One time, I was followed by a tok tok driver who shouted all sorts of obscenities at me.
“You’re disgusting”, was all I managed to muster.

I’m wearing the wrong pants today.
Please, God, divert their attention elsewhere.
I hate them.
I hate my life.

When I was in the eighth grade, there was a boy with me at school who was blond and fair-skinned. He was a grade younger than I was.
Wherever he went, the other students would harass him. He was absent a lot because of this. His father came in to complain more than once but to no avail.

I was subjected to derisive comments on an almost daily basis.
The one I got the most was a quote from one of Mohamed Saad’s movies: “Possibly a boy, possibly a girl”.
I got that practically every day.
At the beginning, I’d usually yell and fight with the person who said it.
Until one time, I got into a fight with a guy who made fun of my hair.
masculinity, bullying, gender violence, harassment, social stigma, the street

The story about Hamada began when I started a fellowship in a reputable university.
We were six girls and two boys.
We were studying community development.
I found a message from Hamada one day saying,
“I miss you.”

I hit him because I wanted to hit everyone.
After Friday prayers, he got into his car and harassed a girl who was walking by.

I don’t know why I’m going to tell this story,
But I’ve bottled up so much inside me.

There was a period when my parents were separated,
And my grandfather interfered a lot in our lives.
He was a very cruel man,
And so was my mother.

I was six or seven years old.
Mama wanted me to learn a musical instrument, so I chose the piano.
She looked for a place that could teach me and found an instructor at the club.
They arranged for me and my brother to take lessons with him.

It was the second year of college.
I was going through a lot of problems at the time.
They were either related to college, home, or relationships.
I used to talk to and confide in a spiritual guide who knew my family.
gender violence, sexual violence, harassment

He slipped his hand under the table,
Put it on my leg,
And said,
“Do you know what a man and a woman do in bed?”
To which I naively and innocently replied,
“No.”