Behind the Veils of Yemen Read online

  The woman marched to the hammock and jerked the baby out. She scolded her, stripping the soiled pink satin from the baby’s startled body. The baby began to cry. The woman thrust her outward with her arms and marched outside.

  “Don’t they use diapers?” Annie objected.

  “No. Most women can’t afford them. How would they get them out here anyway?”

  I strained to see the woman, who returned a few minutes later without the baby. I could hear her crying in the distance. She had been placed in the dirt somewhere beyond our hut. Tears sprang to my eyes as Annie and I both wriggled uncomfortably on our cot. I looked at Arwa, who was watching me with eyes full of warning.

  I struggled with my emotions. “I want to take that baby in my arms and show her what love is,” I whispered angrily.

  “Can’t we do something?” Annie echoed my feelings.

  I looked at Arwa, who continued to watch me steadily. I swallowed and gripped the sides of the cot. “No,” I said finally, my eyes still on Arwa’s. “It could cost us every relationship in this village and get us nowhere with the baby either. Adoption by Christians is not permitted.”

  Annie and I settled uncomfortably against the cushions. I tried to keep my ears from straining toward the baby’s cries. My heart felt torn between saving one baby and saving an entire village.

  I sighed and smiled at Arwa. She nodded, content with my response. She stood and motioned for the other women. It was time for their prayers. The women went out of the hut to wash their faces, arms and lower legs as required by Islamic law.

  “Annie, are you up to praying with me after the women finish their prayers?”

  “In Arabic?” Her eyes were panicked.

  “No,” I laughed. “In English. Just follow my lead.”

  The women returned and rolled out their prayer mats, lining them side by side along the dirt floor of the hut. They stood next to each other on the rugs and then knelt to begin their prayers. They recited them quickly in unison, performing their prostrations together. When they finished, they began to re-roll the rugs to slide under a cot.

  I stood, pulling Annie up with me. “My friend and I would like to pray.” I said.

  Arwa looked incredulous. “You pray?” she gasped.

  I smiled. “Of course, I pray. Many times, every day.”

  She struggled with my words. She was perplexed by them. “She can’t believe we pray,” I explained softly to Annie.

  “Why?” Annie was as perplexed as Arwa.

  “Because all she’s ever heard about Christian women is that we are immoral, corrupt people who cheat on our husbands and don’t love our children. We’re probably the first Christians she has ever actually met.”

  Arwa’s eyes were wide with curiosity as she motioned a woman to put the rugs back in place. All of the women stared at us, watching to see what we would do. I took a deep breath and stepped toward the prayer rug, taking Annie’s hand.

  “Don’t you wash?” Arwa stopped me. Her voice rang sharply, like an accusation.

  I looked evenly at her. “Our Book teaches that to be clean on the outside is not enough. To come into the presence of God, we must be clean on the inside. Man looks at what is on the outside, but God looks at what is inside of us. He requires our hearts to be clean. That’s why Jesus came, to make us clean in our hearts.”

  All eyes were on me, appraising my every move. Arwa looked intently and finally nodded. “What you say is good,” she said.

  She moved aside to let Annie and me kneel on the rugs. Then she and the women stepped back to watch.

  Annie and I joined hands. We knelt together on the rugs and bowed our heads. We prayed one after the other aloud in English. We asked God to open the women’s hearts to know Him and to understand the truth about Jesus. We prayed that they would recognize their need to be internally clean, and we asked God to bring His Word to them in a way they could understand. We finished our prayers and stood from the rugs.

  Arwa crossed her arms across her chest. “Your prayers are short,” she chided me. Their prayers had been long recitations, interjected with many prostrations.

  I settled back against my cushions. “When we pray, Arwa, we don’t recite prayers,” I said. “We talk to God personally from our hearts, because we pray in Jesus’ name. Sometimes I pray for a long time, talking to God about many things. But sometimes my prayers are shorter, to thank Him for something or to praise Him. My prayers are not the same every time.”

