On Sept 30, 2007, my friend and I arrived in Yemen with my inflatable boat, ready to get my children, get them across the Red Sea, and take them home - finally.
I set out to find a way to get out of the city to the capital where the kids were. I didn't have the necessary travel permission paper from the government, so I needed a Yemeni who could speak at least a little English who was willing to get us through the military checkpoints and take us to Sanaa. It took me a week to find someone. I found a man who spoke a little English who agreed to drive us 7 hours to Sanaa. He had his own taxi. So, we set out for Sanaa.
Since I was dressed in the traditional Yemeni women's clothing without my hair or face being exposed, we were able to get past all the military checkpoints along the way without getting stopped or questioned for travel papers. That was a huge relief. When we got to Sanaa, the taxi driver dropped us off and agreed to wait for us to take us back to the port city. We had purchased a cell phone when we got to Yemen, and we would call him to take us back once I had the kids. The taxi driver didn't know that I was going to be going back wth children, because his English wasn't fluent enough for me to make him understand what I was doing, but I figured it would work out.
I found my way to Ahmed's house. I stood on the corner down the street from his front gate and waited. I watched as his father pulled his car out to go to work. I waited some more. I saw his brother come out in his Land Rover and leave for work. I waited some more. Soon, his sister left in her car and went to work. The only one left would have been Ahmed. So I waited. And waited. And waited some more. He didn't come out. I figured maybe he had gone to work early and was no longer in the house, so I walked up to his front gate. Just as I was standing in front of his gate, the gate opened and Ahmed backed his car out. I had to jump back, because he nearly ran over my foot. My heart was racing and I thought, "I'm busted! He will see me and have me arrested for being here!" But, he didn't. I was wearing the black robe and the scarf and the face covering, and he didn't know it was me standing there. He pulled out and left.
I stood there and had to catch my breath for a minute, then I for the cell phone and called inside the house. My daughter got on the phone, and I said, "It's time. Very quietly, go to the front gate. It's time to go home". I had told her before that I would get her out of there, one way or another, and to never give up, because I would never give up, and she always believed in me and knew that someday I would be there to take them all home, so she said nothing except, "Okay. We're coming".
In a minute, my three kids came out the front gate. I took them by the hand and we walked as fast as we could. We caught a taxi and wen to the place where the taxi driver who brought us to Sanaa was waiting. We immediately got into his car and got out of Sanaa. If we left immediately, we would be halfway to the port city before Ahmed found out the kids were missing and send his army to look for us. He wouldn't expect me to leave the city, since he knew I didn't have a travel permission paper, therefore, he would have thought that was impossible. I was pretty sure his search would be limited to Sanaa. On our way back to the port city, we were lucky once again as we stopped at each military checkpoint, because no one asked us for travel papers. They assumed we were Yemeni, and Yemenis are allowed to pass through the checkpoints without getting questioned.
During the 7-hour ride, the kids and I were so very, very happy. We hugged and kissed, and they talked non-stop. I hadn't seen them in almost 7 months, and we had a lot of sharing to do. I was so happy to be able to see them, hear them, hug them, kiss them, and see their beautiful faces again. They were just as happy to see me. I knew we were going to make it home. We just had to.
There was a problem with the boat, however. I had packed the inflatable boat into one suitcase, and that alone weighed 50 pounds. Another suitcase contained the lifejackets that I had purchased for the kids, the waterbottles, the heat blanket and other gear, and one change of clothing for the kids. However, they wouldn't let me take the boat seats on the plane. The way the boat is made, it came with two 14-foot long inflatable tubes. Those tubes are connected when you slide these three aluminum boards across them, creating the seats, and more importantly, keeping the two tubes about 5 feet apart to provide stability for the boat. The airline told me that there was no way I could put those seats on the plane, because they were 2 inches too long. After much arguing, I ended up spending $450 to send the seats to Yemen via DHL. When I arrived in Yemen and called DHL to get the seats, I was told they hadn't arrived yet. I spent the first week in that port city looking for a ride to Sanaa, and during that entire week, the seats had still not arrived.
So now that I had the children and was back in the port city, I called DHL again and asked about the boat seats. This time, they told me that they had arrived, but that I wouldn't be able to get them out of customs unless I paid another $260.00 in customs fees AND showed up at the airport with ID to claim them. That presented two problems. First of all, I didn't have $260.00. Second, if I showed up at the airport, I knew that I would be arrested, since Ahmed had, by now, found out that the children were missing and was searching for us. Getting the seats was no longer an option. We would have to cross the Red Sea somehow just by using the two inflatable tubes. So I stopped at a store and purchased some rope. I figured we'd have to tie the two tubes together with rope and row across the Red Sea that way. It was the only option.
As soon as we purchased the rope, we went to another taxi company and requested a ride to Bab al-Madeb. This took a while, because apparently, no one ever went to Bab al-Mandeb. We had to show it to the head of the taxi company on the map, because he didn't know what we were talking about. He wanted to know why we wanted to go there. He didn't speak English, however, so my oldest daughter was translating as best she could. But, she doesn't know Arabic very well, so we really couldn't communicate. Eventually, he took my money, provided a taxi and a driver, and we set off for Bab al-Mandeb at 6 pm. We had been in the car coming from Sanaa for 7 hours, had spent maybe two hours purchasing the rope and trying to get a taxi to Baba al-Mandeb, and now we set out for another 5-hour ride to our destination. I wanted to let the kids stay and rest, but time was a huge factor. The longer we stayed around, the more chances that we would be found and caught, and then my children would never get home. If I got caught, I knew I would either go to jail or get killed, so we kept moving.
I had spent months in America trying to find some kind of help to bring my kids home to America where they wanted to be - and where they needed to be. After months of trying to reach out and spending thousands of dollars, I realized that there was no help, and no one cared. But I truly believe that love is the strongest force there is, so I decided that I would bring the kids home by myself - in spite of my own government's attempts to stop me, in spite of his government's attempts to stop me, in spite of the travel ban that meant they could not board a plane from Yemen, etc. I've always believed that "Where there's a will, there's a way", and I certainly had the will.
Not having my kids' passports was a problem. The travel ban forbidding them from getting on a plane was a problem. The lack of money was a problem. Their father's high-level connections with the Vice-President of Yemen, the Minister of the Interior, the Yemeni military police, and an army of people there willing to do anything he commanded was definitely a problem. But, I believed, problems can be overcome if you want it bad enough, and I definitely wanted it bad enough. My kids needed me, and nothing was going to stop me from saving them.
I decided that the only way I could bring the kids home was to go to Yemen, grab them, get them to the coast, and get them across the Red Sea to Djibouti, where the US Embassy would provide replacement passports for the kids and where there was no travel ban preventing them from getting on a plane to come home. So I set about developing a plan to make that happen.
