Read an Excerpt
The Urban Shepherd
"Chasing the American Dream"
By Ben Amor Dog Ear Publishing
Copyright © 2016 Ben Amor
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4575-4534-4
CHAPTER 1
The Dream Begins
1946–1952 Birth through Age Six
"Even a child could have a goal, and pursuing that goal to its Epilogue helps build character."
— Elizabeth S. Steger, Dreams of an Immigrant
You and I have dreams, wishes, desires, and goals. I decided to write this book to empower and motivate others to embrace and achieve their dreams. I am a Tunisian American. As of today, I live freely in both countries, where I can express my ideas. This has not been possible, at least in Tunisia, for thousands of years. The Jasmine Revolution began in Tunisia on January 14, 2011. I am happy for its occurrence and that the people revolted, eventually winning and paving the way for a democratic government. Although I was not born in America, I am aware of the privileges, freedoms, and ideals that the United States has to offer. This country has given me a new birth and independence. My grandfather from my father's side, who was from Tunisia, was poor and uneducated. I believe that if he were still alive today, he wouldn't believe the opportunities afforded to me in the United States and now possibly his mother country, Tunisia.
I have learned in life that despite all obstacles and challenges, dreams can come true. Mine has.
On a scorching July day in 1946, I was born in North Africa in a small Tunisian village, Landaria. My grandmother Sassia and other neighboring women helped with my delivery in a single room constructed of dirt and wheat stalks, called a gourbi.
Landaria is mainly desolate farmland, located roughly a mile and a half from a larger village called Bouficha (pronounced boo-fee-shah), located on the Mediterranean coast. The word bouficha means "clay-like ground." The origin of the town's name stems from Tunisia's colonization under the French. The Arabic word behi, meaning "good," was assigned to the French boss who would pay the Tunisian workers. It was then adapted to the French word bou and paired with the French word fiche, which described the pay stubs given to the workers. Thus, Behifiche "became Bouficha.
Bouficha was much larger than Landaria, largely because of the highway that runs through it, the police station, and the school, none of which Landaria had. My aunt Mariem lived in Bouficha, and I attended school there as an adolescent. Bouficha is also where many children played soccer, and the souk, or farmers' market, where we traveled to get bread and other food, was located there.
Throughout life, we have to take advantage of the opportunities that come knocking on the door. I therefore took advantage of the opportunity to go to school in Bouficha, which helped me embark on another path. It was worth the daily two-mile walk to and from Bouficha, even when I had to endure the harsh temperatures of the winter and summer.
Tunisia is a country with a long and rich history filled with struggles and suffering, as well as great men and women who have overcome these struggles to build a great nation. Tunisian history stretches back for thousands of years. The country was originally inhabited by farmers who were able to thrive because of techniques borrowed from the Fertile Crescent civilizations.
Additionally, Tunisia was home to the Berber tribes and their ancestors. The Amazigh, descendants of the Berbers, still reside within the country, preserving their own language and cultural traditions despite thousands of years of invasions and cultural integration. I am especially fond of this particular tribe, as my mother is Amazigh, and I was taught their language and customs throughout my upbringing. With ties that stretch back millennia, I feel that Tunisia will always be a part of who I am, no matter where I go or live.
What I have described sets the foundation for my personal development. We all have a foundation upon which we grow up, one we have no control over. We do not choose our birthplaces, nor to whom we are born. As we grow up, we begin to develop an awareness of our existence, making choices afterward. Someone once said that if you don't learn from your past, you are bound to repeat it. History is important, for without it we cannot learn to be better, and Tunisia has a lot of history. I want to provide you with a brief history of my country of origin. The country's coast was settled by Phoenicians as early as the tenth century BC. In 149 BC, the Tunisian people were conquered by the Roman army at the Battle of Carthage, and the area was incorporated into the ancient Roman Empire.
Abu Zakariya Yahya, ruler of the Hafsid Dynasty from AD 1229–1249, created an organized administration that launched Tunis (the capital) as theeconomic and political center for the entire empire. The Hafsid Dynasty continued to rule for approximately 367 years. Later, successive Muslim empires ruled Tunisia with periodic unsteadiness, mainly attributed to Berber rebellions.
In 1869, Tunisia declared itself bankrupt and a global financial commission took control of its economy. Twelve years later, in 1881, the French invaded with an army of about 36,000, forcing Bey (ruler) Muhammad as-Sadiq to agree to the terms of the Treaty of Bardo. After the treaty was signed, Tunisia became a French territory. The French quickly colonized Tunisia, increasing the population from 34,000 in the year 1906 to nearly 105,000 in 1910. In 1956, Habib Bourguiba (1903–2000) claimed the country's independence from France. In 1975, he declared his presidency for life. When Habib Bourguiba grew too old to rule, Ben Ali took over and became the second president and dictator, reigning for twenty-three years until the 2011 Jasmine Revolution.
