Saudi Girls for Haitian Boyz

The day I met Stephen Lemieux is the day my life changed forever. My name is Afaf Al-Rahman and I’m a woman with a story to share with you. I was born in the harsh environs of metropolitan Najran, Southwestern Saudi Arabia, and moved to the City of Makkah in the Al Madinah region during the eleventh summer of my life. My parents, Aref and Mona Al-Rahman worked for the Saudi government. In the summer of 2003, after I completed my secondary school studies, they sent me to study at the University of Toronto in provincial Ontario, Canada.

Moving from Makkah, the Capital region of Saudi Arabia, to the City of Toronto, Ontario, absolutely blew me away. The Ontario region of Canada is nothing like I expected. The place is so big and diverse. At the University of Toronto, I saw lots of students of all hues. Africans. Arabs. Chinese. Hindus. The place was big, lively and fun. It became my second home. I fell in love with the campus the first time I set foot in it. At last, I was free.

In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as you have heard, women’s freedom of movement and expression is limited by draconian interpretations of Islamic law. Women cannot drive or work without male permission. Now, the Western media would have you believe that Saudi Arabia is a gigantic prison for women. The truth is much more complex than that. I love my country and it’s not the super strict and downright evil place that Americans and Europeans think it is.

I, Afaf Rahman, am a proud citizen of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Nothing can change that. I love my people. I love my culture. I love my religion. Still, I must admit that in the Kingdom, we definitely have room for improvement, along social lines. Of course, the same could be said for the West. Nobody’s perfect. I have seen things in Western society that I find absolutely disturbing, such as rampant drug use, racial profiling, police brutality, and the breakdown of the nuclear family. So much for white people’s claim of perfection, eh?

While at the University of Toronto, I made quite a few friends. One of them, Vanessa Adewale of Nigeria, became like a sister to me. We don’t look like we’d be friends, that’s for sure. I’m a short, round little woman from the Saudi Arabian desert and Vanessa is a six-foot-tall, dark-skinned and curvy woman from southern Nigeria. I’m a Muslim and Vanessa is a devout Christian. We’re from completely different worlds but that’s just it about the nature of friendships. All it took was a chance encounter on a bus stop and we became like sisters. I was lost, you see, and Vanessa, who’d been living in Toronto for a few years, helped me out. Later, when I ran into her at school, we ended up grabbing coffee and I added her as a friend on Facebook. We’ve been inseparable ever since.

It’s thanks to Vanessa Adewale that I met Stephen Lemieux, a man whom the merest thought of makes my heart beat. Six feet two inches tall, lean and athletic, with light brown skin, curly black hair and lime-green-eyes, Stephen Lemieux is simply the most beautiful man I have ever seen. He was born in the City of Montreal, Quebec, to a Haitian immigrant father, James Lemieux, and a French Canadian mother, Christine Lalonde. The first time I laid eyes on Stephen, I was in the school café, having a drink with Vanessa, and the gorgeous stud with the easy smile and cute butt simply took my breath away.

When Stephen’s eyes met mine, I smiled shyly while my heart skipped a beat. I should have known right then and there that we were destined for each other. I’m a five-foot-four, plump and bronze-skinned, dark-haired and brown-eyed Saudi Arabia woman of rather generous proportions. I have a plump body, large breasts and a huge butt. Since I am not very tall, it makes me look awkward as hell. I’m not anyone’s idea of beauty, even though I’ve been told that my face is pleasant to look at. I am average at best. Yet when Stephen looked at me, he made me feel like I was the most beautiful woman in the world.

I think I was in lust mode because, well, I did something completely out of the ordinary when Stephen and I were introduced. You see, observant Muslim women don’t shake hands with men they’re not related to. In Islamic culture, it’s simply not done. I was born and raised in Saudi Arabia, the strictest of all Muslim nations. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is considered the Heartland of Islam. This is where the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, first preached the Word of Allah to the local unbelievers.

In the Arab world, it’s often said that whenever a man and a woman are alone together, Shaitan, the Devil, is the third person in the room. Well, after I giggled like a schoolgirl and grasped Stephen’s hand with both of mine, in a moment of uncharacteristic, well, everything, I tend to agree. Something about this oh so sexy biracial man of Haitian and French Canadian descent makes me forget myself. Still, I’m glad I met him. Stephen welcomed me to Canada, then hugged Vanessa goodbye and said he’d be in touch.

