase away thieves and was very brave,
but with this particular lady she was very forgiving.
Although she knew the woman was stealing, she
nonetheless fed her, joked with her and asked her to stay as long as she
pleased. I later realized that the woman had an illness, she couldn’t help it,
no matter how much you give her, she needed to steal something, even if you
gave her $50, she would rather steal $5. My grandmother had realized this long
before I had.
When it came to men her approach was very different,
although never educated, she knew her value well. She was very strong willed
and would do her best to honor and respect a good man, as long as he knew his
place – but she had no fear or being alone or losing a man and she never needed
one, my grandfather passed away shortly after my mother’s wedding and although
she cared and respected him deeply her greatest fear after his death wasn't
that she would be alone, it was that her youngest son, at the time 10 would
lose out of having a father figure.
In Sudan it is a common ritual that every evening just after
sun-set (magrib prayer time) the entire family surrounds haboba and has tea.
This is the time we talk about our day, visitors come over to drink tea and
basically it’s the time when everyone is in one place. At one sitting my sister
brought up the topic of a woman who had undergone plastic surgery because of her
husband’s preferences – to which my haboba astonished me.
‘Change my being for a
man?’ Why on earth would I change what god has given me to impress a man? If
he doesn’t like me the way I am then he can go and look somewhere else’.
I was very astonished to hear her say this because she was
raised in a generation where men pretty much ruled – or was that just what I thought?
Is that the generation I was raised in?
My haboba knew very well her value, she was very grounded
and she was very well educated in the way you should behave and act. There was
a lot of depth and wisdom behind her sometimes bizarre decisions and I will
always remember the lessons she taught me.
When it came to her funeral however, I experienced a new way
of thinking that I never thought possible.
TBC…
No comments:
Post a Comment