I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World (7 page)

BOOK: I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World

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Imagine you are dancing. Think of your favorite song. Remember your mother braiding your hair. Feel her kindly roughly braiding hands. Hear her calling your name, “Marta, Marta, Marta.”

RULE 4. NEVER EVER OPEN ANY DOOR TO HIM

Reject the food he brings you. Refuse to eat his stupid fish. Spit on it. Tell him your family would never eat fish out of the water. When in public he will want you to smile and act like a proper wife even though he is married to someone else. Never smile. Roll on the ground in the ugly expensive tailor-made
pange
he brings you. Never laugh at his jokes. He will be shoving himself into you. He will do this two or three times a day. It will not be painful after the first twenty times. Your insides will no longer belong to you. He will sometimes wear cologne. Beware. That smell will make you sympathetic. Do not give way to it. You will begin to feel something for him. It’s natural after six months. It is nothing more than habit or accident. It has nothing to do with Claude. By the way, never use his name. Only refer to him as “him” or “you.”
“You
, move over.
You
, leave me alone.”

RULE 5. HIS SADNESS IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS

Sometimes he will seem so sad. All the bad things he has seen and done. You will feel bad for him. You will feel everything he
feels and doesn’t feel. You have been his slave for almost two years. You will start to think there is no one else. This is your life. He will be the only person who ever loves you. When you start vomiting one morning, you will be sure he poisoned you. Then it will pass, and then it will happen again, and slowly you will realize you are pregnant with his baby. He will tell you if you even think of aborting it he will kill you. Refuse to take care of his baby.

RULE 6. IT DOESN’T MATTER IF YOU GET CAUGHT, BETTER TO DIE TRYING TO BE FREE

When the opportunity reveals itself, flee. Count on miracles. When you run, you will take your baby because deep down you know she’s yours. You will take her clothes and nothing else.

You will start to run and your legs will be strong like a strong person’s legs and you will think clearer and better than you have ever thought before and you will hear your mother calling “Marta, run run run” and you will make the bus at the exact right moment and you will not look out the window because you know the four bodyguards who have watched you like a hawk for two years are already there but you are in your hole and no one can see you and you will hide with your baby inside a wall in your cousin’s house the place you would have stayed on your holiday and Claude will come with the four other soldiers and they will search and destroy everything and your baby will not cry and you will be invisible and the next day you will make it to the boat and as it is pulling out from shore you will not be breathing you will see him and the other men on the dock asking and looking for you and someone will point to the boat and you will know he has
found you even though you are deep inside the hole. And the captain of the boat will suddenly be standing next to you and he will ask you one single question “How old are you?” and then you will talk as if it’s the first time you’ve talked and you will be surprised at how loud and crazy your voice sounds and you will say things like “I am seventeen. He took me when I was fifteen. He raped me every day three times a day. He gave me diseases and made me pregnant. He stole our country’s minerals, and my life. If you turn this boat back, I will throw myself into the lake. I will drown myself. I’ll be okay dead as long as I never have to see him again. I will take his baby with me.”

And the captain will put one hand on your shoulder and you will see a light in his eyes that you will identify as pity and he will not turn back.

RULE 7. DO NOT FEEL GUILTY ABOUT HOW HAPPY YOU FEEL WHEN YOU HEAR HE IS DEAD

After six months back at home in your beloved Bukavu you will run into two soldiers from the camp and they will be surprised at how well you look and they will tell you that Claude got killed and you will say “God did something good” and at that moment milk will pour into your breasts and you will love your baby.

I went on a vacation for two days.
I didn’t come back for two years.