The first problem was that I had already taken the kids and ran once (when I ran to the US Embassy, who decided they didn't want to help us and sent my kids back to their father's house). As a result, Ahmed forbid me from going near his house again and had people set up to watch the street around his house to make sure I couldn't get near. He also said that if I showed up in Yemen again, that he would have me arrested at the airport or he would have me killed. I know how well-connected he is there, and I knew he wasn't lying. So the first obstacle to overcome was to figure out how to get into the country.
I went to court and legally changed my name to something completely different, and I got a passport in that name. Then, I bought a plane ticket to fly into a city far from where he lived - 7 hours away by car, in fact. He expected me to show up at the airport in the capital city where he lived. He wouldn't have people on the lookout in a faraway city.
The next problem to overcome was to figure out how to get from that far city to the capital city. See, there are 3 major cities in Yemen, and the government only has control in those cities. The tribes control the areas outside the cities, and foreigners are not allowed to travel outside the cities without a special travel permission from the government because the tribes are always kidnapping any foreigners they can find in order to bargain for things from the government. There was no way I could get that travel permission. So I ordered the black robe and scarf and face covering that all the women in Yemen wear, and I worked hard to save up as much money as I could. I figured if I had the money, I could pay a Yemeni man to drive me to the capital and get me past all the military checkpoints where they stop you and ask you for your travel permission paper. Also, women don't generally travel alone in Yemen. They are always accompanied by their husband or a male family member. It would be difficult for me to get around as a woman by herself.
Then there was the problem of how to cross the Red Sea with three kids. I researched places where I might be able to get a boat ride, but since the kids had no passports and people would be looking for them, the only option was to do it myself. So I bought a 14-foot inflatable sea-worthy sailboat from seaeagle.com and decided to take that with me and use that boat to get across the Red Sea to Djibouti.
The other difficult strategy was figuring out how to get across the Red Sea on my inflatable boat with just me and three children. I studied Google Earth, and the shortest distance from Yemen to Djibouti was to launch from a very remote area called Bab al-Mandeb. According to Google Earth, from that point, it was about 20 miles across the Sea to Djibouti. Leaving from the southern city of Yemen, it was at least 150 miles across. The boat would have to be rowed, as I couldn't take a motor with me. I figured I needed to get to Bab al-Mandeb and launch from there.
But even if I could row in a straight line, and row non-stop, I figured I had at least 7 hours of rowing. I am not athletic or strong, and I knew I would be taking care of three kids who would be excited and scared, and I thought it would be safer if I had help. So I contacted a male friend of mine and asked him to go to Yemen with me to help me row the boat across the Red Sea. I didn't think my chances of success were great if I were doing it all by myself. He agreed, and he got his plane ticket.
Then there will the little things to plan. One was availability of water. You can't drink the water in Yemen, and there are no water fountains or places to get fresh water there. You have to buy drinking water and carry it with you. We would be out in the middle of nowhere - 5 of us - for who knows how long, so I needed to make sure we would be able to carry enough water to keep us alive until we got to Djibouti. So I bought two 5-gallon collapsible camping jugs to carry water in. I took a thin heat blanket, because we would have to row at night to avoid getting caught, and it would be cold. I thought of every problem that might arise and tried to prepare for them.
The day came for put the plan in action and to finally bring my kids home. We went to the airport and boarded the plane....
There are no words to describe what a mother feels when she knows how badly her children are suffering and yet she can't do anything to help them. I've never believed in the word "can't" in my entire life, and I wasn't about to start now. So, I thought. And thought and thought and thought some more. Surely there had to be a way to be with my children, hug them at night, protect them, help them work through their bad times, and teach them how wonderful and loved they really are. There just had to be a way to help my kids!
The most important thing in my entire life is to be with my children. I don't care about money or possessions or anything other than being with them, sharing experiences with them, and teaching them that they matter, they're important, and that they are fundamentally wonderful people - the exact opposite things they were learning living with their father in Yemen. Without them, I sincerely just want to die. That's a fact. They are the only thing that gives me joy and purpose and hope.
So, I set about trying to figure out a way to help my children.
The first thing I did was try to reason with their father. Countless conversations ensued where I tried to convince him that the kids needed their mother. A year later, I finally gave up on that. I decided that, no matter how horrible life was in Yemen for both me and the kids, at the very least, if I moved there, we could at least be together and see each other. So, I went to Yemen twice trying to just get along with their father so that I could be near my children. I sincerely tried very hard. He was always angry, he spent his days trying to keep the kids away from me, from morning until night, the children and I listened as he constantly told the kids and I how horrible a woman I was and how much he hated me and what a bad mother I was, etc. I didn't speak up, and I tried to just put up with him and his family (who hated me as well) so that I could stay and be with my children. However, he would not stop hitting me or the children, and it was absolutely intolerable. Getting hit myself was bad enough. There were days when my chest and arms were so bruised and sore that I literally could not walk to the bathroom without severe pain. What was absolutely intolerable was watching him hit the children all day every day, often for no reason whatsoever, and seeing how he made them feel worthless, dirty and bad. Every comment and action from him to them was aimed at breaking their spirit and making them feel like they were pieces of dirt who couldn't do anything right. When I tried to counteract what he was trying so hard to teach them (i.e., that they were annoying little pieces of crap), he got angrier and increased his efforts to make sure that the kids stay away from me. I was not allowed to speak to my children, and they were not allowed to speak to me unless he was standing there to monitor what we said to each other and prevent us from saying anything he didn't want spoken.
There is only so much hitting a woman can take. At least, that's the way it was for me. I couldn't stand it anymore. He just got meaner and nastier, and everytime he'd get angry at me, he'd take it out on the children. My presence seemed to be harming them more than it was helping them. So, I finally decided that I had better leave. He kept threatening to throw me out of his house and into the streets, and on nmore than one occasion, he had called the embassy and the military police telling them that I needed to leave his house, and that I was not allowed anywhere near his house again. The only thing that prevented that from happening was that my oldest daughter was screaming and wailing and stood up and refused to let him throw me out of his house. He would have done it anyway, but his father intervened and told him to let me stay. It got so bad, though, that my only option, I felt, was to leave.
I tried to find a job in Yemen so that I could get my own place there and at least still be near my children. However, there are no jobs available to a foreign woman who can't speak Arabic. There are two English language institutes there who hire English teachers who can't speak Arabic, and I applied with both of them but was told that they didn't have any available positions. With no money and no job, there was no way to live on my own in Yemen. I had tried my best, but I failed. I left and went back to America.
I tried to convince their father to move to a different country - one where we could both find employment, one where there was electricity and plenty of water (unlike Yemen). He refused to even hear me. I suggested that we set up a joint custody agreement, where the kids spend part of the year with me and part of the year with him. He wouldn't even think about that, either. He didn't care about what the kids wanted or needed. He only cared about what he wanted - and what he wanted was for me to be gone and for everyone in the community to think that he was this awesome, upstanding, upper-class Muslim man who was raising three children by himself (even though his family are the closest thing to caretakers that the children have at this point, and none of them want to be bothered with my kids, either).
