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Fatima

// stories from Eden //

By Lauren di Matteo

July 30^th, 2020

WRITTEN BY NICOLE BRAVO

11 A.M.

We stepped through the community garden gates and approached a picnic table where we saw a few young women seated. Nearing them, Lauren spoke aloud asking if there were more plots down a little dirt path just beyond them—half asking me and half asking them. When they replied in the affirmative, the ice was broken. We started chatting and learned that the three Sudanese sisters had just come from their weekend Islamic school, hence the more traditional attire. Their mother had picked them up and stopped here on their way home to check up on her garden.

The girls were friendly, kind, and—to my surprise—spoke perfect English. As I considered my sense of surprise, I realized it was due to a faulty notion I didn’t know I had: that those who look and dress different from the “norm” must be from a different country and therefore struggle with English. Although it’s true that some in such dress, like these girls, are from other countries, all are not. And while being from another country can result in knowing little of the English language—as is the case for many in this garden—it does not always.

Time in this garden and exploring the surrounding community have been valuable for shattering some of the tinted windows through which I’ve viewed the world. We all have blind spots and the challenge is just that: we are blind to them. We interpret the world based on limited knowledge and experience, so the result is always going to be a skewed understanding to some extent, but by increasing our knowledge and spending time with others wholly different from ourselves, listening, learning, and attempting to understand the world from their point-of-view, we can begin to see more rightly. Sweeping generalizations will never do.

We must take the time to truly see people, to know them, and to humbly realign our thinking with the reality that is before us.

IN MY COUNTRY

As the conversation came to a lull we asked the girls to see their mother’s plot and followed them over. We were introduced to Fatima who was busy tending her garden. As we stood outside the little fence, she freely shared about what she was growing, some of which was specific to Sudan, consequently leading to an explanation of where she was from and a narration of bits of her life story.

Born in Sudan, in the region of Darfur to the king of her tribe, Fatima was raised working the land. “In my country,” she began in her beautiful Sudanese accent, following with a description of where she grew up and how they were peaceful farming people that were driven out during the Darfur genocide. Her father stayed to protect their land and lost his life doing so. Fatima fled the country with her husband and seven children, spending a few years in Egypt and eventually coming to the US. Some of her family chose resettlement in Australia, some in Canada and others in Russia. When I asked her why she decided on the US she replied, “The President visited our country when I was young. The first Bush helped our country—because of that, I dreamt of coming.”

Fatima's family arrived in San Diego on December 25, 2007.

The date rolled off her tongue without a moment’s pause. Everyone I’ve met in this garden mentions the exact date they arrived in the US; recalling it as effortlessly as one’s birthday. Yet it is spoken of with a kind of reverence mixed with pride, like a soldier sharing the story behind a battle scar. It is a badge of courage and honor that they are marked by in a way that I will never fully understand.

She remembered arriving in the evening and having to wait until the next day because there was no one from the resettlement agency to retrieve them due to the holiday. Her family spent their first American Christmas sleeping in an airport.

After being picked up the following morning, they were settled into their new home several blocks from the garden. About a year later she began working this plot of land and it has been her safe haven ever since.

FERTILITY COTTON

The older women would pick the buds of young cotton before they bloomed. Walking through the fields where they worked, they would throw them to the young women saying, “This is for you!”

She broke open a bud and handed each of us half, explaining that the young cotton is used for fertility to keep a woman’s eggs healthy. Noticing our furrowed brows as we examined the bud in our hands, she raised her voice defending its validity. It is because of this little bud that women in her tribe would have children into their 40s and 50s with no problems at all.

At Fatima’s urging, we dug our fingers in and pulled out the cotton, placing it in our mouths. We chewed and sucked on it as directed, thankful that the flavor was mild, and following her advice, made sure not to actually swallow the wad of cotton itself. Lauren and I looked at each other feeling a little silly but with a shrug of the shoulders figured, it could only help, right?

PRO TIP: RAW GARLIC FIXES EVERYTHING

“People in my country are healthy, they don’t get sick or have diseases.”