RULE 8. NO ONE CAN TAKE ANYTHING FROM YOU IF YOU DO NOT GIVE IT TO THEM

I DANCE (II)

I dance in the circles
that began in ancient Greece
In the circles that spin round the Balkans,
Africa, Ireland
I dance the hora

I dance in the circle of all those indigenous
I dance to say yes to my culture
I dance because my grandmother
and grandfather taught me
I dance so I don’t forget
I dance because there is a bird in me
Sometimes it is a slow bird in my body
Sometimes it moves so fast
like a blue jay
You cannot stop one
even if you try to kill one
Hold a gun right on a blue jay
They will fly fast like that
Out of your way
I wanted to dance the jingle dance
before I could even walk
I dance because I love to spin
The buckskin dance
all over my body
When you teach Indian children to dance
you teach them to be Indians

I dance to disappear
I dance to know I’m here
I dance ’cause I’m horny
’cause it’s holy
’cause I want to forget

(Belly dancing)
I dance with my belly
the center of the power of the world

(Sufi dancing)
I dance Sufi
and I spin out
forever
out into the universe

(Hula, kabuki, hip-hop, Bollywood dancing)
I dance past what is forbidden
on O’te’a
Kabuki and rock and roll
Hip-hop and Bollywood

(Salsa and flamenco)
I dance salsa and flamenco

Section III
REFUSER

From the Lebanese mountains
to the Kenyan village of El Doret
we are practicing self-defense.
Versed in karate, tai chi, judo, and kung fu
we are no longer surrendering to our fate.

Now we are the ones who walk our girlfriends home from school.
And we don’t do it with macho. We do it with cool.

Our mothers are the Pink Sari Gang
fighting off the drunken men
with rose-pointed fingers and sticks in
Uttar Pradesh.
The Peshmerga women
in the Kurdish mountains
with barrettes in their hair
and AK-47s instead of pocketbooks.
We are not waiting anymore to be taken and retaken.

We are the Liberian women sitting
in the African sun blockading the exits
till the men figure it out.
We are the Nigerian women babies strapped to our backs occupying the oil terminals of Chevron.
We are the women of Kerala who refused to let Coca-Cola privatize our water.
We are Cindy Sheehan showing up in Crawford without a plan.
We are all those who forfeited husbands boyfriends and dates
’cause we were married to our mission.
We know love comes from all directions and in many forms.
We are Malalai Joya, who spoke back to the Afghan Loya Jirga
and told them they were “raping warlords” and
she kept speaking even when they kept trying
to blow up her house.
And we are Zoya, whose radical mother was shot dead when Zoya
was only a child so she was fed on revolution, which was
stronger than milk.

And we are the ones who kept and loved our babies
even though they have the faces of our rapists.
We are the girls who stopped cutting ourselves to release the pain

And we are the girls who refused to have our clitoris cut and give up our pleasure.

We are:

Rachel Corrie, who wouldn’t/couldn’t move away from the Israeli tank.

Aung San Suu Kyi, who still smiles after years of not being able to leave her room.

Anne Frank, who survives now ’cause she wrote down her story.

And we are Neda Soltani, gunned down by a sniper in the streets of Tehran as she voiced a new freedom and way.

We are the women riding the high seas to offer
needy women abortions on ships.
We are women documenting the atrocities
in stadiums with video cameras underneath our burqas.
We are seventeen and living for a year in a tree
and lying down in the forests to protect wild oaks.
We are out at sea interrupting the whale murders.
We are freegans, vegans, trannies,
but mainly we are refusers.
We don’t accept your world
your rules your wars
We don’t accept your cruelty and unkindness.
We don’t believe some need to suffer for others to survive
or that there isn’t enough to go around
or that corporations are the only and best economic arrangement.

And we don’t hate boys, okay?
That’s another bullshit story.

We are refusers
but we crave kissing.
We don’t want to do anything before we’re ready
but it could be sooner than you think
and we get to decide
and we are not afraid of what is pulsing through us.
It makes us alive.

Don’t deny us, criticize us, or infantilize us.
We don’t accept checkpoints, blockades, or air raids.
We are obsessed with learning.
On the barren tsunamied beaches of Sri Lanka
In the desolate and soggy remains of the Lower Ninth
We want school.
We want school.
We want school.