So, reasoning, pleading, bargaining, and trying to appease him did no good whatsoever. So I tried to think of another solution.
I researched private military groups, also known as "mercenaries". I found one, met with the man, and was promised that these people could go in and bring my children home. He seemed honest and trustworthy, and I gave the man $5000.00, which was money I certainly didn't have. He took my money and promptly disappeared. That didn't work, and I was out $5000.00.
I decided to ask for help. I wrote to all the local and national media stations, as well as all the talk shows on TV - numerous times. I never received one response from anyone.
So I decided to ask help from regular people. I went to the library and got a book called "The Rich Register", which lists info and addresses on the wealthiest 2500 people in America. I spent $400 on envelopes, paper, and stamps and sent out over 1100 letters to people in that book, explaining the situation and asking for help. With 1100 letters, you would think that at least one person would write back or call or email, but once again, I didn't hear anything from even one single person. I guess people just care about their own problems and are too busy watching the latest escapades of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears to care about three American kids who are being held captive and abused in a faraway country. I realized that their lives just didn't matter to anyone.
I decided to ask for help from the Jewish community, since Ahmed hates the Jewish people so badly and is working hard to instill that hate in my children. I figured that, if they decided to help, they cold help prevent three little kids from being trained to grow up and join the next generation of anti-Jewish terrorists. So I sent letters to all the synagogues and Jewish centers I could locate in the Eastern US. Again, not one response.
So then I decided to write to other parents whose children had been kidnapped internationally. I wrote to several of them, but again, got no responses. I started to think that maybeI was completely invisible and that none of my letters and emails were reaching their destination, but in reality, I gues the fact is just that no one cares.
I made a website, but got no visitors, other than Ahmed. He found the website and demanded that I take it down or else he'd hurt the kids. I know who he is and what he does, so I took it down. No one ever came to the website, anyway.
So, I gave up on trying to reach out to others. I learned that this was all on my shoulders, there was no help to be found, and that I alone would have to save those children.
The American Embassy wouldn't help, the State Dept wouldn't help, no one would help. The travel ban meant that there was no way to get my kids on a plane in Yemen, so I decided that I would have to get the kids across the Red Sea to Djibouti, where the American Embassy would do their job, replace my kids passports, and then I could bring the kids home. So, I started planning.....
I had arrived in Yemen for the third time on Aug. 9, 2006. During the second week of October, I received an email from my biological father. I found my birth parents in 1990, and my father and I had become close friends. He was the only family I had, and I love him dearly. In the email, he told me that he had just found out that he had stomach cancer and that he was dying. He told me that he thought he was going fast and was really sick. I needed to go back to America to see my dad.
Ahmed, however, had put a travel ban on me and wouldn't let me leave the country. He didn't like my dad, since my dad didn't like him (he was a great judge of character). He couldn't care less that my dad was dying and that I needed to go see him and help him in his final days.
Meanwhile, my kids were absolutely miserable, and they were getting hit all day every day by Ahmed. I couldn't stand to watch and not be able to help them, They needed to go home.
I was closely monitored and was not allowed to go anywhere or do anything without his permission. When he was at work, he had relatives and neighbors watching every move I made, alawys reporting to him if I left the front gate, at what time I left and at what time I returned. Then I got questioned for hours when he got home from work asking where I was, who I talked to, what I did, etc.
At the end of October, I got my chance. Ahmed went to visit a friend for Eid (the holiday celebrating the end of Ramadan). When he and his family left, I grabbed the kids and we ran to the US Embassy in Sanaa asking for help.Vice consul David Fuller took me into his office, and I told him the whole story. I told him how wehad come to visit Ahmed, how abusive he was to me and the kids, how we were monitored and forbidden from going anywhere without him, etc. I gave him a copy of the US court papers showing that I had sole custody of the kids, as well as the outstanding federal arrest warrant against Ahmed for kidnapping.
David Fuller took my kids into a room by themselves and questioned them to verify the stories of the daily beatings, without my influence. He listened as they told him about the daily beatings and saw the bruises that were all over my children. After the interview process was over, he said to me, "We can help. We had the same situation last year with another American woman, and within a week we got her and her children safely out of the country". I was so relieved.
We went to a hotel and hid from Ahmed, since he was out looking for us. The next day, Ahmed once again proved what a master manipulator he is. The day after we came to the embassy for help, David Fuller called Ahmed on the phone. Ahmed was charming and told David how he had never hit me or the kids. He told David that I was mentally ill and shouldn't be believed, etc. He poured on the sharm, as he always does.
The unbelievable part is that, from that point on, David Fuller was no longer willing to help us. He told me that he had no time for us, because he had a stack of files on his desk and he needed to work on them. Then he said, "We can't help you. We will provide a driver and a car, and we will take the kids back to Ahmed's house and drop them off. If you choose not to take our offer, then you are to walk out that door and not come back, because we won't let you in. You're on your own."
I was flabbergasted at his complete disregard for me and my kids, and how he could ignore hearing my kids tell their story. He ignored the bruises covering my children. He ignored the custody papers and the outstanding arrest warrant and was demanding that we go back to Ahmed's and refusing us any help whatsoever. Ahmed is not a US citizen, but my children and I are. But yet he was so willing to immediately believe Ahmed's pretty little story and send us back to the wolves.
I had no more money, and I really needed to go to America to be with my dad. I told David Fuller that I needed to leave because my father was dying, and that I couldn't leave because of the travel ban Ahmed had put on us. David agreed to arrange a meeting at the Yemeni passport office so we could try to get the travel ban lifted so I could return home to my father.
The meeting took place the next day. There was many people in attendance. Ahmed and his two brothers were there. Three US Embassy employees (David Fuller, his colleague, and a translator) were there, as well as about 8 Yemeni military people, one of which was the head or director or something like that from the passport office.
The embassy people tried for hours to get Ahmed to remove the travel ban so that I could go see my father. Ahmed refused - for hours. The debate went back and forth and back and forth for several hours. The head Yemeni passport guy was trying harder than the US Embassy people to get Ashraf to lift the ban. He was a nice guy, but he, too, believed Ahmed's story that Ahmed was this wonderful, upstanding man and father and husband who had never touched us, and that I was just some crazy woman who didn't know what reality was. Even so, he invested a lot of time and energy trying to get Ahmed to lift the ban. Of course, I didn't understand a lot of what was said, because most of the meeting took place in Arabic. The only English spoken was by me and the embassy staff, and then the translator translated what we said into Arabic.
Finally, after 6 hours of debate, Ahmed stated - in English and, from what I was told, in Arabic - that he would lift the travel ban on me so I could return to the States, and that if I went and got a court paper in America stating that, if anything ever happened to me, custody of the children would go to him (and they wouldn't get put in foster care, since I had no family in America other than my dying father), he would then lift the travel ban against the children and let them return to America. He made this statement in front of his brothers, in front of the three embassy staff members, and in front of the Yemeni military people who were there. I felt that was fair, and I was so relieved. Finally, there was light at the end of the tunnel.
