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EXPERIENCES IN MENTAL HEALTH CARING |
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KITH AND KIN (Sixties Press 2004) |
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During the years 1999 and 2000 I conducted a number of interviews with Yemeni carers in Sheffield. Afterwards most of them gave their permission for their stories to be published. The resulting book was Who Cares? Reminiscences of Yemeni Carers in Sheffield, published by Sheffield Carers Centre, of which I am a member. My ‘Yemeni Carers Oral History Project’ was also supported by the Yemeni Carers Project, and its Co-ordinator Abdul Razak provided Arabic translations so that Who Cares? would be a bilingual book in English and Arabic. “Someone must care for the carers,” Abdul Razak told me. This young man, his colleague Jameela Musaid and their dedicated team of volunteers, were the ‘carers’ carers’. In my introduction to Who Cares? Reminiscences of Yemeni Carers in Sheffield, I described the book as: “an oral history snapshot, at a given moment in time, of individuals in Sheffield who belong to both its Yemeni community and to its community of carers.” During the 1980s and 1990s when I worked in community relations, I |
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About the contributor: Dr Debjani Chatterjee is a writer and member of Sheffield Carers Centre. Her many books include: Who Cares? Reminiscences of Yemeni Carers in Sheffield, published by Sheffield Carers Centre, email: office@sheffieldcarers.org.uk, 2001, ISBN: 0 9540162 0 3.
A SELECTION FROM YEMENI CARERS’ ORAL HISTORIES
NADIA OBAYD NASSER & ABDULLAH MUHAMMAD KASSIM: “We’d like to give him… as near a normal life as possible.” NIGHAT SALAH: “It is good to get a break now and then.”
AHMED MOHAMMED & SALMA SALEH AHMED: “How doubly sad it is for all who suffer like our son, but have no one to care for them.”
AISHA MUSA ALSAQAF:“Thank God for good neighbours!”
NADIA OBAYD NASSER & ABDULLAH MUHAMMAD KASSIM: “We’d like to give him… as near a normal life as possible.”
Nadia: My father, Obayd Nasser, left our ancestral village of Laqroh near Shaib many years ago. He came to Sheffield to work in the steel industry. But I was born in Birmingham where he met my English mother, Theresa Nasser. I was born on June 2nd, 1971, but remember nothing of my earliest days in Birmingham because my father took me away to Yemen when I was only two. My older sister and brother, Sheila and Ahmed, accompanied us too. My mother remained behind in Birmingham.
After a while my father returned to England, but we children stayed on in Laqroh. We grew up there, in the midst of my father’s family. We went to school in Laqroh and studied Arabic. In my mother’s absence, there was no opportunity for us to learn English. Then, when I was twenty my marriage was arranged to Abdullah Muhammad Kassim.
Abdullah: I am from the same village, Laqroh. You might say that we were almost like neighbours and we have a lot in common. We are very near in age too. I was born in Laqroh in December 1969. Like my wife, I too was one of three children. I too had a father, Muhammed Kassim, who lived in Sheffield and worked in its steel industry. Our fathers were friends and would make occasional visits to Laqroh.
We were very happy when we married in June 1991. Nadia is beautiful, home-loving and respectful of my parents; she is everything a husband could want. When our first child, a son, was born in October 1992, we thought we could not be happier.
Nadia: Ashraf was, and is, such a handsome boy and he looks the picture of health. But by the time he was six months old we knew there was something seriously wrong with him. He suffers from epileptic fits and he will never mature like other children; his brain seems to be damaged.
Abdullah: Naturally it was a great shock for us. Our whole family worried about him and we would keep debating what to do. But we have four more children now: three girls and another boy. Thank God they are normal.
Nadia: After Ashraf, our children are: Kanoz, born on Christmas Day in 1994; Bassam, born in November 1995; Bushrah, born in December 1996; and our youngest daughter whom we named Diana in honour of Princess Diana who had recently passed away – Diana was born in Sheffield in October 1997.
Abdullah: They are all sweet kids and are happy playing with each other. They used to play with all their cousins in Laqroh. But as Ashraf was getting older, he was also growing more boisterous. He could not talk or communicate. Politically and economically too, life in Yemen was becoming increasingly more difficult. So both our fathers and various family friends advised us to migrate to England. Sheffield was the natural choice since my parents and Nadia’s father live here. Both our fathers had retired from the steel industry in 1992, but decided to stay on in the ‘steel city’.
Nadia: Ashraf was our most important reason for coming here. We were told that in England he would get medical treatment. Nothing could be done for him in Laqroh. He could not go to school either. But of course we want what is best for all our children. We think they can all get a good education in Sheffield.
