Don't Forget Us Here, page 28
The first day, I told him how I had taught myself English and what I had learned. He didn’t care about any of that either. He said to me, very serious and strict, “I’m the teacher now. You will do as I say.” He looked at my handwriting in English and he told me that we were going to start by learning how to write every letter in the alphabet in cursive, neatly and correctly.
“No one uses cursive,” I said. Even I knew that.
“You will,” he said, and that was the final word.
He told me to write ten pages of letters, which I did, but he didn’t like them. He went over every single letter I wrote. There was no room for mistakes or jokes, and I learned a lot in the first couple of weeks working like this.
He wasn’t just teaching me. Every day he taught from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. He had eight groups and wanted me to move to his block, Delta, to make it easier on both of us. It was hard to move blocks, but eventually I did and joined a class with three other brothers who were better than me in reading and writing, so I had to catch up.
One of the first things we did when I changed blocks was to prepare a classroom so that Shasha had a place to teach. Cell 105 was empty, but all we had was a single chair. No table. No shelves. No chairs for students. I went to my friend Moath for help. Moath was learning how to build furniture and shelves from the recycled cardboard the camp admin threw out. He drew up plans for a table made out of cardboard, and chairs for Shasha and the students. He drew up plans for bookshelves and everything else we would need to create a real classroom.
Our brothers in Delta Block all came together and helped make everything we needed from cardboard and other recycled materials. Brothers donated books and other supplies. When we were done, we had brought Moath’s vision to life. We had a bookshelf with Arabic and English dictionaries, framed instructions and classroom rules, a clock, and a table in the center.
Brothers, guards, and camp officers from all over Camp VI came to see our classroom. No one could believe what a few determined brothers had created. When we sat in that classroom, we weren’t prisoners in Guantánamo anymore. We were transported away and became students.
We had physically transformed the cell into a classroom, but Shasha alone made it a space for learning. He was always pushing us to learn more, and one day in English class, he asked me and my three classmates very seriously what we would do when we left Guantánamo. For years, we couldn’t think past surviving each day, let alone leaving. We had no answer, and that scared us.
“I’m going to teach you business,” he said. “So that when you leave here, you can start your own business and be your own boss.”
“But we’re learning English,” I said.
“Now you will learn English and business,” Shasha said.
It was hard at first, and a lot of work, but it was interesting, and we were learning a lot. He gave me a notebook and instructed me to take “meeting minutes” during every class. After class, I had to write up a report of our class-turned-meeting and present it at the next meeting for him to review and sign. Shasha made us study management, self-sufficient and sustainable communities, and other business topics I had never imagined learning about. He made us write papers in English, which he examined very carefully and then had us discuss those papers in class. After about three months, he came to class one day with a new question for us.
“Do you think you could put everything we’ve studied into a book?”
“No!” the four of us all said at the same time. He gave us a really scary look, and we knew what was coming.
“Let me put it a different way,” he said. “How long would you need to put together a book about what you’ve learned?”
“Three months,” Khalid said.
“Two months?” I said. I knew Shasha was pushing us and I didn’t want to disappoint him.
“I’ll give you a month,” Shasha said.
We looked at each other like he was crazy. But we got started anyway. We had to create a business, and our idea was to create one that could be self-sustaining and good for the community and the people who worked there. After going through many ideas, we settled on one that meant a lot to all four of us. We were going to create a feasibility study and business plan for the Yemen Milk and Honey Cooperative Farm. Our farm would be energy independent and offer housing for workers and schools for their children. And it would be owned and operated by the workers for the workers. We didn’t have access to lots of information or sources you would normally need for a project like this. But we made do with what we had. We read whatever business books we could get our hands on. We followed business news on TV. We asked our lawyers for articles and information. We asked brothers for advice, and some of them laughed at us and made fun of what we were doing. It didn’t matter. We looked for help wherever we could find it, and by the end of the month, our first draft was ready.
Shasha examined it and gave us some notes and more time to work on it. He wanted two copies this time, one in Arabic and one in English, both handwritten with graphs, pictures, and notes. When we handed it in, our boss wasn’t satisfied and he ordered us to redo it all. For the third draft, instead of photographs, we hired artists to illustrate everything. We revised and revised until we finally got every piece of artwork perfect. Finally, our project was up to his standards, and now he ordered us to organize an official presentation of our book and findings to the public.
Some brothers in other blocks wanted to read it, but neither the camp admin nor the interrogators would make copies for us. In fact, the interrogators threatened to confiscate it. So I asked the psychologist, a nice guy who was amazed at what we had written. He made copies for us.
We were really proud of what we had accomplished. We had learned English and business and how to work as a team. Shasha was even more proud of our work.
For the opening ceremony and presentation, we invited brothers from two blocks plus camp staff and guards. We had sweets and refreshments. And the psychologist brought twelve copies of the book for us. Each of us had to present a section of our work to the audience. I introduced the project and talked about our plans to generate electricity to be energy independent. At the end, Shasha delivered a speech about the importance of education and knowing business and encouraged other brothers to learn business and other useful skills before leaving. Then we handed out copies of the book to other blocks. Those brothers who’d made fun of us early on were the first ones to request books.