However, Ahmed is good at one thing. He's really good at lying and at getting people to believe whatever he says. And David Fuller at the embassy was about to screw me and my children even worse...
After our day-long meeting with the Yemeni and US government officials, Ahmed had agreed to lift the travel ban on me so I could go home to see my dying father, and he also promised to lift the ban on the children and let them return home once I got an official paper stating that, if anything happened to me, that Ahmed would get custody of the children. That night, I got my plane tickets to go home.
At the embassy, I had gotten replacement passports for my kids. Before I left the embassy, however, David Fuller came to me and said, "You should leave the kids' passports here with me. If you take them with you, Ahmed could get a hold of them again and take them, or you could lose them. If you leave them with me, I will put them in a file and lock them up in the filing cabinet, and when you get back to the States, then contact me and I will send them to you. It will be safer that way." So, I agreed, and I handed him the three kids' passports.
HUGE mistake. Lesson number 1 (well, probably more like lesson number 52...): NEVER TRUST THE US GOVERNMENT TO DO WHAT THEY SAY THEY'RE GOING TO DO!
I got on a plane and left the next morning. My kids were crying and so very, very upset. They couldn't stand for me to leave them there alone with him and his family. I couldn't stand it, either. But my father was dying, and I had little choice. There was no way to get the kids to come home with me. I had to go take care of business.
I arrived home Oct. 31, 2006. I had sold my car to get my third set of plane tickets to go to Yemen to see my kids, so I was without transportation. I was trying to get to the hospital to see my father, so on Nov. 1, I borrowed a friend's car to make the one-hour drive to the hospital where he was. I got halfway when the car broke down in the middle of nowhere. I left the house at 8 am, but by the time I finally got a tow truck and was able to get towed home, I arrived back at my house at 4:05 pm. I didn't make it to the hospital. As soon as I walked in the door, the phone rang. It was the hospital. My father had just died. I didn't get to see him.
My father had left a will, and I spent the next several months dealing with the lawyers and estate stuff. He had left a substantial trust fund for each of my three children, on the condition that they retain their US citizenship and reside in the United States. He set it up so that the money would remain in trust until they came back the States to live.
My first concern, after the funeral, of course, was to contact David Fuller at the US Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen and get my kids' passports. I contacted him within a few days of arriving hom. I emailed him over and over again, and I got no response. I called and left messages on his desk phone. He never answered, and he never returned my phone calls. For almost two months, I tried contacting him relentlessly to ask for him to send me the kids' passports. There was no way to get a hold of him, since he refused to respond to any of my attempts to contant him.
Finally, two months later, I received an email from the State Dept in Washington DC saying, "David Fuller said to tell you that there are no more passports for your children". That's it. That's all the email said. I was stunned and in shock. I wrote back, saying, "What do you MEAN there are no passports? I left them with David Fuller because he told me to. He promised to keep them safe and send them to me when I got back to the US. What happened?" The State Dept emailed me back and just said, "David said the kids' passports got spoiled". I wrote back and said, "What do you mean by "spoiled"? Are they made out of bologna?? What happened?" I got no response.
So, I kept contacting the State Dept. I never got a response as to what happened to the passports, although I already knew that Ahmed had paid David to have them destroyed. I know Ahmed very, very well. I was shocked, however, to find out how US government employees could be corruptible. You hear about such things, but you always think it's just conspiracy-theory stuff or stories people make up. In other countries -yeah, but not employees of the United States government!
I asked them to send me replacement passports. They told me that was impossible. They said that I would have to show up at the embassy in Sanaa or at a designated passport application center in the United States with my children and go through the regular application process all over again. I told them that they knew that was impossible. I could not show up with the kids to obtain replacement passports. They said, "Well, there's nothing we can do".
I asked them repeatedly to send me the "spoiled" passports. They told me that the passports no longer existed. I asked if there was a way to apply for a waiver from the "must apply in person with the children" requirement. I was told there was no way to do that. They said that I must re-apply and to re-apply in person with the children present and with written permission from the father. I eventually gave up on that quest when no one, from either the embassy in Sanaa or the State Dept in Washington DC, would respond to anymore of my emails or phone calls.
Note: I know that it is politically incorrect to say anything negative about the US Government. People get quite angry when you speak up about such things. But I can assure you that I have had so many experiences that there is no way to deny that there are US government employees working at the US Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen who are corrupt and who take money from influential Yemeni people and serve their interests rather than doing the job they are paid to do and serving the US citizens they are paid to reperesent. For those who want to bash me for telling what I know to be true, I say this: Walk in my shoes, experience what I've experienced, see what I've seen, and THEN you have the right to stand up and call me some crazy, lying, conspiracy-theory-type freak. I knw what I know. And I'm certainly not sharing everything I know here. Some information puts my children at risk, and I wouldn't dare share anything that endangers my children more than they're already endangered.
So, at the end of the first week after arriving in Yemen, I had had enough and told Akmed that I was taking the kids and going home. He got angry (of course) and said that I couldn't leave. He had the plane tickets and wouldn't give them to me. He said, "I didn't pay over $5000 for plane tickets for you to come for a week and leave, and they're my kids, too. They're staying here all summer". I knew that it was a lot of money, and I figured maybe I had just overreacted, and I agreed to stay for the summer.
But things continued and even got worse.
The kids were not allowed to play, because everything they did "embarrassed him" or "messed up the house". The only time I could be a mother to my kids was between 8 am and 1 pm while he was at work. When he came home and the kids were near me, he'd yell at the and tell them to "get away from me" because I was a "bad woman". Everytime they wanted to tell me something, he had a problem with it. He wouldn't let me pick them up or let them sit on my lap. When I went outside in the yard, he made them stay inside and not follow me. There was absolutely nothing to do, and they were bored. I was so frustrated because all I wanted to do was hold thenm, hug them, and play with them, but he stepped in every moment of every day to keep them at a distance from me.
One time, we were so bored, so I found an old, long board in the back of his house, as well as an old rusty 55-gallon barrel. I told the kids, "I know! We can make a teeter-totter and see-saw". They thought that was a great idea, so we took the board and put it on the barrel and started to see-saw. They were laughing and having fun, which was a rare event ever since arriving in Yemen, and we were all having fun. But the board kept moving with the up-anddown motion, and it slid backwards toward the concrete wall of the fence that surrounds the house. Leaning up against the wall was one of those old, large satellite dishes, and the see-saw bumped it and knowcked it down. We all jumped off as it fell and ran to avoid getting hit by it. Whe it fell, it was loud, landing with a huge "BOOM!". The kids and I laughed. That lasted less than a minute, though, because Ahmed came running out of the house yelling, "What did you do? The neighbors can see you (over the ten-foot wall??)! HOW DARE YOU EMBARRASS ME! Don't come back here anymore! Get inside". And then he punished the kids.