Abdullah: At first we just sent Ashraf. My parents had come to visit us and they persuaded us to let them take Ashraf back with them in 1997 and to see what, if anything, could be done for him in Sheffield. Once Ashraf was in Sheffield, he was examined by the doctors. He was able to go to a special school, Wellingwood, where he gets the specialist attention and stimulation that he needs.
Nadia: Abdullah’s parents were caring for Ashraf at this time, but I soon followed them to Sheffield with our next three children. I was pregnant with Diana and she was born here. All my family are in England now, so leaving Yemen was not at all a wrench for me. My sister, Sheila, lives in Sheffield, so I see quite a lot of her. My brother, Ahmed, is in Liverpool. My mother came from Birmingham to visit us last year and I’m looking forward to seeing her again this year for my birthday. My father is in Sheffield, so I see him frequently. And Abdullah’s parents come all the time; the children are very attached to them.
Abdullah: I was the last one to leave Yemen in October 1999. My brother Kassim Muhammed Kassim had passed away, but I felt very sad to leave his six surviving children behind. I also miss my elder brother, Saleh Muhammed. But I had to come and join my family in Sheffield. I know it was the right decision. Except for Diana who is too young, all the children go to school here. Ashraf’s attendance at a special school means a few hours break for us. Generally he is very demanding of our attention. Kanoz, our eldest daughter, is a bright little girl. She attends Pye Bank School, but also goes to learn Arabic at weekends at Firvale Community School. It is good that she is learning her mother tongue as well as English. We would like all our children to grow up to be bi-lingual. Bassam and Bushrah also attend Pye Bank School and speak English with ease.
Nadia: Abdullah and I hope that we can learn English too. It is important, but up to now I haven’t found any time for it. I am always so busy looking after the children and seeing to the housework. I did go to the Yemeni Centre this year to enquire about enrolling in the English language class, but as the other pupils there were well ahead of me, I was asked to wait until I could join a new batch of students this September. But I do go just occasionally to the Yemeni Carers Support Group meetings. Abdullah goes more regularly to the Support Group meetings that are for the male carers.
Abdullah: I go to English and Computer classes too. When I first arrived in Sheffield I joined an English class at Sheffield College. But after nearly three months they said that they could not teach me because I had not been here long enough and my passport did not say that I had ‘indefinite leave to remain’ here. So now I study at the Yemeni Centre where they don’t make any conditions.
Nadia: We are very happy in Sheffield. We have good friends and our parents and others in our community have helped us a lot. They helped us with housing, with medical treatment for Ashraf, with school enrolment and with our own studies. We are also lucky to have well-settled family members here who can help and advise us. Ashraf’s grandparents share our caring for him; otherwise we would feel an enormous strain.
Abdullah: We would like the opportunity to record our heartfelt thanks to them and to all the staff of the Yemeni Carers Project who have given us much-needed support. We are also grateful to Ashraf’s teachers at Wellingwood School, the Social Workers and everyone else who has helped us in so many ways to settle here. We want to live here permanently and comfortably.
We are presently in a small three bedroom flat, but ours is a growing family of seven, so I’d like us to be re-housed in something bigger. Nadia would also love to have a home with a garden. But wherever we go, it will have to be on the ground floor so that it is safe for the children, especially Ashraf. Like all parents, we love our children and want them to have good health, a good education and to do well in life. Some day when they are older I hope that they will be able to read this story. Ashraf cannot be completely normal of course, but we’d like to give him the best medical treatment that we can and as near a normal life as possible.
POSTSCRIPT Sadly, Ashraf died in 2002. I wrote the following poem for his parents: REASON FOR COMING(for Nadia and Abdullah)
“We had to come to Britain for our son; more can be done for him here,” you said. Your role was simply caring. Now Sheffield holds his eight years’ bones and you are still in thrall, grieving.
Debjani Chatterjee
NIGHAT SALAH: “It is good to get a break now and then.”
I was born in Aden, in Queen Elizabeth Hospital, 39 years ago. I am one of four sisters and five brothers. My father worked for the well-known petroleum company, Shell, for 25 years, but when Aden became independent so many Western companies packed up and left, Shell among them. My father, like many others, lost his livelihood.
I was twenty-five when I got married. My husband’s family came to our house and they approved of me, so they arranged our marriage. They struck me as good and down-to-earth people. Before the wedding I didn’t know my husband at all. But I thank God that he turned out to be a nice person; ours is a happy marriage.