Fatima’s grandfather was a healthy man when he passed at 107 years old. With no problems walking, nor any kind of illness, he unfortunately fell and broke his hip and never recovered. He wasn’t the exception, it was normative for her people to pass on with health and vigor still pumping through their bodies..

To her dismay, Fatima was recently diagnosed with diabetes, so naturally her doctor prescribed a medication for her—which she never took. Instead, she made a plan to eat only her own cooking, primarily made up of what is grown in her garden. She also started consuming raw garlic regularly, claiming that it fixes everything. At a follow-up visit with her doctor, he explained that her numbers had amazingly improved, celebrating that the medicine was doing wonders. “I nod my head,” she said in a patronizing tone, “and say I am taking the medication because he won’t believe what my medicine is and that it works.”

So on a later visit when she chats with us while nibbling on a crunchy clove of garlic, I don’t bat an eye. And when I inevitably notice her doing something that I find odd, I simply ask for the method behind her madness. Lo and behold, she always has an explanation and kindly takes the time to teach me something valuable—even if she does find it shocking that I don’t already know.

LANGUAGE GAP: CHOCOMBRA

When you’re learning about gardening from people with whom you don’t share a common language base, it can be very interesting...

There are times when someone is growing a vegetable I’m not familiar with and I try to learn what it is called in their language as well as the English name if they know it. Sometimes it is simply a different variety of a vegetable we have here in the US. On other occasions, the English name for it has slipped their minds and we begin a game of It Sounds Like…. The challenge is that when you are in the midst of a conversation, you don’t always know which situation you are in!

This was the case when I was holding a thick, cylindrical green vegetable that Fatima had just harvested and handed to me. Knowing the vegetable well, I wanted to learn the word for it in Arabic and asked, “What is this called?”

With a look of surprise she said, “You don’t know this?”

“Yes,” I replied, “but what do you call it?”

She fumbled looking around, “Umm it is called, you know, uhhh, chocombra.”

“Chocombra?” I repeated, checking to see I got the pronunciation right with the trill on the “r.”

“Yes, yes chocombra, chocombra,” she answered hastily.

I looked down at the vegetable now reconsidering the word that is not very Arabic sounding. I realized that while I thought she was teaching me the word in her language, it was possible we were actually playing the It Sounds Like… game.

Chocombra, I whispered to myself. “Cu-cum-ber,” my eyes widened. Turning to her, I held it up, “Cucumber?”

"Oh yes! Yes, cucumber!” she laughed heartily, covering her face with her hands.

She felt embarrassed for forgetting the English word, I felt like a fool for thinking she was speaking Arabic—and we just kept on laughing together. I still haven’t learned the Arabic word for cucumber, but any mention of the word chocombra still leaves us in stitches.

ADVICE TO THE FORMER FIRST LADY

Michelle Obama visited the community garden a few years back to celebrate the work they were doing. They made a welcome sign for the occasion and Fatima pointed it out one day explaining, “When Michelle Obama was here I tell her to come over here with me, to get her hands dirty and learn, because this is her history, this is where she comes from.”

A SACRED SPACE

One afternoon we labored beneath the brutal heat of the sun for hours. She used a broad-fork to break up and aerate the soil, preparing the bed for planting. I followed alongside her, trying to keep pace with her swift, strong movements. I apologized for being so slow, she pretended she didn’t notice and encouraged me, giving me pointers on my technique. It was a delight working with her, learning from her, and sharing in Adam and Eve’s mandate to cultivate the earth.

As the shadows slowly brought reprieve from the scorching heat, Fatima demanded we take a break, drink some water, and rest. Boy, was I relieved. My freshly laundered blue jeans were tinted brown, a layer of dirt blanketed my sweaty skin, and my muscles were already beginning to ache. I hadn’t come expecting to work in anyone’s garden so soon. It is like a home for them, a sacred space, where you would never assume you could just cross the threshold and enter upon meeting.