His first thought was not, "What happened? Are you okay?" His first and only thought was, "How dare you embarrass me!" He didn't care that his kids were bored and had nothing to do. He could have cared less that they were having a few minutes that put smiles on their faces. The ONLY thing that mattered to him was whether or not strangers might think something bad about him.
So we learned early on that the only time we could spend time together doing things and trying to have fun was while he was at work. The remainder of the days were always very miserable, thanks to his anger and horrible attitude.
When he was at work on day, I told the kids, "I have a camcorder. I know - we can make a skit show like Saturday Night Live". They thought that was a great idea, and so they got to work. We decided to name it the SLAM how - using each one of our initials. Then they set about making up skits and practicing them. Then we filmed it, and they had a blast. Of course, everything had to be cleaned up and put away before Ahmed came home from work, so it took several days to get it finished, but we did it, he never knew about it, and they had fun. That's the important part - they had fun. Anyone who wants to view our show can see it on youtube, but it's private, so you'll have to email me so I can add you to the list to be able to see it.
By the end of May - 6 weeks after arriving, I could NOT stay there any longer. His violence against the kids was out of control, and we needed to leave. So once again, I begged for the tickets. This time, his argument for not giving me the tickets was that I had given up my apartment to go to Yemen, and I couldn't take the kids back without having a place to stay once I got back. I said we could stay with friends once we got back until we got another apartment, but he wouldn't accept that. He told me to go back by myself and get an apartment, then come back and get the kids. Reluctantly, I agreed.
I left Yemen on June 2, 2006 by myself to go home and get an apartment set up. Leaving my kids there killed me, but it was the only way I was going to get the tickets from him to bring them home. SO I came home, got a job, and got an apartment. Within a month, I emailed Ahmed, telling him I had the apartment, that I had a ticket to come back to Yemen on Aug. 9, and that the kids needed to be home before Aug. 28 because that's when school started.
He responded, saying "Why are you trying to take my kids away from me? These are my kids, and they will never leave Yemen. There are no more plane tickets. I cashed them in. The kids are staying here with me."
Now, mind you, before going to Yemen, he promised me over and over and over again that he would not try to keep the kids there. I have the emails where he says it over and over. And he said, "Even if I wanted to keep them here, my family wouldn't let me keep them against their will". I had believed him. I was so wrong.
I was so angry and fought with him every day until I arrived back in Yemen on Aug. 9. I did everything to try to convince him to honor his promise to us. My oldest daughter was so distraught. When he told her she couldn't ever leave Yemen, she sat and cried and was screaming this God-awful scream, a scream that I will never forget. It was this deep scream that wouldn't end that came from the depths of her soul. This is the little girl who refused to go to Yemen in the first place and who didn't want to go see her father. I had made her go. She was screaming and crying and telling him, "You can't make me stay here. I hate you! I hate it here! If you make me stay here, I swear to God I will kill myself! I'll be dead by morning, I promise you!" (she was 9 at the time, and she was serious).
Instead of recognizing her distress and trying to talk with her or express concern for her feelings and opinions, he simply walked over to her, hit her hard in the face, told her to "Shut up and stop crying" and then walked away and disappeared into the house. He couldn't care less what was best for the kids or what they wanted or anything.
The kids don't speak any Arabic, and there are no English-speaking schools in his city. He planned on sending them to an Arabic-speaking school, knowing that they wouldn't be able to understand anything anyone was saying. Also, the educational standards in Yemen are poor, and education is mostly focused on Islam and memorizing the Koran. It didn't matter to him that my kids had been excelling in school. The oldest was prepareing to enter the National Spelling Bee in America and had already spent months studying the words. She had made an invention and was prepared to enter the Toshiba inventors competition. The had girl scouts and friends and swimming lessons here, and nothing even available there. Most of all, they didn't want to be there. They wanted to come home.
He wouldn't listen to any of it, and he didn't care. The only thing that mattered to him was that he look like a respectable man in the comunity, and to him, that meant having kids and raising them to be "good Muslims". It didn't matter if they had a better life, a better education, or a better chances in America. Their needs and wants matter nothing to him. The only thing that matters is that people look up to him and think that he's "upper class" and that they respect him. And for him, like I said, having kids and making sure they can recite the Koran from memory is what makes him look respectable to other people.
Of course, he made them sit and memorize chapters from the Koran every single day. They didn't understand a word of it, since it's all in Arabic, but even when they asked him what it meant, he simply told them, "Just memorize it and say it when asked". His only concern was that they memorize it so he could show other people how his kids could recite the Koran inArabic, thereby making other people think what a great man he must be. He made them sit there and recite it for hours, and they'd cry and rebel, and he'd get angry and hit them and make them do what he wanted them to do.
I tried to come up with any solution whatsoever. My kids didn't want to be in Yemen, and frankly, I couldn't stand it there, either. I told him, "Just because you can't go back to the United States doesn't mean we can't go somewhere else. There are over 283 coutnries in this world. Let's move to a different country". We had both lived in Japan before and had friends there. We could move there. He has family in Canada and India. We could go there. We could move anywhere. He wouldn't hear of it. His answer was just "No. We're staying in Yemen", and then he'd walk away.
He went through my belongings while I was sleeping, and he took the kids' passports and destroyed them. I also found out that he had gone somewhere and gotten a travel ban on the kids. That meant that the kids were not allowed to leave Yemen without written permission from him. I didn't know about this until later, and I was so enraged that a man who doesn't even have custody of the kids can go and get a government document without anyone consulting the mother or even telling the mother about it. At this point, there was no way to get the kids out of Yemen.
Out of options, I decided to go back to the States and fight from there, thinking that I would have more options to get the kids home. But then I found out that he had put a travel ban on me, as well, and I was not allowed to leave Yemen. I'll talk about that in the next post...
After arriving in Yemen on April 12, 2006 and discovering that Ahmed was even meaner than he was before, I tried to stick it out. But after the end of the first week, I had had enough of him hitting, slapping, kicking, punching, pinching, andscreaming at my children. I believe that any mother who cares about her children could not stand by and watch what I watched him do to my children. After the end of the first week, I demanded that we leave Yemen and return to America.
Before I tell you how that conversation went, I first want to share some of what I saw and endured, but I understand that no words can describe the horrors that are now burned into my mind. But, I have to try. There were so many incidents, but I'll just share a few here.
Ahmed treated me badly, which didn't bother me too much because I went there so that he could see the kids and they could see him. He constantly blamed me for his time spent in jail. See, his original conviction was a conviction for domestic violence. When he was arrested in Oct. 2001 but the Dept of Homeland Security, the initial charge was that he was going to be deported because he had a DV conviction and a conviction for violating a protection order.
