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5. Sarah
- University of Arkansas Press
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F I V E Sarah Your Lord knoweth best What is in your hearts: If ye do deeds of righteousness, Verily He is Most Forgiving To those who turn to Him Again and again. —QUR’AN, AL ISRA’ OR BANI ISRA’IL (THE NIGHT JOURNEY OR THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL), : I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That’s all I know. —BILLIE HOLIDAY [3.93.178.221] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 07:33 GMT) Sarah Before I finished asking Sarah even the most basic questions (name, age, background, core beliefs or philosophies), which had come to form the backbone of most of the interviews I had conducted up to that point, I was already high. Having never previously partaken in any sort of illicit drug use, even after four years at Wesleyan, where such“exploration” is very nearly a graduation requirement, I had no idea how I’d respond. I did, however, possess the inane, though overwhelming, conviction that in order to best serve my art and to fully understand Sarah as an individual,so as to write about her in any meaningful capacity given our short acquaintance,I would have to succumb to her reality during our time together.This reality entailed sharing the evening with Sarah’s multicolored handblown glass marijuana pipe,which she had lovingly named Sheniqua, and exchanging occasional scraps of insight between unprovoked fits of laughter in the spare bedroom of the on-campus house she was sharing with her girlfriend, Lia, at the time. When Sarah and I first crossed paths, I was for the first time in my life doingexactlywhatIwantedtobedoingatexactlythetimeIwantedtobedoing it, and she was comfortably waiting out the last few months of her senior year at Wesleyan with no definite future plans in sight. Of me,she knew only that I wasawannabewriterwhohadjustdroppedoutof lawschoolforthetimebeing to pursue that fantasy, and of her, I knew only that she was a friend of a few of myoldcollegefriendsandthatshemetthebasicrequirementsformybook:she was Muslim, she was an American citizen, and she was relatively young. Sarah was born in Khartoum, Sudan, and lived there until the age of seven, when she left with her mom and her sister. They went to Yemen, where they lived for four years before moving to the United States. She proudly describes her parents as political activists who fought against the established Sudanese regime of their time. Her mother, who is fully Sudanese but lived in Egypt, worked for Oxfam International. Her father, who is half Sudanese and half Egyptian, was born and raised in Sudan, where he worked on agricultural pesticide-control efforts. Shortly after Sarah, her mom, and her sister left for Yemen,herfatherwasarrestedinSudanbeforehecouldjointhem.Hewasthen senttoatorturehouseforfourmonths,whereheunderwentexcruciatingphysical and psychological torment, including electric shock treatments. He managed to sneak out of the country after being released, and he came straight to Yemen to join the rest of his family. Sarah was eleven when her family applied for political asylum and came to the United States, but in true COFOB style, she didn’t officially obtain American citizenship until quite recently. On an early September morning, Sarah began the two-and-a-half-hour drive fromWesleyan to Boston to swear herself in and formally become an American citizen. On the way there, she crashed her Corolla into a brand-new Lexus SUV, leaving a small dent in the Lexus and totaling her Corolla. Still, she made it to the courthouse fifteen minutes before the naturalization ceremony began and was able to swear herself in. Minutes after formally becoming an American citizen, Sarah was faced with the dilemma of how to get back to school with no car, twenty dollars in her bank account, and only two dollars and fifty cents on her person. She bummed a cigarette,bought a cup of coffee,called her girlfriend for a ride back to school, and sat waiting outside of the courthouse. Describing the events of that day, Sarah is nothing but smiles and laughs, with one exception: a hint of grief overcomes her voice as she recounts losing a large selection of audiotapes from Egypt and Sudan.“They were all in the car,and after the tow truck took it away they were just gone.And they were totally irreplaceable. I mean, they were so old and so muddled—you know, taped off the radio or off of other tapes. Horrible, horrible sound quality, but irreplaceable.”Today Sarah is living in New York City, where she...