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  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
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      • Bonnie Severien Fall 2021
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      • Sara Moore Fall 2021
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  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Art Spring 2022 >
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      • Sarah A. Rae Spring 2022
      • Brittney Corrigan Spring 2022
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      • MICHAEL CHANG Spring 2022
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Sahara Sidi

Blessings

         
          In this cafe, my tongue trips over the menu’s cursive French. The walls are ironically covered with paintings of naked women hiding their curves behind godly clouds and thin sheets. Naked white women, so typical of the French. I feel myself blushing, like I should be embarrassed of a body so similar to my own.
          Underneath the Mauritanian sky, underneath the heavy veils and burdening shame, we are a dirty, African France tricked into a false sense of liberation. Words are twisted into aristocratic Arabic and we bleach ourselves, teaching children to resent their melanin. Young girls sleep in white cream masks to wake up the next day shades lighter, and this is beautiful. White is beautiful.
          My people smoke cigarettes before they can even read, if they ever read. Women don’t question a tradition determined to cloak them in robes, despite the desert heat. They don’t fight for their rights, because they don’t think they need them, especially when their husband’s money is spent on jewelry and the most expensive fabrics. They decorate themselves like rooms, no more than a place to be entered and left.
          Mauritania is a cafe country; there is one on every corner. Peering through a window beside my table, I’ve begun my second cup of chai. I am dining alone, but the view offers me more than any conversation could. Across the street, I see black boys selling burnt bread beside their mother, mocha leathered skin and protruding bones and shoulders bearing every burden. Her boys approach the Mercedes during traffic and peer into tinted windows, offering powdered cinnamon in red plastic bags. I know their script by heart; they are selling for no more than 100 ouguiya1. My father has told them no while stuck in trafficked streets. They’ve asked him to pray for their brother who is ill, but he waved them away from our car, like they were no more than animals getting too close. I said nothing. From my place in the backseat, I said nothing.
          The sun has no shame today. I watch the boys, their shirts soaking up the proof of hard work. They weave in and out of stopped cars and choke on the dust and pollution. Their bare feet crush cans and water bottles buried in sandy streets. From my table, I can’t imagine what it takes to sweat so much your entire shirt changes color. I am fair- skinned and privileged, hiding in a painted mansion with built in AC and a TV in every room with meals brought to me on silver platters and decorated plates. They live on cement foundation blocks. Folded clothes serve as their mattresses. They are dining on
leftover lamb their sisters hide in their mulafa2 to bring home when no one in our kitchen is looking. My grandmother has told me to pray for them, “the blessings will come, inshallah3.” My grandmother doesn’t realize, blessings only exist for those who can afford them.
          I once loved a black boy in my bedroom. My hand could wrap around his bicep. I watched my thumb touch my forefinger. After that, I held my own weight, scared I’d feel his brittle bones snap underneath me. On mornings, when the sun was still heavy with
our country’s fatigue, I passed him in the kitchen on my way to school. He waved me sabaa al-khair⁴ with twinkling, skeletal fingers and worked over my father’s breakfast. In secret, I’d teach him arithmetic. Now, he can count all the disadvantages of being black in Mauritania. When we knew my father couldn’t see us we tangled our skin tones and made love to our differences. He’d kiss me once before I left for America with lips like sandpaper, pulling away from me; his smile displayed his swollen gums.
          “My little white girl.” He told me I tasted like opportunity.
          From across the street, I wonder if those boys can know I am sorry. I wonder if they know I am praying for their brother, that I still dream of their mother, and often think of what streets they’re running through, whose windows they’re peering into today. Beside me, the waitress clears her throat. Menu in hand, I think of what they’d want.
          “Anything.” I tell her.

  1. Mauritanian currency
  2. Traditional Mauritanian female garment
  3. ” if God wills”
  4. Good morning




--
Sahara Sidi
is a Junior at the Appomattox Regional Governor’s School and a National Medalist in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. She enjoys doing things she’s not supposed to for the sake of memoir content and consuming copious amounts of coffee.

