Come here my love,
I have a song for you.
Come here my love,
I have a dream for you…

With such beautiful and soulful words of innate passion, Halima Bashir, MD, begins the lucid prose of her vivid memory of the poetic beauty of her childhood and Zaghawa family in Darfur in her unforgettable war memoir Tears of the Desert, but we are soon gripped by the gory horrors of her picturesque true life story as a ruthless Sudanese soldier stabbed a knife into her thigh as she kicked him in his groin in her desperate resistance against being raped by these devilish Sudanese soldiers on rampage in Darfur.

Here is an excerpt from Tears of the Desert, and reading the rest of the memoir would be more beneficial.

CHAPTER ONE

The Naming

Come here my love,
I have a song for you.
Come here my love,
I have a dream for you. . .

I sing-whisper this lullaby to my boy, my tiny child, as I rock him to sleep in my arms. Outside the window of our cell-like apartment the London traffic roars by. But here we are safe, he and I, this little sleepy miracle that I clutch to myself with a desperate joy in my heart. And as I sing, inside my head I am transported home, home to my beloved Africa.

Come here my love,
I have a kiss for you.
Come here my love. . .

This is the lullaby that my kind and gentle mother used to sing to me, of an evening by the fireside. This is the lullaby that my fierce Grandma Sumah would sing, on those warm African nights when she allowed herself to relax a little, and for her inner love to shine through. And this is the lullaby that my wonderful, funny, clever father would murmur in my ear, as he rocked me on his lap and ran his fingers through my hair.

Come here my love,
I have a smile for you. . .

As I sing this song I am in Africa again, enveloped in the loving warmth and security of my family. As I sing this song I am with my tribe again, the Zaghawa, a fierce, warlike black African people who are the most generous and open when welcoming strangers. I am back in the hot, spicy, dry desert air of my village, a child dressed only in dust and happiness, and all in my life is wondrous and good.

I am in my home, with my family, with my people, in my village, in Darfur.
Darfur. I know to you this must be a word soaked in suffering and blood. A name that conjures up terrible images of a dark horror and an evil without end. Pain and cruelty on a magnitude inconceivable in most of the civilized world. But to me Darfur means something quite different: It was and is that irreplaceable, unfathomable joy that is home.

Come here my love,
I have a home for you. . .

I sing this song for my little boy who is not yet one year old, and reflect upon the miracle of his birth—for it gave me the spirit and the will to live. Without you, I tell his shining, sleepy eyes, I would have killed myself from the horror and shame of it all. The darkness would have overcome me, dragged me down into its eager drowning.
We Zaghawa are a fierce, warlike people, and death—violent and bloody and at one's own hand—is far preferable to dishonor and shame. It has always been thus for my tribe.

Come here my love,
I have a hug for you. . .

"You know what rape is?" The face is a mask of hatred—eyes close to mine, his soldier's breath stinking. "You think because you are a doctor you really know what rape is?"
A second soldier lunges at me, pinning me to the floor. "We'll show you what rape is, you black dog. . ."
"You think you can talk to the foreigners about rape!" a third screams. "Let me tell you—you know nothing. But in rape we are expert teachers,  ."
"And when we are finished with you we might just let you live," the first one spits out. "Then you can go and tell the world. . ."
I try to block out the memory of it all, but sometimes it is not possible, and it comes crowding in on me, dark and suffocating, putrid and evil. I can still see their faces, even now, as if it were only yesterday. Bloodshot eyes, inflamed with hatred and lust. Graying stubble. Unclean breath, the reek of days-old sweat and unwashed uniforms. A flashing blade as one tries to cut my trousers off of me. I kick out, fiercely, aiming for his groin. He cries out in pain, recovers himself, and stabs the knife into my thigh. I feel the agony of that knife thrust, and a dead weight bearing down on my bound hands.

Come here my love,
I have a life for you. . .

I hug my little boy close to my pounding, fearful heart. It is you who gave me life, the will to live, the spirit to go on. And because of you—and the countless other women and children who never made it through the horror alive—I am going to sit at this desk in our tiny apartment while you peacefully sleep, and I am going to start to write my story.

Come here my love,
I have a story for you. . .

My name is Halima. It is an important name and you must remember it. It is important because my father gave it to me seven days after I was born, in the village naming ceremony. In a sense my father saw into the future, for he named me after who and what I was to become.

I was my father's firstborn child, and I was his favorite. I know all children say this, but I had an especially close bond with my father. For the first five years of my life I was an only child. I used to long for a brother or sister to play with. But I also knew that when one came along I'D have to share my parents with them, which was the last thing on earth that I wanted to do.
Whenever my father was home I would always be sitting at his side listening to his stories. He'D tell me about the legends of our tribe, the Zatghawa, or about the lineage of our family, which was descended from a long line of tribal chiefs. Or he'D tell me about his work buying and selling cattle, goats, and camels, and about his travels across the deserts and mountains of Darfur.

Click here to order for the Tears of the Desert: A Memoir of Survival in Darfur.