My husband, Abdul Hakim, and four brothers-in-law were all soldiers. People did not have much choice about what job to do in those days and joining the army was easy work to find.
We went through some terrible times after that. My family are from the south of Yemen and our side lost the Civil War. Not only were we Southerners, we were also a military family, so we came in for particular harassment. During the war we had to flee our home and when the war was over we found that our home had been burnt down.
My husband was wounded during the war. He suffered a bullet through his head, which left him paralysed from the waist down. He also lost some of his memory and, when the Northern army tortured him, he couldn’t give them any information. He was so badly treated that I knew we had to get out of the country somehow to get medical treatment for him.
All our savings were in the form of gold, which we had kept for a rainy day. With the economy and the political situation both so unstable, gold is a traditional investment for us Yemenis. So we sold our gold, indeed we sold everything we had and sought the help of some kind people. At first we had to leave our three young children behind when Abdul and I went to the UAE. There, a lady doctor, Dr Amal, was very kind to us. She said that the bullet had gone straight through my husband’s skull – it wasn’t in his head any more. We were also helped a lot by friends. One in particular, Omm Ahmed, even went from the UAE to the Yemen and smuggled our children out of the country so that we could be together as a family once more in the UAE.
My husband was clearly going to need long-term and specialist treatment. A friend of ours, Mohammed Umar, advised us that this was not possible in the UAE and that we should now go to Britain. Again, kind people helped us to make this new journey. We were in the UAE for a total of four months.
We arrived in England early in 1998. Mohammed Umar’s half-sister, Yasmin, was settled in Sheffield. Yasmin and her family kindly agreed to support us. So we came to Sheffield. But I miss my mother and other family members in Yemen very much. My father died about five years ago, but my mother lives in Ta’izz in rented accommodation. I save up my money so that every three or four weeks I can buy a telephone card, then I ring my mother.
I look after my husband and children. I have been caring for my husband ever since he was wounded about six years ago. Sadly, he is never going to recover. In his 40s, he is still a young man, but physically he is totally helpless. He cannot pass urine normally and has to use a catheter. He also has periodic fits and mood swings.
Normally he is kind and jolly, he loves to laugh and to sing. He is a very sociable person and people love to come to our house to visit him. He is always cracking jokes. But there are times when he has a sudden fit – then he seems to become a completely different person altogether. Even his voice changes – it grows shrill like a woman’s! His personality undergoes a radical transformation. He becomes violent and bitter. He has threatened me with a knife on such occasions and throws things about the house and at us, his family. I dread these fits of his, but what can I do? I remind myself that he cannot help himself and his aggressive behaviour does not reflect his true nature. I just remember his kind and affable nature, and pray that he will quickly regain his senses. My husband’s fits can last a couple of hours or even a couple of days. And then he’s back to normal.
I must be both mother and father to our three children. I had five boys, but two died at birth. Mohammed, my eldest, is now thirteen; Osama is eleven and Akram is seven. Akram has asthma and a kidney problem. The two younger children attend Greenland Primary School and are reasonably happy. Mohammed used to go to Waltheof Secondary, but he was regularly bullied there and would get into fights. He was always in trouble with his teachers. Unfortunately they would believe the bullies’ complaints rather than understand Mohammed’s point of view. My eldest son is big in build and, since he was also struggling with his English, it was easy for the teachers to think that he was the one at fault. Anyway, I went through quite a bad period when he was truanting from school. My own English is extremely weak, so communicating with the teachers was problematic for me too. Eventually Mohammed was expelled from Waltheof. He is now at Firvale Secondary and, thank God, is adjusting better to this school.
Our three sons have picked up English very quickly. I am pleased that they are bi-lingual: they speak Arabic with us at home and English when they leave the house. Unfortunately they are not learning to read and write Arabic, as their schools don’t offer it as a subject.
My husband and I would really like to learn English. The Yemeni Training and Enterprise Centre does offer free English language classes, but since his disability keeps him housebound, we cannot avail of the opportunity. I took just a few English lessons, but I kept missing classes because of caring for him and for the children. So I felt that I was not making any progress and finally gave up. My husband and I both need a tutor who would be willing to come to our home.
The boys have to grow up witnessing their father’s occasional outbursts and tantrums. They have learnt to stay out of his way when he is having one of his fits. They are good kids really. Mohammed often has to help me to look after his father; he is only thirteen but he has sometimes carried his father in his arms.
I thank God for our boys and wish I could do more for them. They have many friends and are happy playing with them. But there are many things that their father cannot do with them even though he would like to. He cannot take them to the mosque, like other fathers, for example. So there are many frustrations. I try to do what I can, but it is difficult.
