SALMA SALAMA

Excerpts from We The Interwoven

Salma Salama emigrated from Sudan in 1999, and she has made her home in Iowa for over twenty years. She was a journalist, radio producer, and writing teacher before moving to the States as a political refugee. She currently works as a caregiver in a group home for differently abled adults. Her translated work has appeared in the Iowa Review, Daily Palette, Fourth River, and Real Conditions: Writings from the Sudanese Community. Five collections of her short stories have been published in Arabic.

“Where I come from, we live within walls. Our walls divide the public space, where we speak to strangers and friends alike, from the private—the world that begins at wooden doors that open onto the street. Knock and be recognized. Be recognized and admitted to the family courtyard, where we sit to drink tea, squat before the cookfire, stand and kneel to pray. In the hotter months, we roll out our mattresses to sleep there, open to the sky, safe behind our walls. The walls also protect us from the dust and wind that blows against every surface.

Mostly, we share walls. By that I mean each wall also belongs to a neighbor. Ever since I could remember, in the wall shared between homes, there would often be a square hole in the wall, perhaps the width of a dinner plate, the height of a clay bowl. If the neighbor's family had fallen on "hard times," as Charles Dickens said, they were usually hungry. We remember, as children, being asked to pass food through that hole to the neighbors. Even when there seemed we had none to spare, mothers passed food to mothers on the other side. The bowl that is passed through to a poorer neighbor is not full of old, leftover food. Rather, it is taken from the pot first, while it is still hot and fresh. That way, the neighbor is honored by eating first, before our own family. 

It has been years since I left Sudan, but all my life, all over the world, I have remembered this sharing between neighbors. There is always a way to connect with others through kindness and offering the best we have to give. All we have to do is look for the hole in the wall.”