Everyone was surprised by how professional we were and how much we knew about business. Just a couple months before, we had no idea what we were going to do, and that day we presented ourselves as real experts and businessmen.
Our book became a hot topic all over Guantánamo. We sent a copy to the colonel and to the camp, telling them this is what we could do with good classes. I sent a copy to Andy to use for my college applications.
It even made it into the news when the Miami Herald published an article about us headlined “Gitmo Inc.: 5 ‘Forever Prisoners’ Have Business Plan for When They’re Free Again.” We were entering a new golden age at Guantánamo, and we were all starting to look forward to our futures.
I HADN’T SEEN Andy in months, since I’d started studying English with Shasha, and I was excited to hear what he thought about the Yemen Milk and Honey Co-op. Andy arrived this day with coffee from McDonald’s and a clamshell of Yemeni food and no interpreter. Right away I got so lost in the fragrance of cumin, coriander, cardamom, and cinnamon that filled the room—a smell that transported me back home—I didn’t notice he didn’t have an interpreter.
Andy put his things down, shook my hand, and sat. “My parents send you their kindest regards,” he said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t arrange an interpreter.”
“Just relax,” I said. “You know my father used to make lamb mandi. You bake it in the ground for hours and hours in a pit covered with hot coals and sand.”
Andy looked at me with wide eyes and the biggest smile I’d ever seen.
“Your English!” he cried.
“Yes,” I said. “It’s okay? Good enough that we don’t need that interpreter?”
Andy jumped up and shook my hand again with both of his. He just stared at me like he couldn’t believe his eyes. He looked at me really proudly, like a father.
We sat down and he slid the clamshell over to me, still smiling about my English.
“It’s meat and rice, just like you asked,” he said.
I pushed the box back. “Please,” I said, “you must eat with me.”
“I brought it for you,” he said. “That’s a gift.”
“The gift is eating together,” I said. “It’s our custom. Do you want to shame me?” I was joking, but serious. He didn’t have a spoon or fork because of the camp security, so I showed him how we eat in Yemen, scooping some rice and meat in your fingers like they’re a spoon. Andy struggled and I could tell it was his first time. It meant a lot to me to share a meal like this.
He never got the business plan I sent him, so I told him all about Shasha and my business class with Khalid. I was talking fast, the way I always do. Andy interrupted.
“Hold your horses!” he said. “Whoa.”
“What does this mean?” I asked. I’d never heard this phrase before. “We don’t have horses in the mountains. We have only donkeys.”
Andy laughed so hard he fell back in his chair. “It means slow down,” he said.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll switch to donkey speed.”
I talked and talked and finally, when our meal was over and hours had passed and I still had more stories to tell him, he had to go.
He decided that day that he would start applying to colleges for me. He’d done some research and had found programs that offered remote learning for guys who were in prison. Before he left, he got serious with me.
“Please write your stories down,” Andy said. “Write them in English and send them to me. There’s just too much to talk about when we’re together and they’re important stories to tell.”
ONE OF THE letters I wrote to Andy right away was about the animals at Guantánamo, how they always brought us a sense of comfort and good feelings, and how they always found ways to get to us. I wrote that when we fed the animals, whether banana rats, cats, or iguanas like Princess, we felt love and happiness in our hearts. We felt connected to the animals, connected in our souls, actually. We loved them all, except the woodpecker who hammered day and night on the ventilation shafts, making more noise than even the vacuums. We joked that that woodpecker was sent by the interrogators to torture us even in our cages.
In Camp VI, we managed to bring a couple cats into the rec yard, and soon they had kittens. We treated them like family. We fed them milk and rice, and sometimes tuna fish from our meetings with lawyers. We gave them showers and washed them with the shampoo our lawyers gave us. Our cats were very clean and smelled nice. We had a feeding schedule and shared cleaning up after them. When brothers forgot to feed the cats or they got angry, the cats peed and pooped in the common area or in front of our cells. When they were really mad at us, they pooped on the tables where we ate.
When one of the mom cats had kittens, we all got very excited but worried. Mom cat went into one of the drainpipes where it was safe and that’s where she gave birth.
We played with those lovely kitties until they were too tired to play. They grew up quickly and soon they were having kitties of their own. Even at Guantánamo, life continued.
There was one male kitten who grew up and didn’t know how to breed. This became a big topic on the block.
“I think we should call a nurse and see if his equipment works,” Hamzah said.
“Maybe our little friend has a psychological problem,” Khalid said. “Maybe we should call the psychologist and she can ask him if he wants to hurt himself.”
We all laughed at that.
“No,” Omar said. “She’ll want to take him to the BHU and we know what happens there. We want to keep him safe.”