Luckily, there are other Yemenis in Sheffield to whom I can turn for support for myself, other carers like myself, and of course, Jameela, the Carers Support Worker. They are always at the end of the telephone if I need to talk. I also look forward to coming to the Yemeni Carers Support meetings every six weeks or so – they give me valuable social contact and occasionally we also have trips and outings. It is good to get a break now and then from looking after my husband. But generally speaking, I am happy to care for him. I love him and find him a remarkably cheerful man, in spite of his severe afflictions. So how can I stay depressed?
AHMED MOHAMMED & SALMA SALEH AHMED:
“How doubly sad it is for all who suffer like our son, but have no one to care for them.”
Ahmed: How does one maintain one’s language and culture in a foreign land? The longer we are here, the more this is a question that I ask myself.
Salma: Our language and culture are of course very important to us, but our future generations here are growing up with a different language and a different culture. It is the parents and the community leaders who must ensure that they will have the benefit of both cultures. The school system here does not really promote anything beyond English language and culture. But we have tried to bring up our children with both. My husband has also worked hard over the years to develop our community in Sheffield, while still retaining our traditions.
Ahmed: Language and culture matter to all of us. But if you hear about our family background you will see why we are perhaps more concerned about this than most. I was born in 1931 in a small village in Shaib, the youngest of three children. My sisters and I were born into quite a traditional sayyid family. The sayyids are respected as direct descendents of the Prophet Muhammed (praise be unto him). My father was the local Imam and I was educated in a religious school in Shaib. Although I never knew my grandparents who died before I was born, my mother told me a lot about them. They were very good people and my grandfather too had been an Imam.
Salma: I too was born in a sayyid family in Shaib, in 1945. My two brothers went to school, but my sister and I were educated at home by our parents. It was very much a religious education,
so that we would be able to read the Quran. It is the right of every Muslim, whether male or female, to read the Quran and our Prophet always laid great stress on education.
Ahmed: We are lucky to have Arabic as our mother tongue; it is a noble language – the language of the Quran. Many Yemeni children in Sheffield can speak it, of course, because they hear it at home, but not so many are literate in the language. But without it they cannot read the Quran, nor can they write letters to relatives in Yemen – both are serious losses. Every Yemeni here will have some relatives back home.
Salma: We ourselves are parted from close family members whom we had to leave behind in Yemen – in particular Ahmed’s first wife, Shama Musallam, and her daughter, Seena, and son, Nabil.
Ahmed: Shama Musallam is a very good woman. I married her in Shaib in 1951, but when we thought that she could not have children, she gave me permission to marry a second time. Salma is my second wife – we married in 1969. The irony is that after I married Salma, both my wives became pregnant! In 1973 Shama gave birth to my eldest daughter, Seena, and then Salma was delivered of my eldest son, Abdul Razak. I have seven children in all. But of course the immigration authorities here won’t allow me to bring both wives, so Shama is still in Yemen.
Salma: I was in Yemen too for a long time. Ahmed came to England in the 1950s and would visit Yemen every two or three years. Shama and I lived like sisters and brought up our children jointly. Our mother-in-law also lived with us until her death in 1982. We are a close family. In 1974 we sold our family’s tiny plot of land in Shaib and moved to the village of Itaba in the Dah’la region where we owned a slightly bigger piece of land. But then I developed kidney problems as well as a stomach ulcer, so I left my children in Shama’s care and came to Sheffield for treatment in 1984.
Ahmed: I wasn’t always in Sheffield. I was just 20 when I came to England and worked in a steel factory in Birmingham for twenty years. A family friend had visited our village in Shaib and he told me and other young men that there were plenty of well-paid jobs in England for those who were hardworking and enterprising enough. I was adventurous and wanted to better myself. I had to struggle with the language and the dreadful climate, but I found that it was indeed true that there were many jobs here. Yemenis got many of the jobs in the steel industry for which - at least in those early years - there were no English takers. In the 1970s I got a job with British Steel and so moved to Sheffield. My workplace was later taken over by Forge Masters. My last job there was as a crane driver.
Salma: While at Forge Masters he developed high blood pressure and shortness of breath. Then in 1996 came a mild heart attack. That is why, when the chance came in 1997 to take early retirement, he took it.
Ahmed: I really missed my family for a long time in Birmingham and Sheffield. So, when Salma came here for treatment, I persuaded her to stay on. Thankfully her ulcers are cured now and, although she still has a slight kidney problem, it is under control with medication. Our youngest daughter, Leena, and our youngest son, Adnan, were born in Sheffield.