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  • Home
  • About
    • Our Story
    • Masthead
  • Submit
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Submit Here
  • Features
  • Interviews
  • Book Reviews
  • Previous Issues
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Art Fall 2021 >
      • Bonnie Severien Fall 2021
      • Camilla Taylor Fall 2021
      • Guilherme Bergamini Fall 2021
      • Emanuela Iorga Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Poetry Fall 2021 >
      • Maureen Alsop Fall 2021
      • Annah Browning Fall 2021
      • Romana Iorga Fall 2021
      • Natalie Hampton Fall 2021
      • Sherine Gilmour Fall 2021
      • Adam Day Fall 2021
      • Amanda Auchter Fall 2021
      • Adam Tavel Fall 2021
      • Sara Moore Fall 2021
      • Karen Rigby Fall 2021
      • Daniel Zhang Fall 2021
      • Erika Lutzner Fall 2021
      • Kindall Fredricks Fall 2021
      • Cin Salach Fall 2021
      • Andrew Zawacki Fall 2021
      • Micah Ruelle Fall 2021
      • Rachel Stempel Fall 2021
      • Haley Wooning Fall 2021
      • Rikki Santer Fall 2021
      • Evy Shen Fall 2021
      • Suzanne Frischkorn Fall 2021
      • Danielle Rose Fall 2021
      • Eric Burgoyne Fall 2021
      • John Cullen Fall 2021
      • Maureen Seaton Fall 2021
      • Hannah Stephens Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Nonfiction Fall 2021 >
      • Kevin Grauke Fall 2021
      • Courtney Justus Fall 2021
      • Amy Nicholson Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Fiction Fall 2021 >
      • Tina Jenkins Bell Fall 2021
      • David Obuchowski Fall 2021
      • Thomas Misuraca Fall 2021
      • Aiden Baker Fall 2021
      • Jenny Magnus Fall 2021
  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Art Spring 2022 >
      • Jonathan Kvassay Spring 2022
      • Karyna McGlynn Spring 2022
      • Andrea Kowch Spring 2022
      • Layla Garcia-Torres Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Poetry Spring 2022 >
      • Robin Gow Spring 2022
      • T.D. Walker Spring 2022
      • Jen Schalliol Huang Spring 2022
      • Yvonne Zipter Spring 2022
      • Carrie McGath Spring 2022
      • Lupita Eyde-Tucker Spring 2022
      • Susan L. Leary Spring 2022
      • Kate Sweeney Spring 2022
      • Rita Mookerjee Spring 2022
      • Erin Carlyle Spring 2022
      • Cori Bratty-Rudd Spring 2022
      • Jen Karetnick Spring 2022
      • Meghan Sterling Spring 2022
      • Lorelei Bacht Spring 2022
      • Michael Passafiume Spring 2022
      • Jeannine Hall Gailey Spring 2022
      • Phil Goldstein Spring 2022
      • Michael Mingo Spring 2022
      • Angie Macri Spring 2022
      • Martha Silano Spring 2022
      • Vismai Rao Spring 2022
      • Anna Laura Reeve Spring 2022
      • Jenny Irish Spring 2022
      • Marek Kulig Spring 2022
      • Jami Macarty Spring 2022
      • Sarah A. Rae Spring 2022
      • Brittney Corrigan Spring 2022
      • Callista Buchen Spring 2022
      • Issam Zineh Spring 2022
      • MICHAEL CHANG Spring 2022
      • henry 7. reneau, jr. Spring 2022
      • Leah Umansky Spring 2022
      • Cody Beck Spring 2022
      • Danyal Kim Spring 2022
      • Rachel DeWoskin Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Fiction Spring 2022 >
      • Melissa Boberg Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Nonfiction Spring 2022 >
      • Srinaath Perangur Spring 2022
      • Audrey T. Carroll Spring 2022
  • Issue #24 Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Art Fall 2022 >
      • Marsha Solomon Fall 2022
      • Edward Lee Fall 2022
      • Harryette Mullen Fall 2022
      • Jezzelle Kellam Fall 2022
      • Irina Greciuhina Fall 2022
      • Natalie Christensen Fall 2022
      • Mark Yale Harris Fall 2022
      • Amy Nelder Fall 2022
      • Bette Ridgeway Fall 2022
      • Ursula Sokolowska Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Poetry Fall 2022 >
      • William Stobb Fall 2022
      • e Fall 2022
      • Stefanie Kirby Fall 2022
      • Lisa Ampleman Fall 2022
      • Will Cordeiro Fall 2022
      • Jesica Davis Fall 2022
      • Peter O'Donovan Fall 2022
      • Mackenzie Carignan Fall 2022
      • Jason Fraley Fall 2022
      • Barbara Saunier Fall 2022
      • Chad Weeden Fall 2022
      • Nick Rattner Fall 2022
      • Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow Fall 2022
      • Summer J. Hart Fall 2022
      • Daniel Suá​rez Fall 2022
      • Sara Kearns Fall 2022
      • Millicent Borges Accardi Fall 2022
      • Liz Robbins Fall 2022
      • john compton Fall 2022
      • Esther Sadoff Fall 2022
      • Whitney Koo Fall 2022
      • W. J. Lofton Fall 2022
      • Rachel Reynolds Fall 2022
      • Kimberly Ann Priest Fall 2022
      • Annie Przypyszny Fall 2022
      • Konstantin Kulakov Fall 2022
      • Nellie Cox Fall 2022
      • Jennifer Martelli Fall 2022
      • SM Stubbs Fall 2022
      • Joshua Bird Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Fiction Fall 2022 >
      • Otis Fuqua Fall 2022
      • Hannah Harlow Fall 2022
      • Natalia Nebel Fall 2022
      • Kate Maxwell Fall 2022
      • Helena Pantsis Fall 2022
    • Issue #24 Nonfiction Fall 2022 >
      • Courtney Ludwick Fall 2022
      • Anna Oberg Fall 2022
      • Acadia Currah Fall 2022