Good Muslim sisters are supposed to be prim and proper, flawless in their behavior, pious in their demeanor and quietly serene in outward appearance. I think I was absent when they came up with that rule, for I certainly don't follow it. My name is Khava Dzhabrail, and I was born and raised in the City of Grozny, Republic of Chechnya. On November 8, 1990, I first saw the light of day. My parents, Abdulmezhid and Khalimat Dzhabrail emigrated to Ontario, Canada, in the summer of 2000. The Russian government was treating we Chechens like shit, again, and my family finally got fed up. We moved elsewhere.
Now, I'm not one of those immigrants who constantly talk trash about their adopted country while glamorizing the motherland they were so eager to leave. That's not me. I miss Chechnya, and I can honestly say that it will always be home in my heart and mind. However, I fell in love with Canada the first time I set foot there. There I was, a little freckle-faced, fair-skinned angel in a hijab, walking with my European-looking and proudly Muslim parents among the folks going to and fro in the airport, and I dropped my doll.
As I reached for it, a dark-skinned man in a police uniform picked it up and handed it to me. My parents looked at me then at the policeman, dumbfounded. As Salam Alaikum, he said, in a clipped Nigerian accent. Like us, the policeman was an immigrant and a fellow Muslim. I smiled and thanked him, as did my parents. This was my first encounter with an authority figure in Canada, and while it would definitely not be the last, it was one of the few positive ones.
We were in a new land where we wouldn't be persecuted for our Muslim faith, a place where even foreigners could become respected members of the police force. I can assure you that no Russian policeman would show such kindness or respect to a Chechen family. They think we're all potential terrorists. Canada is different. While there are a lot of bigots up here, most people are friendly and fairly open-minded. I really enjoyed living in metropolitan Toronto, the most racially diverse place in all of Canada. My family and I settled in the outskirts of town, in a neighborhood filled with fellow Muslims, albeit people very different from us. Turks, Somalis, Kosovars, Gambians and other people whose ethnicities and nationalities we could only guess at. Nevertheless, we felt happy to be surrounded by fellow believers. I wasn't the only gal wearing hijab at my school, or praying in the area reserved for prayers. And this gladdened my soul.
My father went back to school to study accounting, since his accounting degree from Chechen State University wasn't worth much in the beautiful nation of Canada. Adbulmezhid Dzhabrail is a proud man and would not subject himself to doing menial work for the remainder of his days. Just like he faced the persecution that the dastardly Russians doled out at our people back in Grozny, dad stoically endured whatever Canada threw at him. He studied at the University of Toronto, surrounded by students half his age. Nevertheless, we Chechens are a strong people and my Da persevered.
In time, father earned his accounting degree, and ended up working for the Canadian Revenue Agency. My mother Khalimat Dzhabrail went back to school as well. She studied nursing at Seneca College, and worked at the Mount Sinai Hospital. Who says we Muslims aren't an adaptable bunch? Those who hate us like to think of us as backward or downright archaic. This ought to show them. Allah Akbar, a mere six years after we moved from Chechnya to Canada, we were educated, gainfully employed and solidly ensconced in the middle class in Toronto!
After finishing high school, I spent a couple of years traveling all over Canada and the States. I went to the City of Calgary, Alberta, and worked in the oil sands. While there, I met a tall, fine-looking Muslim brother from Somalia. Dahir Yasin. I was completely smitten with my co-worker. Dahir studied civil engineering at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology ( NAIT ) and worked in the oil sands to make some extra cash. Dahir and I started hanging out after work, and he showed me around his campus. I was new to provincial Alberta and didn't know anybody. I came to Western Canada to escape from my parents, basically.
Now, don't get me wrong, I love being a Muslim and I love my family. However, they can be a tad bit too restrictive when it comes to us young Muslim women. Muslim guys can do whatever they want but Muslim sisters have to toe the line. Does that sound fair to you? Oddly enough for a young Muslim man, Dahir completely understood what I was going through. For he'd left his hometown of Ottawa, Ontario, to study in Alberta just to get away from his parents. He had it even harder than I did. His father, Khalid Yassin is the leader of the largest Masjid in Ottawa. Damn. Out of all young Muslims, the sons and daughters of preachers have it the hardest. Like me, Dahir was a rebel. My relationship with my parents hadn't been the same since I stopped wearing the hijab when I started high school. I simply don't think it's mandatory for us Muslim women. Instead of us having to shield men from our feminine beauty, how about the bozos learn to avert their eyes? I mean, they've got enough sense not to stare at the sun, right? Sheesh!
There are times when I wear the hijab, like when I'm going to Masjid, or on special holidays. The rest of the time, I look like your average white chick. I stand five feet eleven inches tall, with light bronze skin, curly black hair and light brown eyes. I'm a bit chubby, especially in my hips, thighs and derriere, but I go to the gym regularly now. Thanks to Dahir, I've learned to embrace my curves. Like a lot of black men, my Somali boyfriend and co-worker likes curvy women. Must be something in their genes, because the black guys at my old high school back in Toronto were really, really into chubby white chicks. Yup, it's genetic.
Speaking of genes, I've often wondered about mine. When people see me, they assume I'm Greek or Italian. I have that Mediterranean look. I've always wondered about that because both of my parents are alabaster-skinned, blue-eyed and fair-haired. When I asked my mom about it, she told me that her father, my grandfather Ali, Allah rest his soul, actually came from Yemen. A man from Yemen who settled in Chechnya. Hot damn. I guess I have a fair amount of ethnic mixing in my blood since my father's mother, Grandma Esmeray, is actually from Turkey. I'm part Chechen, with some Yemeni and Turkish thrown in for good measure. Wow. Will wonders never cease?
Living in Alberta, I felt free for the first time in ages. Finally, I was on my own, doing my thing. I live in a one-bedroom apartment that cost me three hundred and sixty dollars a month. Considering I was making close to two hundred bucks a day working in the oil sands five days a week, I could afford a better place but I have that Chechen sense of frugality. My people are used to being under siege, hounded and hunted simply because we're different from the Russian oligarchy that oppresses us. We don't like to waste food or other resources because we have very recent memories of times when they were scarce.
With Dahir by my side, I felt like anything was possible. No, better than that, I felt more alive than I'd ever felt in ages. This man was something else. Six feet tall, skinny but muscular, with medium brown skin, curly black hair and light brown eyes. Although born and raised in the Nepean sector of Ottawa, Ontario, Dahir considered himself a proud son of the Somali motherland. He's very proud of his people, and I feel the same way about my fellow Chechens. There are a lot of us in Toronto and I hung out with fellow Chechen youths back in the day. I considered myself a Chechen nationalist-at-large in some of my more spirited moments. Who would have ever guessed that I would end up falling in love with a dark-skinned Muslim brother from another country?