We know if you plan too long
nothing happens and things get worse and that
most everything is found in the action
and instinctively we get that the scariest thing
isn’t dying, but not trying at all.

And when we finally have our voice
and come together
When we let ourselves gather the knowledge
When we stop turning on each other
but direct our energy toward what matters
When we stop worrying about
our skinny-ass stomachs or too-frizzy hair
or fat thighs
When we stop caring about pleasing
and making everyone so incredibly happy—
We got the Power.

If
Janis Joplin was nominated the ugliest man on her campus
and they sent Angela Davis to jail
If Simone Weil had manly virtues
and Joan of Arc was hysterical
If Bella Abzug was eminently obnoxious
and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is considered scary
If Arundhati Roy is totally intimidating
and Rigoberta Menchú is pathologically intense
If Michelle Obama is bare-armed and unapologetic
and Julia Butterfly Hill is an extremist freak
Call us hysterical then
Fanatical
Eccentric
Delusional
Intimidating
Eminently obnoxious
Militant
Bitch
Freak
Tattoo me
Witch
Give us our broomsticks
and potions on the stove
We are the girls
who are aren’t afraid to cook.

GIRL FACT

An estimated one hundred million girls are involved in child labor worldwide.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT BEING A GIRL?

Girls are kind
We get to be glamorous
You can wear makeup
Girls are human
Girls are close to their fathers
Girls don’t force boys to do stuff
Girls wear pretty clothes
Girls can create a new life
Girls are shy
Girls are tender
Girls are soft
Boys sit for hours and never talk
They yell at the television
Girls can do things better
Ballet
Wearing dresses
Being different
Women are closer.

ASKING THE QUESTION

So we’re lying there kissing and feeling each other up
and it’s getting hotter and I can tell he thinks I’m not into it
’cause all I’m thinking about is how I’m going to ask him,
how I am going to say it.
I’ll make him uptight.
He’ll know I’ve done this before.
He’ll think I’m a nerd.
I know all boys hate them.
It doesn’t feel as good.
It breaks up the motion, the momentum.
He won’t call me again.
He’ll feel bad, like something’s wrong with him.
He’s nervous already.
He’ll lose it.
He couldn’t have AIDS.
He’s too young.
He’s too handsome.

He’s too athletic.
He’s too nice.
He’s too shy.
He’s too funny.
He dresses too well.
He’s too clean.
He’s too smart.
He’s too careful.
He’s too popular.
He’s too Christian.
I’ve known him my whole life.
Maybe I’ll ask him the next time
when we know each other better.

Then I remember this girl in my class.
She was seventeen.
She was really cute.
She was going to marry this guy.
He didn’t tell her he slept with
someone else.
He didn’t tell her ’cause he
didn’t want her to break up with him.
He didn’t tell her
and she trusted him
and he gave her HIV.
So I say
just like that
“Would you mind
using a condom please?”

(I sound just like my mother)
and he says, without even missing a beat,
“Sure, I have one right here.”
and I think
oh my God
that wasn’t so bad.
Kind of easy
and he’s clearly done this before.
So he’s not that shy,
not so insecure,
clearly not a virgin,
clearly prepared.
Maybe I don’t really know who he is.
I do that.
I make people up.
I make up what they think
and how they will respond.
I get so inside him
that I don’t think about me.
Why didn’t he bring it up?
Maybe he was going to put it on
at the last minute.
Maybe he has a way of doing it
so it doesn’t stop the flow.
How many times has he done this?
How many girls has he slept with?
And he says, just like that,
“This is my first time,
I’m kind of awkward,”
and I start laughing
and he says, “Are you laughing at me?”
and I say, “No, I’m laughing ’cause
I’m awkward too and I’m happy
you’re like me.”
And we kiss some more
and then later he takes out the condom
and we laugh at it
’cause condoms are really funny looking
and it ends up being something
we do together
and we’re both protecting ourselves
and each other
and this makes me like him
and me.