Salma: Five years after I came here we were able to get my older children to join us in Sheffield. We wanted so much to be together.
Ahmed: Besides, we were very worried because the political situation in Yemen had become so unstable. There was economic chaos and everyone in the South had become impoverished. They came in the beginning of 1990 just when the process of ‘unification’ between the two Yemens started. When North and South Yemen were united as one country in June 1990, we were very happy at first. We thought that we might all be able to go back as a family. But by the time a year had passed, we grew more realistic and realised that our life here was better for the time being. One of my two brothers was killed in the Civil War.
Salma: Fortunately the two eldest children are happily married and well settled. Shama’s daughter, Seena, married one of her cousins and they now live in Saudi Arabia. Her husband works in his uncle’s jewellery business. They have two daughters and a son. Our eldest son, Abdul Razak, and his wife and two children live very near us and we visit every day. He has done well to learn English in the short time that he had in school. Then he studied in college and now works at the Yemeni Centre as Co-ordinator of the Yemeni Carers’ Project.
Ahmed: Both the Yemeni Centre and the Yemeni Carers’ Project mean a lot to us. I have given much time over the years to developing our community. I am a founder member of the Yemeni Community Association and, during some of its formative years, I chaired the Association, both in its early premises in Vestry Hall, Burngreave, and later in the present building on Attercliffe Road. During the 1980s I also taught Arabic on a voluntary basis at the Yemeni Centre and am proud to say that my son, Abdul Razak, too has seen the value of voluntary Arabic teaching to help our community. Now after retirement, my wife and I are much taken up with being grandparents to Abdul Razak’s two children, 5 year-old Majid and 4 year-old Hashim – I take them to and from Byron Wood Nursery and Primary School everyday – as well as bringing up our younger children who are studying at school and college. Much of our time and care revolves around our second son, Adel.
Salma: Adel was born in Yemen in 1977 and until three years ago he was a bright and happy person with lots of friends. Then suddenly a terrible depression set in during 1997 when he was in the final stage of his GNVQ course in Business and Finance at Sheffield College. We don’t know why it happened or what triggered it. But he changed into a very unhappy, even suicidal, young man. Of course his studies had to stop and there was an endless round of visiting doctors and psychiatrists, but we don’t think that they’ve been able to do a proper diagnosis. He has had a lot of tests in both Northern General and Hallamshire Hospitals. At one time he was prescribed a lot of daily tablets, but he refused to take them. The trouble is that he doesn’t admit that he is ill. So the only medicine he would sometimes agree to take would be an anti-depressive tablet.
Ahmed: We are told that there is a danger of addiction to anti-depressive tablets. So for the present his psychiatrist has prescribed a weekly injection plus a tablet each morning, and this course of treatment will be reviewed at the end of 12 months. Every Wednesday I have to take Adel with me to his GP who administers the injections. Occasionally other family members come too for support. Of course Adel doesn’t want the injections but we give him no choice.
Salma: Adel’s sudden illness came as a great shock to all our family. There is no one else in the family who has had this illness. Adel has his own flat, but it lies empty most of the time since he can’t manage by himself. He has to be told what to do all the time: “Adel, it’s time to clean your teeth. Adel, go and have a shower. Adel, change your clothes.” It is as if he has no initiative of his own any more. The medicines he is taking make him much calmer, it is true, but their side effects are also making him ill. He has become very slow and lethargic, and his memory has suffered. He doesn’t seem bothered about anything. Left to himself, he would totally neglect himself. He has become very quiet and has no friends any more. Occasionally his past friends have come to visit, but they got discouraged when Adel wouldn’t talk to them – so they’ve stopped coming now. Ahmed: It is very sad for us to see him like this, especially since we remember what he was like before his illness.
Salma: There is no problem with his behaviour – he isn’t rude to people, nor is he uncooperative. But he just doesn’t seem to care about anything and anyone, and he has to be constantly told what to do. Sometimes he won’t do what we ask him to do and we have to be quite diplomatic in how we approach him. We find it easiest to go along with his wish to be thought normal.
Ahmed: The most puzzling and frightening thing of all is that our son has developed a total blind spot with regard to our mother tongue. Since about six or seven months ago – the same time that his injections started – he won’t speak Arabic at all! Nor will he answer anyone who speaks to him in Arabic. So here we are, a house full of Yemenis, all talking in Arabic with each other, but when it comes to conversation with Adel we must all resort to English! It’s like a way of cutting himself off from the rest of us. I have often tried to reason with him about this, but it is useless. He just says that Arabic is a dead language. I can’t believe he has suddenly forgotten it, I suspect he does understand it when we speak it, but he acts as if he can’t even hear us!