  The women stared at me as if I were from another planet. This was something they had never heard before. I was not what these women had expected. I did not seem to fit their image of who Christian women were supposed to be.

  Two women walked in with trays of food. Arwa helped the others take large straw mats from a hook on the wall and lay them on the dirt floor. The women set down trays of rice with stewed mutton and vegetables. My stomach grumbled, even at the bowl of slimy melokhia, a dish that tasted like spinach but looked like stewed weeds. It made most foreigners as green as it was, but we were ravenous.

  Annie and I bowed our heads and thanked God for the meal as the women watched. Then along with the women we dived into the food. Our eagerness pleased the women. We dipped our hands into the food with theirs, tearing pieces of bread shared between us. We ate as they had eaten for hundreds of years.

  I enjoyed every bite, even though I knew that as women, we were eating the leftovers from the men’s meal. They had been served at 1:30. I glanced at my watch. We were eating well past 3:00.

  After our meal, we lay back against our cushions. I was full and sleepy, content to chat lazily with the women, who also seemed pleasantly relaxed.

  “Audra!” I could hear Kevin’s voice calling from the opening to the village.

  I turned my head slowly as a boy ran into our hut. “Your husband is calling you!” he panted.

  I sighed and looked regretfully at the women. “I must go. My husband is calling me.” Annie and I gathered our baltos and hejabs.

  Arwa shook her head. “No, not yet. Stay longer, please. Your husband can stay with the men. It is early. Please. Glissee.”

  I smiled apologetically. “I must go home to my children. It is a long drive still to Hudaydah, and I must get home to give them their dinner.”

  Arwa pleaded with me to stay. She was joined by the others who begged us to stay for the night, or even the week.

  “Send for your children. Your friend can bring them,” a woman urged.

  I was touched by their insistence. It seemed urgent, as if they were afraid we would not come back.

  “I will return,” I smiled, “and I will bring my children. Next time maybe we can stay for more than one day.”

  “You must,” Arwa whispered as she hugged me. “You must come back and visit us next week! Thursday and Friday!”

  I hugged each of the women in turn, kissing their cheeks and thanking them for the lovely day. Annie did the same. We turned to wave to the women as they stood crowding the doorway of their hut.

  “Ma’a salama [Good-bye],” I called.

  “Ma’a salama,” they called back, watching me walk away from them and out of their village. I swallowed a lump in my throat as I joined Kevin.

  “Did you women have a good time?” Kevin asked as he and Omar climbed into the front and buckled their seat belts.

  “A lovely time. How about you?” I stowed my camera bag beneath my seat.

  “It was good. Lots of opportunities.” Kevin caught my eye, and I nodded.

  We pulled away from the village, bumping back along the dirt road. My heart felt as heavy as the sun sinking into the horizon. I turned to look back at the village, almost wanting to go back. But it was only one village, and there were many more like it.

  I looked at Annie, who was already asleep against the window. I sighed. Lord, Kevin and I can’t do this without more help. Send more workers, I pleaded. The harvest is ripe. Send workers into the harvest fields.

  We pulled onto the
asphalt highway, leaving the bumpy village road behind us. I settled into my seat as the last rays of sunlight flickered away. In the distance I saw another village. It was similar to the one we had left, a cluster of mud huts with thatched roofs and a single well in the middle. It was just another village without electricity and running water. But my eyes were caught by what was next to it: huge power lines carrying electricity from the energy plant in the south to the cities in the north.

  I stared at it. The village had the source of light all around it, but the village remained in darkness. It was if it did not even know the source was there.

  The words of John 1 rang in my ears: “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:4–5, nkjv).

  Tears streamed silently down my face as I watched the village pass. I saw another one not far beyond it. I thought of the women we had just left. There were millions in the Tihama just like them.

  Oh, Lord, I cried. Bring the message of Your Light into the darkness in a way the people can understand. Send workers to help connect the people to You.