He had hit me so many times, starting right after we married, and I kept telling him that I would not tolerate being someone's punching bag. He didn't get it. I told him over and over and over again that, in AMERICA, it was against the law to hit a woman. He didn't understand or he didn't care, I don't know which. I left twice and went to battered women's shelters, but with no money, I had no place to go. The shelters permitted me to stay for 30 days, but the waiting list for housing assistance was 2 years long. After 30 days, I got kicked out, regardless of whether or not I had a place to go. Since I didn't have anywhere to go, I went back home to live with Ahmed.
One day in December 1998, however, we went to the mall to look at buying a treadmill since I had gained a lot of weight from my pregnancy with my second child, and I had my own money to be able to buy one. While we were in Sears, I chose the one I wanted. He didn't want to be there, and he was impatient and angry. When the salesman went into the back room to see if he had that one in stock, I saw another one with more features that was the same price. So when the salesman came back to the floor, I told him, "I think I'd like this one instead". He said he would have to go into the back and make sure they had it in stock. When he left, Ahmed freaked out. He grabbed me by my hair and said, "What's wrong with you? You already chose one. You're selfish, and you're bothering people and you're embarrassing me. We're leaving! You will NOT get a treadmill".
After countless fights with Ahmed, I had already learned not to fight back because it was always days of heartache with no chance of winning. So I just turned around and walked out of the mall and got into the car. He soon followed with the stroller and the two girls, and he put the girls in the back seat. He then got into the drivers seat, but wouldn't turn on the car. Instead, he started screaming in my face, telling me what a horrible woman I was, how selfish I was, how much I bothered people and embarassed him, how he couldn't take me anywhere, etc. He was screaming so loudly, and the girls were crying. Unfortunately, the girls had already seen too many episodes of his anger and knew that this was going to end up with him hitting their mother. My oldest daughter was always standing up against him to protect me, even though she KNEW that that would get her hit, as well. I wish to God I had found a way to leave and get away from him with my children early on, but I didn't. And this is how the story went.
I can't stand to hear my children cry, so I kept calm and just kept telling him, "Shut up, Ahmed". He continued his tantrum and his screaming. Several times I interjected and said, "Shut up Ahmed!". He got angrier and told me "How dare you speak to me like that? Do you know that, in India (his whole family is originally from India & Pakistan), women bow down and kiss their husband's feet every morning so they can remember their place? And you DARE speak to me like that?" After he continued on and on, I had had enough - the kids were hysterical now - and I screamed, "SHUT THE FUCK UP!".
That was it. He lost it. He grabbed my face with both hands and left 10 red welts down my face. He grabbed my coat and twisted it, trying to choke me with it around the neck. I grabbed the door handle, trying to get out of the car, but he pulled the twisted neck of my coat tighter, hit me in the face, then reached over to keep the door locked so I couldn't get out. I was losing my breath, and I struggled harder. I finally got the door open and fell out onto the pavement. I ran back into the mall.
I was breathing hard and crying, and I ran into a policeman standing near the front door of the mall. He stopped me and asked me what was wrong. I told him my husband had hit me. He told me to come back to his office, so I did. In the office, he asked me what had happened, and I told him. He said, "Do you want to press charges?" I said, "No. I just wish I cold find another place to stay". He said, "Well, there are red marks all over your face and neck, and I am required by law to press charges."
When Ahmed came back into the mall looking for me, the police found him and handcuffed him on the spot. They brought him back into the office where I was sitting, and he started yelling at me, telling me "What lies have you told them? I didn't do anything to you, you ungrateful bitch!". Because he was so angry and hostile, the police told him to be quiet and promptly removed him from the room and took him straight to jail.
I was horrified, because I felt so guilty. Looking back on it, I realize how stupid I was, but at the time, all I could think of was how much angrier he was going to be when he got out and how this might ruin his chances of finding his dream life in America, which was his main goal. So I took the girls and went home.
He called me from jail and was so very, very angry. He told me that he was going to make me pay for what I had done. He told me time and time again how he didn't do anything wrong and I was such a bitch to do this to him for no reason, etc. He told me to go talk to the judge and the prosecutor and "fix what you've done". I was scared, so I left the house and went to a shelter, because I didn't want to be there to take his wrath when he got out the next day.
After my 30 days were up at the shelter, I went back home, as I explained earlier. He told me to get the charges dropped. So I made an appointment with the prosecutor and went to see him and asked him to drop the charges. He refused. I then went and talked with the judge and asked the same thing. She refused. Court day came, and I stood beside him in front of the judge and tried to tell the judge that it was all a misunderstanding, and that he just didn't know better since he came from a country where that behavior is normal. They didn't buy it, and he was convicted and got a suspended sentence. It was over. Or so we thought.
So anyway, back to being in Yemen. Because I knew how mean he used to be, I was used to handling his anger and his violence. But what I couldn't handle was his anger and violence directed at my children - the same kids he hadn't seen in 4 years.
When he refused to honor any of the promises that he had made to my kids, my oldest daughter went to him one day and said, "You're supposed to be a man of your word. You lied". He could not tolerate his child speaking to him like that, and he quickly grabbed her and punched her down onto the ground. I went to grab her and get her away from him, but he picked her up by one arm and put her in the guest room. I followed. In the room, he shut the door so the rest of his family wouldn't see him (he only hits behind closed doors where no one can see what he does). When he was in jail, he spent 4 years lifting weights, and his biceps were HUGE. He had my daughter on the floor and was bent over top of her with both fists closed and was just pummeling her furiously with both fists. He was punching her so hard, the sound of those landed punches is completely indescribable. I jumped on his back to try to get him off of her. She was screaming, "I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!" at the top of her lungs with her eyes full of tears, but trying so hard not to let him see her cry. That made him angrier, and he hit her faster and harder. I feared he was going to kill her right then - right there. I jumped on his back and grabbed his neck, trying to pry him off of her, and he flipped around, grabbed me by the neck, and threw me against the far wall with the one hand grasping my neck. Ihit the wall and fell down, and he jumped up, grabbed me by the hair, opened the door and threw me out of the room, shut the door and locked it. Inside, I could hear those god-awful fists pounding my daughter and my daughter was screaming, "MAMA! MAMA! MAA-MAAAAH!" and I couldn't get to her. He had the door locked, and all I could do was stand outside the door and listen to my children get pummelled by a man who was 4 times her size, screaming for my help, while I coldn't help her. Let me just say this, NO CHILD SHOULD EVER HAVE TO GO THROUGH ANYTHING LIKE THIS! No child deserves that, and no mother could possibly stand by and let it happen.
He continued punching her in that room until he tired himself out. I don't know how long it took, but it seemed like an eternity. Then he opened the door and came out, but shut it behind him, leaving my daughter to sit in there and cry, uncomforted, all by herself. She kept trying to come out, and he'd step in and hit her some more and tell her to "STAY IN HERE BY YOURSELF AND THINK ABOUT HOW BAD YOU ARE!" He guarded the door so I couldn't get in to hold her and help her or see how badly she was hurt.