Salma: His smoking has increased greatly too. I wish he would not smoke in front of the younger ones. When his depression started he also gave up praying. He says he doesn’t see the point of it anymore. Adel used to be such a good boy.
Ahmed: Nowadays if he sees me at prayer, he will say: “what are you doing? Why all this useless kneeling and bowing?”
Salma: We just have to put up with it. The doctors think that his depression is complicated by some kind of identity disorder. If only there was something we could do to help his condition, beyond just loving him and caring for him!
Ahmed: There are many elders in our community who have suffered physical disabilities through accidents at work or noise pollution in the steel industry; but there are also many – especially among the young - who suffer from depression, from cultural conflicts, tensions between different value systems and identity crises. Sadly, not everyone has a carer. That is why we need a strong community centre to act as an extended family for many.
Salma: Ahmed and I can only make sure that we are here for Adel and for our other children and grandchildren. How doubly sad it is for all who suffer like our son, but have no one to care for them.
Ahmed: At least Adel is getting whatever treatment is possible here and we pray that he may soon recover. His next brother, Ameen, is 19 and doing a GNVQ in Information Technology at Sheffield College. Leena and Adnan are at Byron Wood School where they are also doing well. We hope that they will all grow up to lead happy and honourable lives. My one great regret is that our family is divided. I wish that it had been possible to bring my first wife, Shama, and our son, Nabil, to live with us in Sheffield. But the laws of this country and of Yemen are in conflict on this matter.
Salma: But we do keep in close contact through letters and almost weekly telephone calls. Nowadays Ahmed also tries to visit them in Yemen for about five or six weeks every year.
Ahmed: I was still quite a young man in Birmingham when my father died in Yemen. My widowed mother was well cared for by both Shama and Salma – and she certainly needed looking after, as she was ill and blind for the last sixteen years of her life. Every time I would visit ‘home’, she would tell me that she prayed that her death should come while I was there – she dreaded to think of dying while I was far away in Sheffield. God must have heard her prayers because I was with her in 1982 when she died.
Sheffield is my home now. It is a good city and, on the whole, it has welcomed many of us from Yemen. In fact this may even be the best country in the world, but only if you understand the way in which things are organised here and the way in which everything operates. If you don’t, then life can be very difficult indeed and people are not readily accepted. And for many Yemenis of my generation it has been a very hard struggle to learn the ropes and to fit in. But the steel industry has all but gone and now jobs are very few. I wonder what life will be like for our children and grandchildren after we are gone.
Salma: I don’t like to think that my move to Britain has been a permanent one, though some day I may have to acknowledge that this has been more than a temporary home for me. May God bring back peace and stability to my country so that my family can return there and enjoy the same security that we currently know in Sheffield.
Ahmed: But wherever we may be, the important thing is that we should be together as a family. I want all my children and grandchildren to feel this sense of family closeness which my parents and grandparents gave me. Even though the immigration laws may keep my family divided in a geographical sense, I hope they have not managed to divide us where it counts – in our hearts. Only last week my son by Shama, Nabil, was on the telephone. He is now at university in Yemen. After we had chatted, he said to me that he wanted to talk to each of his brothers and sisters in Sheffield. That made me very happy. No matter what problems we may have, as long as we can stay united as a family, we will be strong and no one can shake us.
AISHA MUSA ALSAQAF: “Thank God for good neighbours!”
I was born in the village of Shaib in June 1930. My country was then called Aden and the British ruled over us. I had just one brother, Bubakr Nashir Hussain, who was much older than me. My parents died when I was very young – I think they were stricken down by malaria. I don’t remember them at all. I was brought up by my maternal uncle and his wife. I grew up with my four cousins and naturally I feel very close to the three who are still living and to their parents.
I never had the chance to study – it was not something that girls did in those days. Our family had a large amount of land, so we grew all manner of fruits, vegetables and corn. We kept lots of animals too: camels, sheep, cows and chickens. We even had beehives and collected the honey. I helped on the farm from a young age. It was a harsh life for all of us, but I won’t say that it was a bad one.
My brother wanted to make a better life for himself, so he migrated to the United States more than forty years ago. He is a farmer there and has a wife and five children. We keep in touch by telephone. I myself did not marry until I was forty. That may be why I am more used to my maiden name, Aisha Mohammed, than to my married name, Aisha Musa Alsaqaf. My husband, Saleh Al-Omri, was a soldier and three years my senior.
