Read Online The Milk of Birds by Sylvia Whitman - Free Book Online

bodies like wings. They have touched down for a moment to suck the nectar from this lesson. In front, Adeeba has another view. “Where are the students?” she always complains. “Repetition teaches a donkey—but even a donkey learns faster than these women!”
    I think many are like my mother, living but wishing for death. My father’s mother used to say, Close attachment kills . Perhaps that is why she did not love my father as he wished to be loved. She was a sour woman. She did not live to see this dark time, but it would not have surprised her. The world is impermanent, she always said. Everything has an end .
    Adeeba sets the chalkboard on an easel. In my head, I hear my father, God’s mercy upon him, laughing with the men in the village. A woman, what does she do? Even the wisest woman has a brain no bigger than a durra seed.
    I am so proud of my friend, chosen by Si-Ahmad and the khawaja for this important job.
    â€œGood morning, Class,” Adeeba says.
    A few reply, “Good morning, Teacher.”
    â€œLet us begin by reviewing our last lesson,” Adeeba says. “Who can tell me why we must always use the latrine?”
    No one raises a hand.
    â€œHow many of you used the latrine today?”
    Again no one raises a hand. Adeeba stares hard at me, so I raise mine. But I am ashamed. I do not want people thinking about me using the latrine.
    Adeeba says, “Why did you use the latrine, Nawra?”
    â€œTo relieve myself.”
    Several women laugh. Adeeba stabs me with her look. This is not the answer she wants.
    I cannot hold my water as I used to. I use the latrines because I cannot wait. Even if I could, I would have to walk a great distance to find a private space. Bushes surrounded Umm Jamila, but death and desert ring this camp.
    Despite the latrines, many in the camp soil the ground where we live. I too hate the stink of the pits, which fill up quickly. Children fear the flies. The first time I stepped inside the latrine I thought the hole had a black lid, until it swarmed up around me.
    â€œWhat do you do after you relieve yourself?”
    This I know, for it is the greeting of the khawaja . “Wash hands,” I say.
    â€œExcellent,” Adeeba says. She holds up a poster made stiff with plastic. “All these different bugs live in feces,” she says. “We must scrub them off. Otherwise they will get in our food and water and make us sick. Here. Pass it around.”
    As my friend speaks the names of these bugs and their sicknesses, the sheet of pictures moves quickly across the rows. Some fear to touch it. Others do not care. A few study it only to make trouble. Even in Umm Jamila there were people like that, but here they are stronger for they have no work to do and no families to shame.
    â€œThe poor are excused from washing with soap,” one woman says.
    â€œWhy is she showing us pictures of soujouk ?” asks another. “I would know if I were eating sausages! What I would give to eat a sausage.”
    I will remind my friend that empty stomachs have no ears.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    â€œYou see?” Adeeba says. She has complained all the way back to our shelter. “The good you do for these women is just the same as the bad.”
    â€œYou sound like a man,” I tell her. “My father used to say, Even if woman were an ax, she could not break a head .”
    â€œMy father did not—does not—say bad things about women,” Adeeba says.
    We sit in my mother’s silence by the fire. I would like to meet Adeeba’s father, but I do not think I will.
    My friend straightens. “I wish I could break open a few heads,” she says.
    â€œJust Halima’s,” I say. We laugh.
    I gather our plates and the cooking pot. Adeeba stands to help me, but I tell her no. She must work on her dictionary before the light fades.
    I walk the longer way to the washing place to avoid