Vanessa smiled at me wickedly and asked me what I thought of Stephen. I smiled and shrugged, then licked my lips suggestively while eyeballing Stephen’s oh so cute ass as he walked away. Seriously, this man has a sinfully sexy ass that looked just fine in his blue jeans. What? Does my reaction surprise you? Just because I’m a prim and proper, pious Muslim sister with my Hijab on, my traditional long skirt and my Koran tucked under my arm doesn’t mean I don’t have sexual feelings like all women. Alright? Sheesh!

That night, I crept through Vanessa’s friends list on Facebook, found Stephen and sent him a friends request. The next time I saw him, we talked for a bit and then I feigned hesitation when he asked for my number, then smiled and gave it to him. That’s how it all began, ladies and gentlemen. The romance that changed my life. I fell in love with this gorgeous, exotic young man from another faith and culture who showed me worlds I didn’t know existed.

With Stephen by my side, guiding me every step of the way, I discovered Toronto, a city unlike any other. We went to movie theaters, malls and restaurants, and he delighted in showing me new things. I learned much about Stephen, about his family and his way of seeing the world. Stephen is friendly, patient, charming, generous, easygoing and yet, quietly intense and quite mysterious. I found him appealing on so many levels. So much that I opened up to him like I had never done anyone before and since.

At the end of the day, we’re all human and we need someone to care for us, and someone to care for. For me, that someone was Stephen. We bonded, you see. Finally, I found a man whom I could tell anything to. The wonderful thing about him is that he never pressured me. I told Stephen about my dreams and hopes. One day, I want to return to Saudi Arabia and encourage my fellow Saudi women to start innovative businesses and change Saudi society for the better. I am a proud Muslim and a Saudi Arabian woman by blood, but I believe every individual has something to contribute to the world. Changing Saudi society from within is one of my dreams….

The way I figure it, Western feminists are wrong to ask Muslim women like myself to try to be like them. I’m an Arab woman from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, not some skinny blonde-haired white chick in a bikini on the beach, smoking while watching half-naked guys go by. Western feminists don’t have a monopoly on female empowerment. Muslim women must fight sexism within our families, communities and places of worship. And we must do it our way. All this, I shared with Stephen.

As I told him about my dreams and hopes, Stephen always listened attentively. He told me of his dream of one day becoming either a lawyer or a police officer. That’s why he’s studying criminal justice at the University of Toronto. Tenderly stroking Stephen’s chin, I looked him in the eyes and told him he was going to make an excellent cop or lawyer. Smiling, Stephen nodded. Then he took my face into his hands, and kissed me. Our first kiss, Stephen and I. Short and sweet, yet passionate, just like me.

When we came up for air, Stephen and I smiled and looked into each other’s eyes. Grinning, the gorgeous biracial stud pulled me his arms and held me tight. I squeezed tightly against him, holding onto him as if for dear life. Stephen kissed my forehead and then whispered into my ear that he liked me. Grinning, I kissed him and told him I felt the same way. Hand in hand, we walked through the Eaton Center, our favorite mall, not caring who saw us. We officially became a couple.

That was eleven years ago, ladies and gentlemen. We endured all kinds of hell to stay together. My parents disowned me after finding out I was in love with a Black man from another religion. Under penalty of death, I can never return to Saudi Arabia. If I ever set foot inside the Kingdom, I’m a dead woman. Fortunately, the Canadian government granted me asylum. It would be eight long years before I became a Canadian citizen. What a world!

Stephen and I live together in the City of Calgary, Alberta, where he works as a patrol officer with the RCMP. I’m a manager with CIBC, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. We are doing alright in our respective careers but even more importantly, Stephen and I are married and we’re the parents of two lovely daughters, Amina and Fatima. You might wonder what role religion plays in our household since I’m a Saudi Arabian woman, from an Islamic background and all, and my husband is Christian. Well, these days, I consider myself a believer in the one true God, pure and simple, and last time I checked, God has no religion. For the sake of love, I had to make some tough choices. As I look at my husband and our two daughters, I thank the Most High for His blessings. Peace.