In Aden some soldiers would be kept in every village in case of trouble. They were often billeted to stay with the local people. So Saleh was staying with us. He liked my uncle and one day he asked him if he could marry any one of his daughters. My uncle said that I was just like his daughter and he could marry me! When the proposition was put to me, I agreed because it is good to marry if one can.
Was he handsome in his uniform? Oh, I don’t know; I have never thought about how men look! And anyway, Saleh gave up the army when we married. But, sadly for me, we were together for only a month before he left the country to make a new life in Britain. He shared rented accommodation with friends and got himself a job, first as a crane driver in Rotherham, and then as a labourer in a steel scrapyard. Six long years were to pass before he came back to visit me.
He has lived in Sheffield for thirty years, paying several visits to Yemen in between. We have three daughters and three sons, all grown up now and living in Yemen. Their names are: Kahtan, Sharifa, Ahmed, Ali, Hoda and Fayda. I did not join Saleh in Sheffield until 1987.
He had only three months left to retire when he suffered a terrible accident at work. A crane hit him on one side. it was as if he had just had a massive stroke down that side. He nearly died and was two months in hospital. I remember praying hard that God should spare him. Of course, he could no longer work after that and I became his full time carer. Nowadays he has various other ailments too: diabetes, epilepsy and angina. A severe stroke some time after that left him with dementia, and impaired speech, vision and hearing. He can hardly speak now in Arabic or English – he just mumbles a few words and makes muttering sounds that I try to interpret.
His illness is very stressful for us both and being cooped up at home all the time does not help. I know that if I could go to the English classes at the Yemeni centre, it would free me in many ways and I would also be able to help him more. As it is, I have to depend on Jameela and other Yemenis for help every time there is an official form to fill in or a letter to write or a visit to a hospital, or even for shopping. But I cannot leave him alone. If some kind woman would be prepared to come to my home to teach me English, I would certainly learn.
I do occasionally go for an hour to the Yemeni Carers’ Support Group meetings if he is in a reasonable mood and may be left by himself. Jameela normally comes to collect me in her car for these meetings. There are also quite a few Yemenis in my neighbourhood and I have kind friends among them who come to visit me. It is difficult, of course, for me to visit anyone. None of my friends can really relieve me of caring for a little while; Saleh gets very upset if I am not here and makes his displeasure known quite forcibly. With the help of the Yemeni Carers’ Project, we did try to get some respite care for him, but Saleh kept looking for me and wandering out of the door. He looks small physically, but is quite strong when he wants his own way. For a little while the Project also organised a day care centre for him to go to, but after a few times he just refused to go.
I don’t enjoy very robust health myself, being diabetic like my husband. I have asthma and arthritis too. Two years ago I had a minor operation on my back – a lump was removed – but I never did understand how it had got there or why it had to be operated on.
My husband was so different before all his afflictions. He liked music and was a cheerful man. We would listen to the radio and the television and sometimes when there was music he would get up and dance round the room! Nowadays, he hears noises and voices in his head and they distress him. So he cannot tolerate any external noises. He will not allow me to have the radio or TV on. I have not been able to switch on our TV for the past one year at least.
Without TV and, for the most part, being unable to go anywhere, I get very bored at times. Of course I try to keep busy with housework, washing and cooking, but it is not enough. I sometimes prepare our mada’a (hubble-bubble) so that Saleh and I can smoke qat. We chew it too. We look forward to this traditional pleasure about twice a week or so.
Two years ago we got a real scare when a fire broke out in our bedroom. It was about 10 o’clock in the morning. A radiator pipe had burst. Very quickly all the furniture caught fire and it could easily have spread to the rest of the house. I rushed next door to our English neighbours, Ron and his wife June. They rang up the fire service and a fire engine came and put down the flames. Thank God for good neighbours!
Actually Ron is very helpful to us in other ways too. My arthritis means that I can’t cope with the garden at all. In the front it is just grassed over and there’s a small piece of garden at the back that has a few flowers and a bit of mint growing in it. I pay Ron a nominal sum so that when he’s seeing to his garden, he can also do mine. He is a very handy person and comes and helps if I have a cooker or anything like that which needs fixing. If my few words of English are inadequate for communicating with him, a Yemeni friend who visits us sometimes will translate between us.
