by Muno Osman
“Does this bus go to Saint George?” I ask the driver, breathless. “Can you not read the sign?” The driver retorts before closing the bus doors and driving off with me standing there. The busses did have bright orange letters at the front but I missed reading in my panic to make it to my third and last bus to school. My question might have been strange to the driver, but how could I explain that until a year ago I barely took a bus anywhere. What words would sufficiently describe my bewilderment that there were several buses and train lines going through my university campus, when I walked everywhere for the nineteen years I have lived in a completely different world. Regrettably, interactions like this were a common occurrence on my first few years settling into a new university, a new city and a new country. In my first year, everyday encounters made it clear to me that I did not belong. The orientation, mental preparation and warm welcome I received, could not prepare me for the everyday indignities and insecurities of missing obvious things and feeling like an outsider. Those days it felt like I couldn't escape puzzled looks, curt responses and peculiar comments. Even worse, I started to notice more and more that it is not all civil and agreeable in my new home country. “Your English is really good,” school staff and students comment with surprise colouring their voice. I knew I disliked hearing this but I did not know how to respond or even why I hated it. In customer service transactions, I notice unnecessary hostility when I asked what might have been obvious questions or acted out of the norm. A woman at the university’s financial planning office reception comments how the henna on my hands was too strange for her liking. A few weeks later one of the girls in my second year gender studies class shares a strongly worded condemnation of the hijab and I feel like all eyes were on me. To this day, I am not sure if her argument was merely academic, personal or a bit of both. In my language, the phrase, “tuke cambaar leh” which translates to a crow with eczema is used to describe someone who stands out or is singled out negatively. I think about this phrase as I flashback to another unpleasant memory in my second year of university. In one of my afternoon classes the instructor went over the syllabus and upcoming assignments: a quiz, a research paper and a group project. “It is time to pick your groupmates for the project,” the instructor announces. Everything moves in slow motion as I watch the two students on either side of me turn away from me and to other students. I do not make a move, I am insecure about my thick accent and I am terrified of speaking or looking up. It is probably not what was happening at the time but it feels as if all eyes were on me again. I am mortified as I watch the students chat, laugh out loud and organize themselves. Over the years, I have gone back to this memory many times but I can never remember how this day - the group assignment fiasco - resolved. What I do remember is that these types of incidents and the subsequent feelings happened a few more times throughout my university years. It was also on this second year of university when I painfully and not so slowly learned that my perfect country of refuge was not as perfect. In the news, I read about incidents of racism and systemic discrimination. I took classes in sociology and history and I am confronted with tough historical realities that confirm my sense of being other. In academic texts, I discovered big words: “alienation," "macroaggression" and "marginalization." While this newfound knowledge and the academic words do a decent job of describing what I was experiencing, they fall short of consoling me. Growing up in an environment where I was limited by cultural and economic oppression, books were my only escape from a tough reality. I remembered this and I decided to go back to my reading habit so I google “Black writers," “Immigrant writing.” I go to the library to browse for a while before recognizing Maya Angelou’s “I know why the caged bird sings.” In high school English, we read an excerpt from this book so I pick it up and find more of Angelou’s autobiographies. I find comfort, kinship and an escape in Angelou’s books. However, as I read the harrowing tales of suffering and discrimination, I also could not help but feel thankful for small mercies. I thought that I should be grateful since no one told me to get off the bus or sit at the back. No one told me that I could not get a job because of the color of my skin or at least no one did it to my face. I remind myself of small mercies every time I am faced with a snarl or a rude comment. I found more black writing: fiction, autobiographies, poetry. I devoured them all and they impacted in a deeply personal way. Reading Alice Walker, Zola Neal Hurston, and Warsan Shire makes me feel understood, supported and healed. In their stories I read of characters whose journeys so resemble mine that I feel like someone is telling my own story. In the next few years, I learn to find places I feel more comfortable in and find peace in my settlement journey. In 2011, my life was a far cry from where this story starts. I have made new friends, moved to another city and was able to easily find a place to live in the home of a very kind woman. I found employment and could take the bus anywhere I needed to. I kept thinking how impossible my great life would have been if I did not come to Canada. My life felt like a miracle and the news from back home reminded me often if I dared forget. That year, hundreds of people died of starvation because of the drought in my home country. A young woman I knew was stoned to death in the city where I was born. In the refugee camps where I grew up, the police are hostile and constantly harass, arrest, and intimidate youth. I am awash with feelings of both guilt and gratitude. It was a beautiful, serene evening in the same year and I was waiting for a bus with a friend. I remember I was on cloud nine because I was in my last year of school and I had a part-time job that I loved. Suddenly, we were approached by an older man. “Why are you people all here?” he asked indignantly. The aggression in his voice was terrifying even if his frail old body was not. We stared at him silently. “Why don’t you stay in your own countries?” he keeps going. I could not stay silent any longer so I argued with him that I did not commit a crime and that I had as much right as him to be there. He did not stop to hear my response and seemed like he just wanted to get his piece off his chest. “What would you do to me if a white person came to your home like this?” he asks. I wanted to keep arguing. I wanted to point out that we are not in his house. I also want to respond that if a white person came to my house my parents would insist that they drink tea and my dad would tell them a joke for me to translate. But my throat dries up and the words get stuck. My friend is quiet; he was shushing me from the beginning and is clearly not interested in a confrontation. Luckily, our bus comes just then and we leave before we have to hear any more. That night sadness weighed me down and overpowered my recently acquired sense of optimism and belonging. My friend and I never discussed the incident or our response to it. A few weeks later I read Warsan Shire’s poem “home.” The poem reminded me yet again, that it could have been worse and I thank God for small mercies. Months later, I told another friend about the incident and this feeling that I had. She understood completely. She told me a 'funny' story about an older new immigrant lady who every time someone commented about the cold Canadian winter responds “it is better than the bullet!” I bit my lip and laughed to stop myself from crying. Many things are better than the bullet. Certainly, everything here was better than the bullet. These days I continue to journey between feeling othered, thanking God for small mercies and enjoying my incredible life. These days I get the bigoted “go back to your country!” and the classic “where are you from?” Other times, people at work insist that they want to see a worker who speaks English! Of course they say this to me in English but with no sense of irony. This time though the comments mostly slide over my thickening skin. I also get plenty of support and alliance from colleagues and friends. I get acknowledged for my contributions and this external validation is necessary to keep me going on the harsh days. On most days, I look at my life and it feels nothing short of a miracle; the stability I enjoy, my meaningful work, the healthcare I access and the relationships I have built. Even driving my Nissan Altima on Edmonton streets feels like an implausible dream. I think about the little girl growing in a refugee camp with little hope for the future and I realize that this life is only possible for me because I live here, now. And yet the stares, the bus driver driving off, the rejection from classmates and the rude comments add up. They are all small cuts and each subsequent one hurts even if it is not as bad as the last. Some days the cuts are all that I see and I have to remind myself of small mercies. Other days, the miracles are all I see and the cuts pale in comparison.
Muno Osman is a social worker and a writer. She is passionate about human rights, diversity in literature, and increasing access to books for all. Muno has recently self-published two children’s books. In her free time, Muno enjoys reading, watching comedies, and going on walks. Muno lives in Edmonton, Alberta with her husband and three children.
Capital City Press Anthology 