I was born into a poor family as Ali Ben (meaning "son of") Amor. My father, Amor Ben Mohamed, worked as a laborer for the railroad company in the town of Enfidaville (Enfida), where the Eighth Army's spectacular advance across North Africa ended in World War II. My mother, Rebeh, like nearly all Tunisian women of that era, kept the home. I remember my parents and my grandmother Sassia Bent (meaning "daughter of") Hassine Ben Abdellah, from when I was young, but I cannot remember my grandfather Mohammed or his father, the man I inherited my name from. The name Ali came from my great-grandfather, whose name was Ali Ben Belgacem Mhedbi.
My family name stretches back for centuries, and my roots tie me firmly to Tunisia. There are records of an ancestor of mine, Boubaker Ben Ali Mhedhbi, paying taxes and working the fields as far back as 1858. At the time of publishing this book, I am researching a link between my family and an esteemed scholar and holy man, Sidi Mhadheb. According to Hatem el Hattab, Chief Archivist at the National Archives of Tunisia, Sidi Mhadheb was a great leader who came from Morocco in the thirteenth century, founded the shrine Soltan el Arab Zawiya, and had five children, who each went on to form powerful clans in Tunisia. Sidi Mhadheb was a pious leader who brought peace to the territory and helped rebuild the libraries and other structures in his new land. He was known for his ability to resolve many a dispute and earned the respect of all the local clans. He is buried in Skhira. Somehow, knowing that I come from this lineage has inspired me to be a better person.
Regardless of my name's origins, when I graduated from the Electrical School, the city officials changed all of my names, including the first and last name, of record so my first name was Ali and my last name was Ali. All the names in between were deleted and my name became Ali Ali. Instead of using my name, Ali Ben Amor Ben Mohammed Ben Ali, and so on, the officials altered my name to Ali Ali. This was done by the Tunisian government after all the names were transferred from hand-written documents to digital. In order to shorten the names to include only the first and last names of ancestors known. In a way, I feel like I lost some of my identity that so tied me to my ancestors.
Later in life, I started using the name Ben Amor. Amor is "love" in Spanish, so I had converted my name to "Son of Love." This name describes the person I am and how I feel. Sometimes in life we are defined by our attributes or by the names we carry. It is important for us to be careful that our names do not define us or mold us into people we truly are not. When I became an American citizen, I officially changed my name from Ali Ali to Ben Amor, a name that reveals my family traits and roots.
By the time of my birth, my mother and father had waited anxiously to have a boy. Usually at the age of five, boys started to help support the family. Young boys were taught to help with the family by raising the chickens, cows, and crops and gathering logs used in fences for keeping the animals protected inside and for privacy so the family wouldn't be seen from the road. After they dried out, the logs were also used for cooking. The first five years of my life were all about learning. I was taught to become a young man very quickly as I took on the responsibility of shepherding, feeding the baby animals, and gathering the water for the family to drink and cook with.
A girl would be able only to assist with smaller tasks, such as gathering grass for animals and helping in the kitchen and washing clothes. My father wanted a boy and told my mother when she was pregnant with me that if the baby were a girl, he would not visit the baby; only if the baby were a boy would he leave work to see the baby. My older sister M'tira (who later changed her name to Habiba, which means "lovable") had been born in 1942 and survived childhood, but my parents's initial aspiration had been to conceive a male to take care of the family.
Before 1965 in Tunisia, most of a male's life was predetermined at birth. At the age of five, he was expected to tend to the animals and land as I did, as well as to take breakfast and lunch to his father at work. At the age of twelve, the boy was expected to learn how to plow and to sow barley, wheat, and corn. His parents would expect him to seek a girl to marry by the age of twenty. The girl he had chosen must be introduced to his mother, father, and extended family members. Most of the time, his chosen bride would be one of the members of his extended family.
I always dreamed of a better future for my family and myself. When we sleep, we dream, but those dreams are unmanageable. When we are awake, we can control our dreams and visions.
Before I was born, my mother had given birth to my brother, Salah, who died at age four. My mother had also given birth to my beautiful sister Salha, who also passed away as a child. My mother explained to me once that when Salah and Salha once accompanied her to a wedding, an old lady had told my mother that they were the most adorable children her eyes had ever seen. My mother was superstitious and believed this might be a curse. After they had returned home, both children became sick and died within a very short time. At the time, no doctors or hospitals were nearby and medicine was primitive; it was common for parents to try to cure an illness without any knowledge of treatment. For example, when a child was sick with a common fever, parents typically gave the child's forehead a light cut with a razor to drain the bad blood from the child's head, hoping for a cure.
