1. A story of five women
My life has been intertwined with five women, I have become a sort of a mentor and pacifier, I
try my best to advice without bias, but their life has not been the best, and their worries and
agonies had overwhelmed me. Sometimes at night I stare at the ceiling just thinking about them
and wondering if their life is intact and that they are still alive. Names have been changed to
protect the women. The rest of the stories will follow.
Asmaa
Asmaa moved to this country 35 years ago, had her kids, and suffered tremendously from her
husband and his family. She had previously suffered from her family too, especially from her
strict brother who beat her until she cannot walk; she saw her sister get divorced, and the
husband marries her other sister, and she saw unhappy sisters in laws and unhappy mother who
also suffered from the father’s family.
Basically if you look at Asmaa all you will see is unhappiness. She said once that she has never
experienced life as it should be. She had back pains since she was 20 years old, And had been
treated on a daily basis with many operations on her back, neck, legs and so on. She was in
hospitals more than at home; however what she is obsessed about is the idea of having a Jennie
inside her, and also the many evil eyes that inflicted upon her as well as those that do black
magic to terrorize her life. She is continuously feeling that she has to see psychics and she has to
go to taro card readers, and she has to have her luck read by experts, she feels that maybe with a
strike of luck all her troubles would be bygones. She also has people in her house to perform
religious rituals on her because she thinks that the Jennie inside her and all the black magic came
about due to the many girls her husband had been involved with.
You see, since they got married, the husband had been a womanizer, he feels that he can love all
the women, and in turn women play games on him, get all his money, try to get him to marry
them, and once he decides on the marriage something stops him. He remembers the love letters
he used to write to his wife, and the love he shared with her prior to their marriage; he thinks that
those feelings were enough to stop him from committing mistakes.
However the girls that he played around with, will not just stay away, they will try to do black
magic to hurt the wife! Of course this is according to her, she feels that they do this, there is no
proof she says, but the pains in her body increase every time he gets involved with a woman and
leaves her.
What made matters worse is that the husband had become sexually inactive, so to him that was a
disaster, as he still feels fine, but cannot have intercourse, which lead him to increase his love
relationships, take a lot of supplements to make him at least physically attractive to girls but not
to the wife. He also increased his trips to other countries were he will find prostitutes as he
thought that it will improve his manhood. The final stroke happened when the husband forgot
about his love and his letters, and actually married the girl he had played around with.
No one wants to hear what happened to Asmaa when she found out, the devastation and the lack

2. of sleep were so strong to the extent that she had to sleep in another room as she couldn’t stand
seeing him. She wouldn’t talk to him for two years, until he actually divorced the girl (who spent
all him money); rumor has it that the girl had left him after she used him for the things that she
wanted to do. But he will not say that instead he tried to convince Asmaa that he left her as he
couldn’t bear the fact that she doesn’t want to see him or talk to him.
During those two years she got used to travelling with her friends and family and going to places
and picnics. She had a ball and gave her husband a hard time but still her body aches were
persisting.
Few days ago she had a person perform religious rituals on her, and she feels that she is
recovering a bit. Did this solve her issues? I don’t know.
Rawya
Rawya is PhD holder, majoring in philosophy, which is a difficult subject for women, but she
strived to complete her education and passed with distinctions in all of them. She was offered a
job at the university but she had to decline; why? Well her husband didn’t want her to work. A
very strong woman, very systematic, very enthusiastic and very tolerant. She devotes her time to
her loved ones, and doesn’t tolerate nonsense.
Life had been good despite not being able to fulfill herself. She writes and thinks and she is a real
philosopher. She married at the age of 19, without completing her bachelor degree, traveled with
the husband so he can further his studies, but managed to learn a foreign language in the process.
When the husband finished his studies, they returned home; while she was busy with bearing her
kids she registered in a university and completed her bachelor degree, then she did her master’s
degree. The husband went from strength to strength but still didn’t allow her to work, she stayed
home and managed to look after the kids and the husband and read whatever falls in her hand.
She became very aware of the political situation in her country and started to warn her husband
to leave the area they were in and move to another area, he refused, so she started her PhD and
went on to become the best graduate at that university. They offered her a lecturing job, so she
decided for the first time that she will take the job. After a humiliating resistance from her
husband she started her job, and realized that she is a born teacher.
Her new methodology of teaching made every student want to take her class, which made her the
envy of other lecturers and also started a feud between her and the head of the university; they
were all shocked on how she could become that successful in a short time. She was an equal to
the men and the students preferred her class even though it was boring in nature to everybody
else’s class.
Arab spring began, her intuition told her that she should move on. So she took with her every
document that she could lay her eyes on, and moved to another country to stay with her son.
When the situation worsened her husband followed suit. The house and its content was
confiscated by the people that were fighting the government, being of a different religion, the

