"Yasmeen, um, when I see you, I feel things, and I honestly don't know what to do about that," Jannah Kafando said softly, her voice barely above a whisper. Standing there with her hands in her pockets, clad in a long-sleeved red T-shirt featuring the smiling face of U.S. President Barack Obama, blue jeans and black Timberland shoes, her long black hair carefully hidden by the Hijab which she always wore while outside, Jannah indeed looked beautiful. Her chocolate-hued skin glistened as the late afternoon sun bathed her in its gentle light.
"It's alright, babe, you know that I'm here for you," Yasmeen Rahim whispered as she stepped forward and tenderly embraced her friend Jannah. The six-foot-tall, athletic young West African Muslim woman trembled ever so slightly, then finally let go and embraced Yasmeen with all of her might. Jannah stiffened, and then, slowly, hesitantly, she took Yasmeen's lovely face in her hands, and looked into her friend's golden brown eyes. Yasmeen smiled but said nothing, for Jannah's eyes told her more than her lips could ever say...
From the moment Yasmeen first laid eyes on Jannah, she knew that she would be someone special in her life. A year ago, they met at a meeting of the campus chapter of the Ottawa Minority Women in Engineering Club. In a room packed with South Asian, Arab and Latin American women, along with a few white ladies, Yasmeen and Jannah were the only ones of their kind, after a fashion. They came from different worlds, yet soon discovered they had much in common.
Yasmeen was born in the City of Toronto, Ontario, to Amina Ali of Marrakesh, and Omar Kensington-Rahim, a Jamaican-born immigrant who converted to Islam. Born of a Moroccan Arab mother and Afro-Caribbean father, raised in Toronto, the world's most racially diverse locale, Yasmeen seemed destined for struggle from the get-go. Standing five feet eleven inches tall, curvy, with light brown skin, long curly black hair and golden brown eyes, Yasmeen is every bit the daughter of two different worlds, and quite the overachiever.
Having moved to the City of Ottawa to study civil engineering at Carleton University on an academic scholarship, Yasmeen Rahim is exploring life in the Capital, while secretly struggling with reconcile her Islamic faith and her growing attraction to women. Like many Muslim women with same-sex desires, Yasmeen hid her true feelings and went along with the norm, until she met Jannah...
Jannah Kafando was born in the City of Solenzo, Burkina Faso, and moved to the City of Ottawa, Ontario, in order to study engineering at Carleton University on a much-coveted international scholarship. The daughter of poor farmers, Jannah demonstrated an aptitude for mathematics which attracted the attention of Josephine Fehr, one of a few Canadian instructors at the Polytechnic University of Bobo-Dialousso. Mrs. Fehr saw Jannah's genius, and encouraged her to study abroad, even helping her with the application process.
When Jannah Kafando first set foot in Ottawa, Ontario, the young Burkinabe woman experienced a brand new world. In this strange, wonderful and at times dangerous place, Jannah's long-repressed attraction to women, something she viewed as haram or dirty because of her Islamic upbringing, came to the forefront. Nevertheless, Jannah ignored her desires and focused on her engineering studies at Carleton...until she met Yasmeen Rahim, the beautiful Canadian Muslim gal with the fearless smile. That's when Jannah's resolve began to crumble...
Yasmeen and Jannah stood in the middle of the snow-covered Quad, mere steps from the MacOdrum Library at Carleton University. Located at the center of metropolitan Ottawa's largest university campus, the Quad was usually a busy spot but that afternoon it was all but deserted. All around them, the last dredges of the Ontario winter raged, but the two young women seemed immune to its effects, so lost were they in their own world.
"Thank you, Yaz, " Jannah said softly, and then in a bold, completely unexpected move, she pressed her lips against Yasmeen's. stunned, Yasmeen kissed Jannah back almost reflexively, and then, the two young women held each other and grinned. Hand in hand, they resolutely walked the few steps leading to the library, and took the elevator to the third floor, their favorite spot.