After it was all over, the rest of his family members came down to see what all the noise was about. I told them what he had done. He stood there, in front of them all, and said to them, "I swear by Allah that I never touched them. She's a liar". He told them my daughter was being bad and wouldn't let them go into the room to see my daughter. For some odd reason that I'll never understand, they never stand up to Ahmed. They all just obey him and treat him like he's a God. They purposefully try to just do what he ways and never make him angry. I know now that that's why he loves them so much and hates us. He needs total control and total awe and respect, and he cannot tolerate anyone who doesn't give that to him all the time. His family does that. In their eyes, Ahmed can do nothing wrong.
So this is the kicker - after Ahmed told them that he hadn't done anything, his brother said to me, "We know Ahmed would never hit anyone. You need to go away and calm down. Ahmed didn't do anything". I just stood there, totally stunned.
Incidences like this happened every day, all day, whenever he was home. I won't describe anymore, but there is one more incident which deserves mention.
Ahmed went to work every morning at 8 am, and he came home at 1 pm. While he was gone, my kids and I took the opportunity to play and have fun together, which was NOT allowed when he was home. One day, we were in the middle of a game of hide-and-seek when the front gate clicked, indicating that someone was coming home. My 5-year-old son was laughing and playing hard, enjoying the chance to play hide-and-seek when all of a sudden, he stood up and got the most horrified expression on his face. His eyes got as large as golfballs, and he stood there, just totally terror-stricken. I had not heard the gate click, because we were busy playing, but he had heard it. It was such a dramatic change - one second laughing and playing so excitedly, and the next minute, standing there looking as if he had just been stabbed.
I said, "What's wrong? What is it?" He was trembling, and he said, "Baba's home. I gotta go hide", and he immediately ran and hid under the bed. (Baba is Arabic for "dad"). I stood there in that moment and the full realization of Ahmed's behavior on my children hit me dead in the face. A precious, exuberant, lively, smart little 5-year-old boy, weighing only 30 pounds, was so terror-stricken by the thought of his father coming home. I knew what I had to do. I had to get my kids away from their father. I wasn't going to wait untilt he end of the summer, as we had planned to do.
I told Ahmed that we were going to take our return tickets and go home. That's when the real nightmare began....
After arriving in Yemen on April 12, 2006, our first day didn't go well because Ahmed showed me immediately that he was NOT, as he had claimed so many times, a changed man. He was not interested in seeing his children or spending time with them, after not having seen them in 4 years, and he was still, to my dismay, a violent man.
It was a long trip, however, and he had paid over $5000 for the round-trip plane tickets, so I decided to try to make the best of it, knowing that it would only be for the summer. We were supposed to go back home to the States before the kids started school in August.
The first week was a miserable one, because Ahmed was mean and cruel and abusive to me and the kids every single day. He demanded that the kids stay away from him and listen to his every command the first time he said it without ever speaking back to him. I had always encouraged my kids to express their feelings and opinions - the good and the bad, because I don't think it's healthy for kids to have to learn to bottle up their emotions or to only say those things which people want them to say. I've taught them respect, but I taught them that respect is a two-way street - respect is something you earn. I also spent years stressing the need to "be a man of your word", meaning, if you say you're gonig to do something, then you better do it. It's one of our mottoes.
None of the things I taught them prepared them for life in Yemen with their father. In his world, he was God. He wanted nothing more than respect and fear and total submission from anyone around him, demanding respect without giving any in return. He constantly made promises and said he would do things, but never fulfilled his promises. For example, he had promised to play with them, but after our arrival, he refused any type of such "frivolity". He wanted his kids to be "out of sight and out of mind". He said there were tons of toys at his house, but when we arrived, we discovered that there was not one single toy for them to play with, and he refused to spend ANY money on them for anything. We didn't bring many clothes, because he told them he would buy them all new clothes. After arriving, he claimed that he didn't have money to buy them clothes. He did make his sister, however, who is a doctor, to go buy them some clothes to wear.
That was a disaster. When shopping in America, I let my children choose what clothes they liked. In Yemen when they went clothes shopping with Ahmed and his sister, my children were excited to pick some clothes for themselves. However, he got angry, because, in his mind, kids are not allowed to have an opinion, and they were not allowed to choose what they wanted. They were ESPECIALLY not allowed to state their opinions or ask for something.
I soon found out why he told me not to bring any clothes to Yemen. In America, the girls wore shorts and dresses and short-sleeved shirts. In Yemen, he wanted them to be completely covered from head to foot - only long sleeves, long pants, etc. Yemen is a very, very hot place, especially for us Ohioans who are used to cold weather most of the year. Wearing heavy, long-sleeved shirts and pants in 100-degree weather is absurd, in my opinion. The kids definitely felt that way, too. That got them into trouble, as they protested against the clothes he picked out and were punished and hit for daring to speak to him as an equal. Each child only got two outfits, meaning their total wardrobe consisted of approximately 4 outfits total.
The living arrangements were also very hard to deal with. His house is a 3-story concrete box surrounded by a 10-foot concrete wall (because women aren't to be seen there). On the first floor, there are 3 bedrooms, a bathroom, and a small kitchen. Each bedroom is about 12 feet sqaure. One bedroom is occupied by his sister. The second bedroom is occupied by his father and his schizophrenic brother. The 5 of us shared the remaining bedroom, and all 5 of us were relegated to sleep in the one bed, which is smaller than the average twin-size bed in America.
I suppose they didn't want to buy the kids very many clothes because there was nowhere to store any clothes. There was one wardrobe in the bedroom that contains 5 small shelves. Each of us got one shelf to put all their clothes and belongings on. It is very cramped, and there is no privacy whatsoever. The second floor is inhabited by Ahmed's brother and his wife and chidlren, and the third floor is occupied by his other brother, his wife, and their 3 children. There are also two guest rooms on the first floor where they meet their guests - one for women and one for men. These two rooms were to be kept "spotless at all times", since guests could stop by at any time. As a result, there was no room for my kids to run around and play, and after being used to having their own rooms and their own space, the cramped quarters gave them no space to get away from their brother and sister, and their own tempers started to flare as a result.
Ahmed made it clear that we were not allowed to leave the house beyond the front gate, claiming that "They really hate Americans here and you are not safe". We became prisoners inside those 4 concrete walls surrounding his house, since he would never take the time to take us outside for a walk, except on rare occasions.
When we did go out, he made me wear the long, black robe that all the women are forced to wear, and the headscarf. I told him that I don't believe in wearing the scarf, in fact I am adamantly opposed to it and what it represents to me. We fought about that, but he would not let me leave without wearing the scarf and the heavy, black robe - which is very difficult when it's 100 degrees! Once again, he got what he wanted, as he always does. He never gives up until he gets people to do what he wants, when he wants it, and how he wants it done.