3. fighters thought that it was an easy target so her house was the first to be seized. It had her
computer, books and all her writing, to date she regrets not taking them with her. Presently she is
looking for a job, but her language being not English she is unable to find one, so the saga
continues, being her work mentor am trying to look for a job for her to solve her issues.
She says that its the first period in her life that she was idle completely and her husband is idle
too; she has just found out that she is not in love with him at all, and that he had been so
neglecting of her. She is so unhappy as she has no home, no hands to hug her, no one to hug, no
one to talk to and no job.
The revelation is so frightening, as she is not young and life is unsettling; finding out that the
husband’s mind is far from her mind, his soul is not touching hers, his unhappiness is clouding
her unhappiness, and his idleness is creating this magnanimous divide between them. To be in a
situation where life is in a complete mess is not easy, hopefully it will ease out and the cloud will
move to show a shining sun.
Ledia
Ledia is 50 years old and never married, however in her youth she fell in love many times but
every time it didn’t conclude with marriage. In one situation the love of her life actually
approached her family to ask for her hand in marriage, but it didn’t fall through at the end.
Devastated as she was, she went away to complete her masters and then her PHD. When she
returned she continued to dream of a better country and a life with a person, but that person was
never found. So she worked in many countries, still she loved her own country and longed to see
it run in democracy. Politics runs in her blood, which is something she acquired when she went
to study for her bachelor degree.
One can find out easily that she is an utterly confused person, wondering between her life
without a man, to a country without a democracy, plus trying to survive the ordeal of the loss of
her mother to cancer. When one sets with her, one has to be completely attentive to her and what
she says, as if one’s eyes wonders to the blackberry, Ipad and any other gadget! its murder as she
could go into this deep depression state and only God can get her out of it. When she discusses
politics she is talking from her guts, even though she is not a politician but she has this strong
feelings that she is one. She hates lies and suppression.
So when the fire of Arab Spring took her country like a storm, she was one of those that joined
the demonstration, and carried the flag of freedom of speech. Hence prison was eminent, she was
arrested, interrogated and tried for two full days, she said that she was terrified, she didn’t want
to leave the place dead, organs missing, raped, nails missing, hair missing, eyes poked or
slapped. She left intact but she was being cursed at, humiliated, sworn at, bad words said at, and
they left her door open so she can hear the mistreatment of other inmates. She couldn’t sleep,
couldn’t eat, her brain was going to explode in thinking that they may do something to her. There
was utter silence from the prison guards, which was nerve wrecking to her and her cell colleague.
When the day came to release her she already started to have phobic attacks and already on the

4. road to depression.
When I saw her a week after her release, I noticed that she was not the person I knew! Total
breakdown in any communication as all she was thinking of is that she may go to prison again.
Her friends tried to help her by teaching her how to draw and paint; that is when she found out
that she has a talent, so she drew one, followed by another and now she has over 45 brilliant
paintings. We all keep on telling her that at least there was something good that came out of her
prison experience! But could we delete what’s in her mind? Can we find her a husband? Can we
plant for her a country with DEMOCRACY? I don’t think so.