Our neighbours on our other side are Yemenis and also very friendly. Equally good are our upstairs Yemeni neighbours. They moved in three months ago, much to everyone’s relief because the English couple before them were dreadful people. The man was dealing in drugs and they had a dog that they kept tied up all the time in the bathroom. The poor animal was barking all the time and it would drag some heavy object behind it as it jumped about the bathroom. The noise used to drive my husband mad! The man’s wife and child used to come sometimes to visit him, but he also had a girlfriend living with him. I guess his wife did not know about her because one day she and the child came to visit and found him with the girlfriend. All hell broke loose! They were all shouting and beating each other! All the neighbours came out to watch! Someone must have notified the police because they came and took them away. After a while, the City Council gave the flat to the new tenants.
With the exception of the drug dealer, all my neighbours are so good that I wouldn’t dream of moving from the area. I believe in keeping an open house – let the whole world come and welcome! After the fire, some people suggested that I could ask the City Council for a better house in some other area. They said that we might have priority in the waiting list, both because of the fire and because of Saleh’s disabilities and mine, but how can I leave such kind neighbours? And you never know what the new neighbours might be like. So, with some financial help from the City Council, we have made repairs and repainted the room. We have even taken out insurance now so that another fire won’t catch us out.
I love this adopted country of mine. The dreadful weather is the only thing I don’t like about it. When it snows in winter the roads and pavements can be treacherous. It would be good if the City Council would construct a railing for the pathway immediately in front of our flat so that one could hold on to it when the outside is icy and slippery. Saleh wanders out at times – even in the snow and ice; I worry that one of these days he may slip and fall. He isn’t very steady on his legs at the best of times.
Living here is very much easier than in Yemen, it has to be said. Everything is available. If we had returned to Yemen after Saleh retired, we would have had a hard struggle of living on the land at our age. But I miss our children greatly. I last visited them eighteen months ago and stayed for three months. It’s time to pay them another visit. I’ll have to make some arrangements to take Saleh with me.
Saleh and I have many grandchildren; Kahtan, our eldest, has nine children and the rest all have three each. Seeing them brings back memories of my childhood in Shaib. I must pass on those memories to them.
One of my happy memories is of a wise old woman who used to tell us children riddles and stories. My cousins and I learnt so many from her. Our Yemeni riddles are always told in rhyme and many of them are quite intriguing. Certainly, as children, they fascinated us.
Once the old woman challenged us with this riddle:
Akhbhar akhbhar feeshagara, Ahmar ahmar feebedeni, Salla kalvi wahey gabani!
Green, green the plant; Red, red my palm; Gladdens my heart!
We puzzled and puzzled over it but she told us to go home and think about it. I remember crying because I did not know the answer. Not until the next day when we returned to her and admitted defeat, did she tell us the answer. The green plant was henna! It reddens the hands that are decorated with it and, of course, we all love it!
Here is another one that was difficult for us children:
Mimbazil aley alboazl dinna Masiro anaar thaharam aley alganna!
Pieces that are held by fingertips End in fire, forbidden of heaven!
The answer was bahoor, little lumps made of sugar, spices and perfumes that we burn in earthen pots called mobh-khora. They give off a wonderful scent that fills the room. The warm pots are also comforting to hold on cold winter evenings and are sometimes colourfully painted. Frankincense and myrrh have been used in Yemen since very ancient times.
An easier riddle was:
Hagar hagengara Beyada min nagara Mayu khullokhha Illa aziz iggabar!
Stone among stones, White and clear, Made by heaven And the Creator!
Hail stones of course! We don’t get snow in Yemen, but we do have hail falling sometimes.
Many Yemeni children here are growing up with no knowledge of our riddles, poems, songs and stories. I wish their parents and grandparents would tell them. I am so glad that there was someone in my childhood who could tell me these things. I am not at all good with numbers and have difficulty remembering dates in my life, but words, when they are so interesting and playful, easily stick in my mind.
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One Carer’s Story - Barry Tebb Schizophrenia - A Carer’s Journal - Mike Schizophrenia – A Mother’s Story – Georgina Wakefield My Journey Of Sadness – Stan Hagon The Voice Of Carers – Amanda Cummin Yemeni Carers’ Stories – Debjani Chaterjee Beyond Our Reach, But Not Our Love – Brian D’arcy Carry On Caring – Emily Machin & Lucy Machin Enigma And Other Poems - Georgina Wakefield Killingbeck Drive – Brenda Williams Searching The Beyond And Other Poems – Daisy Abey Sharp Edge – Daisy Abey The Long Good Bye – Barry Tebb Looking Back – Barry Tebb Nameless In Camden – Brenda Williams Autobiography – Simon Jenner The Sick Image Of My Father Fades – John Horder Are You A Carer? Caring About Carers
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