“Maybe he needs a sex education class,” Omar said. “Mansoor can write a letter to the camp commander.”
We laughed hard. We were just a bunch of brothers sitting around the communal tables sharing coffee. These were the best moments, just being with friends and joking.
Joking around like this might seem like a simple thing, but it was a big deal for us. We had been in communal living for less than a year and we were adjusting. Sitting around talking together without vacuums and fans or guards harassing us really changed our lives. We had been friends and brothers for years—since the very beginning. We had forged deep bonds fighting and resisting the camp admin and interrogators. But we had still experienced the worst of Guantánamo alone, in our cages or in interrogations. In these casual conversations, where we sat around drinking coffee, we processed what we had been through, and that somehow made us feel like we hadn’t been alone. We remembered together our experiences: First being brought to Guantánamo, the first time we saw an iguana or banana rat. The fights we had. The bad guards—those who’d broken my ankle, those who’d taken Omar’s prosthetic leg—and the good, like the one who’d given Khalid a slice of bread when he was on food punishment. The worst interrogators and the kind nurses who treated us humanely. We remembered the brothers we lost: Yassir, Mana’a, Ali, Waddah, al-Amri, Hajji Nassim (Inayatullah), and Awal Gul. And our remembering together made our losses and those solitary experiences real and a part of all our memories. It validated them and reminded us that, even though we were in solitary confinement or isolation or thousands of miles from the ones we loved, we had never been completely alone. It reminded us how we had grown older together and how we had become our own kind of family. A family with cats.
- TWENTY-TWO -
We were at the peak of the golden age when Moath made his own windows. One opened east to Makkah and the sun rising over a vast blue sea dotted with ships and palm trees swaying gently in the morning light. The other window opened west to the most beautiful sunset, palm trees so close you could touch them, birds flying freely, and the sea a deep and mysterious blue. People came from all over to enjoy those windows and his other work. No one was jealous, except maybe some of the guards. The camp admin didn’t know how to feel about them.
It wasn’t easy making windows. But Moath could make anything once he set his mind to it. He made AC vent covers out of boxes. The levers were controlled by a string hanging above his bed. He could turn the air on and off or change the breeze’s direction. There was a little compartment in the box controlled by another string where he could put a piece of scented paper (usually a cologne sample from Men’s Health) to make the air smell nice.
Camp VI was a terrible place. No windows. Solid concrete walls. Steel cells on the inside. Two stories that made any sound echo and boom all over the block. Once inside, we couldn’t tell if it was day or night. If we were lucky, our block had a window in the common hall ceiling, but it was hard to know what kind of light it was—daylight or fake. The guards called it “maximum security.” We called it many things. A black hole. Maximum control. The cemetery. Hell. And since moving into communal living, we’d spent a lot of time and energy trying to change it from the inside, to make it more livable and humane. We had gotten the camp admin to hang sound-absorbing banners in the common area to help soften the echo. And now we were chipping away at the prison’s bleak interior with our own beautiful artwork that showed who we were.
I had a lot of bad memories of a hard life in these cells, and even with the golden age, it wasn’t easy to make our prison a happy place. Those same bare cells where we once lived in complete isolation twenty-four hours a day were now open twenty hours a day, and we could walk freely anywhere in the block or recreation yard, even to other blocks. How does one adjust to such a life when every inch of that space is a reminder of the years spent isolated? We tested our freedom daily, pushed it forward little by little, and started to reclaim ourselves.
MOATH WAS INSTALLING curtains over his windows when the camp commander stopped by his cell and looked in. He had gone a long way in relaxing the rules since the beginning of communal living and I felt like he had come to respect us.
“You’re not allowed to have a mopstick on the block,” he said. We weren’t allowed to have anything that could be used as a weapon. This also included paintbrushes, needles, and scissors. At least we had nail clippers. It’s amazing what you can do with a pair of nail clippers. You could build a ship.
“It’s not a mopstick,” Moath said. “Everything you see is made of nothing.” He pulled down the curtain rod Velcroed to the wall and showed him.
The commander laughed. “Plastic bottles?”
Moath saved plastic bottles, stacked and glued them together, then wrapped them in white paper so that they looked like a real pole that was perfectly straight and strong. Nothing went to waste.
“Wow!” The commander laughed. “Smart!” He joked with us all the time, especially when Moath made something new. “If you managed to make all this with nothing, what the hell would you do if you had actual stuff?”
“We would build a helicopter and fly away.” We all laughed hard. It was the truth.
Over the years, we had learned to make use of everything we had. We had so little that small things we once took for granted could change our lives. Take for example a piece of clear plastic that usually covered our meals. The air conditioning was always on and our cells were always cold. Sometimes we didn’t have clothes or blankets. Before 2010, covering the vents could get us sent to solitary confinement, or worse. But if the guards forgot to collect that clear plastic with our meal trash, we put a little soap around the edges and glued it over the vent. The guards couldn’t see it and that thin skin of plastic stopped the flow of cold air from freezing our cells.
