“Bring your hijab down and cover your chest. It’s useless tied around your neck.”
Baba walked over to where I was standing in the hallway and yanked the little knot I had made with the two ends of my headscarf behind my neck.
“But my school shirt covers my chest,” I protested.
“No, this is not proper hijab. Proper hijab should be worn so that it covers your chest.”
Baba and I stood face-to-face as he put his large brown hands with his spindly fingers around my neck and undid the knotted fabric.
As soon as he had dropped me, Ahmed and Saffa off outside the school gates and was out of sight, I tied the ends of my hijab around my neck again.
“If he finds out you’re gonna get in trouble,” Ahmed warned.
“How’s he gonna find out? Are you gonna tell him?” I asked him daringly.
“Come on let’s go, we’re gonna be late,” Ahmed said shaking his head, and he hurried towards the boys’ entrance.
Tying my hijab around my neck was important. It was a tiny act of defiance in the face of Baba who was becoming stricter by the day.
Baba had enrolled us into a private international school that wasn’t very international as it was attended mainly by khaleeji kids a.k.a people from the Gulf.
Classes were segregated—all schools in the country were segregated except for the American schools—but boys and girls shared the same building, so I got to see the boys sometimes as I moved from class to class. I was in Year 10, Ahmed was in Year 7 and Saffa was in Year 5, so she was in a separate building for the Primary School children.
The rules around being friends with boys had changed since we left London. Saffa and I didn’t make friends with the new amus’ sons and Ahmed didn’t make friends with their daughters. Saffa and I were explicitly forbidden by Baba from having male friendships. Ahmed had not been given the same warning.
In London the rules were the same for all of us but now that we were in the Gulf, Baba had become like every other Arab father who made separate rules for his daughters and sons.
“Things are different here, Sara,” Baba told me during the car ride to school one morning. “Here, each girl has to mind her reputation. The reputation of a girl is the reputation of her family. Only bad girls mix with boys here. And don’t forget the hadith, the saying of the Prophet Muhammed, peace be upon him, that when a man and a woman are alone, the devil is the third-party.”
“But I’m not a woman yet,” I replied.
“You went through puberty. In Islam this means you’re a woman. Allah will hold you accountable now for your deeds.”
“But how come you let me be friends with the amus’ sons in London?”
“I told you, things are different here and anyway, you were young in London.”
“Does that mean you would have stopped me being friends with amu Khairy’s sons and amu Yousry’s sons once I had turned fifteen in London?”
“Don’t try to act clever with me, Sara! In London life is different. The people here in the Arab world aren’t used to speaking to the opposite sex. Just trust me on this. I know how people think here.”
I missed the fun I had hanging out with the amus’ sons in London, but when I observed the Gulf boys in school, they didn’t look like they were worth breaking Baba’s new rules for anyway.
Walking through the school corridor to my next lesson, I observed one khaleeji boy (who had a bowl haircut and a light moustache) flatten his face against the wall every time a girl walked past him, taking quick glimpses to make sure the girl had completely gone before he unflattened himself and resumed walking.
Our Arabic teacher, Miss Reema, came from Jordan and she didn’t fit the stereotype of an Arabic teacher at all. Arabic teachers usually wore long, thick, ankle-length overcoats called jilbabs, big headscarves that were tightly pinned under the chin, and no make-up. They were the biggest prudes.
But Miss Reema was different. She was in her late 20s, and she wore lots of makeup, a tiny headscarf tucked into her blouse and skinny jeans. You don’t understand how much of a big deal it is for an Arabic teacher to wear jeans! Most Arabic teachers taught girls that wearing trousers was haram. Any form of clothing that showed the outline of your legs was haram.
Miss Reema was more like a big sister. She always came into class smelling of cigarettes and she loved gossiping about the boys since she taught them Arabic and Islamic Studies too.
At the end of Arabic lesson one day, she came over to where I sat at my desk and said, “You know Faisal from Year 9? He told me he likes you.”
I had seen Faisal around the school several times. I knew who he was because he hung out with two boys called Saud and Rayyan, who were accused by everyone of being gay. Saud and Rayyan looked and behaved effeminately, and I think that was why the students, both the boys and the girls, believed they were gay. Rumours were rife in the school about his two friends being bummed by the older boys in the toilets.
The Gulf was strange. If you were the guy on top you weren’t considered gay, but if you were the guy receiving, you were. Having grown up in London I had no issues with gay people even though Baba kept telling me how haram it was to be homosexual. Saud and Rayyan were ostracised by everybody at school, and because Faisal was friends with them, he was side-lined by the other boys too.
I had never given Faisal a second glance, until one day, we crossed paths in the corridor, and he smiled at me. He was the year below me, but you could have easily thought he was eighteen with his thick black moustache and goatee. He had straight, shoulder-length, black hair. Faisal was cute.
“You know if you want to talk to him, you could meet in my office at lunchtime. I won’t tell anyone,” Miss Reema suggested.
I really missed the fun and banter I had with amus’ sons in London.
I’m sure I can have a secret guy friend here at school and no one will find out, I thought to myself.
So I told Miss Reema I was up for meeting Faisal in her office the next day at lunchtime.
When I turned up at her office the next day I was disappointed that Faisal’s mates Saud and Rayyan had tagged along. I could tell that Faisal was struggling to talk to me. Every time he asked me a question about myself it was immediately followed by serious amounts of blushing. It seemed like he had never had an actual conversation with a girl before.
Faisal ordered McDonalds for all of us and his chauffer dropped it off at the school gates. This is one thing I did love about the Gulf. It was perfectly acceptable to have your family chauffeur pick up your lunch from a restaurant of your choosing and drop it off at school. We ate the McDonalds as the boys did impersonations of our teachers, making me laugh so hard that I got stitches.
I didn’t really hear from my friends back in London but I was getting on great with the Gulf girls at school, although when they spoke about things like shopping for designer bags or the couture dresses they wore to weddings I felt a little left out.
I had become particularly close to one girl in the year below me, Muneera. Her father was an ambassador and even though she was a Gulfie she had spent most of her life living in London. She had moved back two years ago and was the one person at school who could relate to the culture shock I was currently experiencing.
I told Muneera about my lunch ‘date.’
“Sara, if you get caught mixing with male students you’ll be in big trouble with the headmistress,” Muneera warned me, “It’s not worth it. You’re not in London anymore. Boys and girls here don’t mix freely, not even as friends. It’s frowned upon culturally. The rare time a Gulf girl talks to a guy and gets caught, if she isn’t beaten up and grounded for life by her family, she is called a gahba.”
“What’s a gahba?” I asked.
“It’s like the Egyptian word sharmootah. It means slut.”
“You’re worrying too much Muneera,” I said. “Miss Reema has my back. It’ll be fine.”
“I’m just looking out for you Sara. I don’t want to see you get in trouble,” Muneera said quietly and we ended our conversation as we entered the classroom.
But I was wrong. Miss Reema pulled me aside after an Arabic lesson.
“Sara, I need to talk to you. I don’t think you should come to my office at lunchtime anymore to hang out with the boys. One of the girls in Year 9 spotted you through my office window and rumours have started to fly around. This could be bad for your reputation. If it gets back to your father, he won’t be happy.”
“But it was your idea! You told me about Faisal.”
“I know and I was wrong,” Miss Reema said, avoiding eye contact with me. “You need to end it.”
“Fine,” I said.
Miss Reema sighed relieved. She smiled at me, pinched my cheek like I was a little kid and then walked out of the classroom.
I had no intention of not spending time with my new friends.