  I walked down the long stretch of gray sand, watching the sun glitter on dancing waves. Seagulls twittered overhead as small crabs scurried from my path. Madison and Jack scampered about, brandishing blue buckets as they searched for hermit crabs. Jaden and Kevin splashed behind us in the gray-green sea. I smiled, glad to be on the remote strip of sand thirty kilometers from the city. It was a place where we were undisturbed by prying eyes. I felt the sweetness of life around me and within me as I approached the end of my second trimester.

  An organization at home had committed to send a team to work with us for a short-term project. They had prayed for us and partnered with us spiritually. Now they would partner with us physically, joining us side by side. I was eager for their arrival. The task ahead of us was huge. We could not meet it without the involvement of God’s people.

  A large gray mass bulged on the sand ahead of me. I approached it, wary and watchful, cautiously inching closer. It was a giant sea turtle, weighing about three hundred pounds. Lying on its back on a crest of sand, beyond the reach of the ocean, its thick tail was slashed deep; the bloody wound gaped open. Its eyes were closed, and its huge head hung limply down.

  I sighed to myself. “I guess endangered species aren’t a big deal in Yemen.”

  I turned quickly around and headed back toward the children. “Madison! Jaden! Come here!” I called. “I want to show you something!”

  The children dropped their buckets and ran to me. “See what, Mommy? What do you want to show us?” Madison asked. I led them to the gigantic turtle.

  “Poor turtle! Can’t we do something to help him?” Madison’s lip trembled.

  “I think it’s too late, honey,” I said softly. “He looks beyond hope.”

  “How did he get upside down?” Jaden ran up to join us.

  “Probably from the fishermen,” I answered. “They wanted fish, not turtles. He must have gotten caught in their net and they cut him out. See his tail?”

  Madison nodded. “But why did they just leave him to die?” The tremor in her voice grew.

  “Sweetheart, the fishermen were trying to make a living. The turtle got in their way and probably tore their net. Maybe they were mad. They need their net to make money.”

  Jaden clapped sand from his hands. “They could have rolled him over on his tummy. Then he could have crawled back into the sea and lived.”

  Jaden bent to peer under the shell to examine the turtle’s head. Suddenly, without warning, the head moved. Jaden shot in the air backward, landing close beside me. Madison and Jack both jumped back with him, startled and uncertain. I pulled them close, alarmed myself. We stared together at the turtle, which was not dead. He opened his eyes and began to open and close his mouth.

  I burst out laughing. “Jaden, I’ve never seen you move so fast in your life! You were airborne!”

  Jaden grinned sheepishly. “I thought he was dead.”

  “So did I! He looked like it, didn’t he?”

  The turtle let his head fall back to the sand after another attempt to open his mouth. I stopped chuckling.

  “I don’t know if he wants to bite us or if he just needs water,” I said. “He’s been lying in the sun since early morning. Madison, go get your bucket,” I directed. “Jaden, Jack—let’s pour water on him and see if it helps. We need to flip him over.”

  I shoved my weight against the turtle, grunting. “I . . . can’t . . . budge him. Help me, Jaden.”

  Jaden leaned in to help, and Jack added his small frame to Jaden’s. The three of us shoved together but were not successful. “We need more help.” I stood back and wiped my face. I was breathing heavily.

  “Jaden, go get Daddy. Maybe he can help us flip him over.”

  “I’m here.” Kevin ran up with Madison, each carrying plastic buckets. “Let’s all get on one side and push together.”

  “Watch out for his mouth,” I warned.

  We almost could not do it. Our strength was no match for the turtle’s weight. But on our fifth attempt, with everyone pushing together, we flipped him to his belly. The turtle raised his head, but he was too weak to move.

  “Everybody get water!” I yelled. “Let’s pour it on him!”

  We poured bucket after bucket of seawater and watched as the turtle raised his head. The water seemed to revive him. He opened and closed his mouth repeatedly, turning his head for more.

  “He’s saying thank you,” Jack said. We laughed.

  “We need to get him into the ocean,” I said. “He might have a chance to survive.”