I squatted down finding a tiny ledge to lean against while she laid back, lounging across the dirt as if it were a sandy shore. It was so strange to me, who would lay in a pile of dirt? The answer soon followed as a nostalgic look spread across her face and she spoke in slow, measured words. Of days spent turning the earth, of seedtime and harvest. Evenings gathered around a blazing fire outdoors, stretched out relaxing under the stars. A whole tribe working alongside each other and resting together.

No wonder why this felt so foreign, in every manner possible she was transporting me to her country and inviting me to stay awhile. I relaxed a little more, letting go of my resistance to the dirt beneath me. Settling into the soil, I found it refreshingly cool and comfortable as it conformed to the contours of my body. I felt more deeply connected to Fatima as we were grounded on the earth together, fully at rest. The sun seemed to pause with us awhile as well, lingering in its low, golden state as she told stories of her homeland, reveling in days of old.

I COOK FOR YOU

“I cook for you.” I have heard her speak these words more times than I can count.

Fatima is one of the most wonderfully hospitable people. If she knows we are coming to the garden she always brings an entire meal, along with tea of course. Time after time we’ve told her that we are happy to just work together, there’s no need to trouble herself with cooking. Her reply is always the same, “What, you don’t like my cooking?” It’s the ultimate trump card, especially if you’ve ever eaten her cooking. What can we do but graciously accept? And try to contribute something of course, though that is usually a fight as well—one we’ve managed to win in recent days.

IFTAR

After sharing a few meals in the garden with Fatima and her children, we were invited to her home for iftar, the sunset meal which marks the breaking of the daily fast during Ramadan. It is a holy time of year for Muslims and we felt so honored to be invited into her home during this special time. To our surprise, the call came from one of her daughters, but we were happy to accept.

We reached her home just before sunset and Fatima greeted us breathless and apologetic, for she didn’t know until an hour earlier that her daughter had invited us that evening. As a result, she didn’t have a chance to prepare a special meal of traditional Sudanese dishes. To her dismay, she had only prepared what she normally does for her family. As much as we would have loved trying the traditional Sudanese dishes, we were particularly excited to have a more authentic meal with our friends without all of the bells and whistles. She invited us to sit down and relax during her momentary absence for her evening prayers.

Upon her return we sat on the floor in a circle around enough food to feed an army. It was just us girls, the boys were in another room and I’m not sure when they ate because it wasn’t while we were there. Lauren and I waited expectantly, unsure of what sort of ceremonious liturgy would be recited or prayers would be offered, but there was no such thing. The one act done in unison was starting with a date to break the fast in accordance with tradition. Then we began digging into a plethora of dishes. I started with a helping of falafel and what was basically Alfredo pasta with broccoli and chuckled to myself. I can’t tell you the amount of times we’ve eaten pasta together. There were also a couple of intensely sweet drinks, a red one made with sorghum and a green one made with avocado. Our spirits along with our blood sugars were soaring high in no time.

The meal was delicious and the whole experience new and enjoyable, but what I remember most was the time afterward. We moved to the couch beside Fatima while her daughters brought out tea for us, serving it with such ceremony, deference, and honor toward their mother. It struck me as wholly different from most interactions between mothers and daughters here in the US and it was beautiful.

As we sat on that warm evening, sipping our steamy, hot tea it wasn’t so much about the topic of conversation, but who Fatima is, that left an impression on me. It’s the way she takes time to sit with us, always making a priority of not only doing things together, but simply being together. We feel loved and cared for by her as with a mother, though she’s not more than a few years older than we are. And when she speaks, her words drip with strength, courage, and wisdom. Through what seems to be trial after trial, she resolutely endures with a spirit of perseverance—embodying victory with a heart full of gratitude.

She inspires me to press on. To face hard things and neither feel the need to reject them, cower before them, nor explain them away, but to accept that they are a part of life. She reminds me that in the midst of difficulty and sorrow, there is always a way to find peace, to give thanks, and to uncover beauty.