In the last post that tells my story, I told about how my husband had not seen his children in 4 years because he was incarcerated and how, after being deported, he begged me to bring the kids to see him, since he couldn't enter the United States anymore. I reluctantly agreed, and we left America to fly to Yemen on April 10, 2006.
As I was preparing for the trip, I could not find anyone who was willing to house the boxes of my belongings, and I couldn't afford to keep my apartment in Ohio while staying overseas. I didn't have enough money to rent a storage unit, so when I left with the kids to go visit their father, I walked out and left everything I owned behind in the apartment that I was losing. My pictures, my household items, and all the clothes that didn't fit into one suitcase were left behind. Since there was no one to keep them while I was gone, I had no choice. I did it because I felt bad for him - I'll call him Ahmed. I knew how I would feel if I hadn't been able to see my children for 4 years, and I felt really bad for him. I put his feelings above the feelings of my own daughter, who was dead-set against going to see him. I also felt that they needed to know who their father was, since they were too young to remember much about him when he was arrested and taken away to jail.
I was so wrong.
We arrived in his country on April 12, 2006. We went to his house and promptly fell asleep from the 2-day trip. The next day, the kids awoke with enthusiasm and high expectations, because he had made so many promises to them on the phone in the previous 6 months. He had promised my son that he would wrestle with him and teach him to play soccer. My son's favorite game was "horsey" - where I would get down on hands and knees, he would climb onto my back, and he would ride his "horsey" around the house, telling me where to go and what to do. Ahmed promised to play horsey with him, and he was too excited about that.
As we were preparing for the trip, Ahmed told me not to bring any clothes for the kids because he had money, and when we arrived, he would buy them all brand new clothes. My daughters were eager to go shopping and get some new clothes, as money had been very tight while he was in jail, and it had been a while since they had gotten any new clothes. He promised my oldest daughter a cell phone of her very own, and he told my middle daughter that he would get her the horse that she had been wanting for so long.
Enthusiasm soon turned to tears, however, all in the first day after our arrival. After the kids woke up on that first day and ate breakfast, they ran to Ahmed and wanted to play with him. He was sitting on his bed reading his Arabic newspaper, and he didn't want to be bothered. When they persisted in seeking his attention, he threw his newspaper across the room, grabbed my little 5-year-old boy and threw him off the bed and screamed, "Get away from me! I don't play anymore! Go away!".
I had always given attention to my children whenever they needed it, so they, of course, didn't understand that Ahmed wasn't joking. So, they persisted. They climbed back up on the bed and again asked to go play with him, asked for him to tickle them, and asked to go outside with him. Now he was enraged, because they didn't listen and go away immediately as he had instructed. He got more violent, and he hit each and every one of them and pushed them out of the room and shut the door.
They were stunned and hurt. They all cried. I yelled at him, asking him how he could treat them like that after not having seen them for FOUR YEARS! He could care less, however, and started blaming me for raising "his" children to be so disrespctful. He told me "Here, children listen to adults the first time, without ever talking back or saying a word. Children are not allowed to speak to adults, other than when asked a question or spoken to. You've made my children bad. No child should ever have to be told twice to go away".
He had missed the point. It wasn't about whether they know how listen to adults, it was about the fact that they wanted to be near him, and he responded with cruelness and violence. Their feelings didn't matter at all to him. The worst part was that he hit them. He had said on the phone for the previous 6 months, that he was a "changed man" and that he would not hit anymore. And now here we were - in his country, on the first day, and he hit them. I was irate. I knew immediately that I had made the wrong choice, and that I should not have brought them to his country to see him.
Next post: Life in Yemen
When I was around 18, I made a promise to myself. I swore that I would live life deliberately so that when I got older, I wouldn’t have any regrets. Well, now I’m in my late 30’s, and I was doing well with that promise until I trusted my husband. Now I have several regrets, and these regrets are HUGE.
They say hindsight is 20/20, and it’s certainly true. Knowing what I know now, I regret staying with my husband and standing up and fighting for him, even though he was mean and abusive. I regret that I didn’t get out and walk away sooner.
Everyone lives and learns from their experiences, so that isn’t really my biggest regret. My biggest regrets have to do with my children. When my children were young, I was severely stressed out, and in reality, it had nothing to do with them. I was so frustrated and angry at my husband, and I let it seep out in my interactions with my children.
One incident is indelibly imprinted in my mind. When my oldest daughter was 3 years old, she was, even then, very advanced. One morning, I had not slept much the night before, and as a result, I wouldn’t get out of bed. She decided that she wanted to help me, and she went into the kitchen and cooked scrambled eggs. She knew she wasn’t allowed to touch a hot pan, so after she cooked them, she came to me in bed. She kept trying to wake me up, and I got angry that she was waking me up. I’ve always hated to be woken up when I’m so very tired.
I’ll never forget that moment. She crawled up on the bed and kept shaking me to wake up. I looked at her big, brown eyes staring down at me, and she was so excited as she said, “Mama, I made you some eggs. Can you get the pan off the stove for me because it’s hot”. God knows I will never understand why I did what I did. I was half awake, and I was angry for having been awakened (which is no excuse). I grabbed her by the arm, yelled at her for waking me up, carried her to the kitchen, yelling all the way about how tired I was and how she should know better than to wake me up, etc. When I got to the kitchen, I impetuously grabbed the pan of scrambled eggs that she had so carefully created - and I THREW IT ACROSS THE ROOM! The eggs went flying all over the floor, and I will never, ever forget the horrified look on her face. She started crying and ran away, and I went back to bed.
She remembers that incident to this very day, and she has mentioned it to me more than once. I wish to God I could take it back. I wish I could understand why, in that moment, I let my own selfish needs supercede her need for love and approval.
Now my daughter is gone. I would give my life in an instant if I could just see her or hug her or tell her how special she is and how much I love her. I may never get that chance, but neither can I ever remove that memory from her mind - or mine.
As parents, sometimes we get frustrated or tired and we react to our children in a way that is NOT what they deserve. Even though my actions and my state of mind had nothing to do with my daughter, her reaction was one of utter rejection. I made her feel bad about herself. I will never forgive myself for that.
You never know what tomorrow may bring or how long you get to hold on to your child. My advice to all parents would be to cherish each and every moment. Make them feel loved and valued each and every day. Don’t take your personal problems out on them.
My children are gone, and I am left with that memory and that intense regret.
Mostly, I’ve loved and cherished my children every day of their lives, but there were times when I’d get so frustrated and tired, and I’d snap at them for no reason. Those are the moments I remember the most. I would do anything to take them back, but I can’t. I see parents in stores these days with their own children, and sometimes I see them get frustrated when the child is aking for things. I see the parents get snappy and yell or even hit their child. It’s those times I just want to run up to the parent and say, “Be patient with them. Hug them. Tell them in a nice way that you just can’t get that for them right now. They might be gone tomorrow and these are the memories you will have”. But of course, I can’t tell anyone else how to interact with their children, so I keep my mouth shut.
I broke my promise to myself. I definitely have regrets.