  “What are we going to name him?” Madison asked.

  “Hmmm . . . how about Herbert?” I poured another bucket of water. “Herbert, the giant sea turtle.”

  “Here, Herbert. Drink some water.” Jack poured a bucket over his head. Herbert’s mouth gaped toward Jack.

  Our buckets were small and our water meager compared to what the turtle needed. I looked out at the vast ocean, so close and yet beyond Herbert’s reach.

  “Let’s see if we can move him closer to the water. If we can get him to the surf, then we might be able to slide him in.” Kevin tried to heave him forward. Herbert would not budge.

  “Let’s all try!” I pushed alongside Kevin, joined by the children. We pushed together, but nothing happened. We heaved again, but we could not move him. We were no match for the giant turtle. We needed more people.

  Kevin wiped his forehead and looked toward the ocean. “Maybe the tide will be high enough to pull him out to sea.”

  I looked at Herbert. He was right on the shoreline, his body lying halfway over the high tide mark and halfway beyond it. If Herbert survived until the tide reached him, he would still need help moving into the sea.

  I looked at three small pairs of anxious eyes. “That could work,” I offered hopefully. “If we can give him enough water, he might live until the tide reaches him.”

  “The sun is going down, Audra,” Kevin whispered. “We need to leave soon.”

  “Just a little while longer,” I pleaded. “We might be able to save him. He is an endangered species, you know.”

  “Everything is an endangered species in Yemen,” Kevin said wryly.

  Herbert lifted his head for each one of our water buckets. We tried once more to push Herbert into the sea, but we were not successful.

  The last sliver of orange sun dipped into the horizon, and the sky began to grow dark. Kevin motioned for us to leave.

  “One more bucket. Please, Daddy!” Madison pleaded.

  Kevin sighed, looking at his watch. “All right. One more. Everybody get one more bucket to pour on Herbert.”

  We poured our last buckets, sloshing as much water as we could into Herbert’s gaping mouth. Madison patted the top of his speckled shell. “Good-bye, Herbert,” she said. “The tide is coming to take you back to the ocean.”

  I pull
ed her gently away. “We need to go, honey. We’ve done our best. Look how much better Herbert is than when we first found him.”

  Madison nodded. “But is it enough to save him, Mommy?”

  I sighed. “I hope so, honey. We’ve done all we can.”

  Madison was ready to cry. Kevin took her hand and gently started walking. “We have to go, honey. We should have left an hour ago. If it gets too dark, we won’t be able to find the path back to the highway.”

  “Yes, it’s time.” I pulled Jaden and Jack away.

  We walked into our house an hour later to the sound of the telephone ringing. I set down the pot of hot stewed beans and khobz [flatbread] from the corner mata’am [restaurant] and answered the phone. Kevin hauled towels and beach toys from the car.

  “Mrs. Shelby?”

  “Yes?”

  “Ma’am, this is Sergeant Medlin from the United States Embassy in Sana’a calling to inform you that a U.S. military ship was bombed in Aden this morning by Islamic terrorists. We are advising all American citizens to avoid public places and maintain vigilance at all times, exercising extreme caution and observing travel warnings as posted by the U.S. State Department. Our records show you have five in your family in Hudaydah. Is this correct?”

  I swallowed. “Yes.”

  “Ma’am, we urge you to exercise extreme caution, maintain contact with your business office in Sana’a and devise your course of action according to the State Department’s recommendations.”

  “Was anyone hurt?” I asked. My knees felt weak.

  “Yes, ma’am. Several military personnel were killed. We are waiting to confirm casualty reports. Ma’am, do you have any questions or need any assistance?”

  “No. Thank you, Sergeant, for calling.”

  I hung up the phone and looked at Kevin, who was waiting impatiently beside me. I repeated the sergeant’s words, struggling with the lump in my throat.

  “Oh, wow,” Kevin sighed. “This will make news. We need to let our families know that we’re okay. They’ve probably already heard about it.”