My mother was also blessed with another boy, Habib, who also survived childhood. As a young child, I was angry that no photographs of my siblings had ever been taken, for I could not see how my sisters and brothers looked when we were all young. I do not have the memories that come with looking back at old photographs. Years later, I learned that in Tunisia, usually half of the children in a family died before the age of five. Tunisia's infant mortality rate has finally seen a significant reduction, however.
I feel this was because of the lack of a health care system in Tunisia at that time. I believe that's why my grandmother lost her sight due to no medical services. She spent most of her time with my aunt Aziza and some occasional time with my family and with my uncle M'tir. She would share tales from her childhood with my siblings and I before we went to sleep. My memories of her are very fond, motivating me to be a good person.
I was raised in the single-room hut I was born in, which had a small kitchen in it called a newalla. A newalla is a bit smaller than the main room and is made primarily of dirt. There were two or three holes in the newalla, and these served as windows to funnel out the smoke from the cooking. When it rained heavily, it was as if there was no main room in the hut at all. My mother would make a big fire in the newalla and gather us around it to dry ourselves.
The entire family slept in that one room. Habiba and I slept toward the wall for safety purposes, and the man usually slept by the door in case he had to check on the animals at night. (In those days, it was common for animals to be stolen and a ransom demanded for their return.) We were a poor family, so my father had to work every day except Saturday. Saturday was the day we went to the souk in Bouficha, where people bought and sold goods.
I always dreamed of a better future for my family and myself. When we sleep we dream, but those dreams are unmanageable. When we are awake, we can control our dreams and visions. As a young child, I would sit and look up at the sky as I was taking care of the animals. I saw specks in the sky with trails of smoke but didn't understand what they were. Eventually, I was told they were airplanes, and my dream began.
When I was four years old, my sister Saida was born, and I loved her deeply. Some days, I enjoyed her company so much, I would wake her many times just to have some fun and play with her. Like Salah and Salha before her, Saida became sick. She died in my arms when she was four years old. Her image will stay with me forever.
After Saida's death, I visited her grave every day. It was located in a special cemetery for children and was right near the gourbi we lived in. In Tunisia, children were not buried in the same cemetery as adults; adults were buried in a cemetery in Sidi Said, located two or three miles away.
Another of my responsibilities at home was to take all the animals to the big farm owned by my mother's cousin Saïd. I would make sure that all animals were fed before midmorning in the summer because of the heat and before midafternoon in the winter.
I would often take my nap in the field when most of the animals were close to each other and not in any way close to someone else's land. At my resting point, I loved to count the airplanes as they passed by and later in life, I joined the Tunisian Air Force. As a child, I wanted to be in an airplane and I wanted to fly out of my country, but my dreams conflicted with reality. I was surrounded by poverty.
"Each thought you have will either be an investment or a cost. It will either empower you or disempower you. That's why it is imperative you choose your thoughts and beliefs wisely."
— T. Harv Eker, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind
As I've mentioned, Saturday was the day when most people went to the village of Bouficha to shop at the souk. People from surrounding cities and villages brought their vegetables, grains, clothes, animals, and many other things to sell. When I accompanied my father, I observed carts drawn by oxen, donkeys, and horses moving slowly down the village lane, carrying vegetables and people to the souk. Visiting the souk was not only an opportunity to shop; people would also visit with their distant neighbors and exchange information as they sold or bartered their products. Afterward, everyone returned home with some cloth, vegetables, salt, sugar, tea, grain (wheat, barley, or corn), and candy. My father always purchased food and candy for me. He spoiled me because I was his prized possession. My mother argued with him about how much he doted on me. His answer was always "What else do we have?"
If the Saturday souk in Bouficha did not have what we wanted, my father would take me along with him to the Enfida souk. That souk was much bigger, and people often bought and sold a great number of animals there. Enfida, also known as Dar-el-Bey, lay on the railway between Tunis and Sousse, and a few miles northeast of the Gulf of Hammamet, and people from Sousse would also go to the Enfida souk to buy and sell their wares.
Enfida was home to the cultivation of cereals, olives, vines, and pasturage and was a settlement for colonies of Europeans and natives. Enfida also became a large horse-breeding establishment and had a busy weekly market. I gained practice in assisting my dad as he traded at the market, where people unfortunately took advantage of him. It was at the market where I learned to my negotiating skills. My dad did not bargain, simply accepting what people offered him. My mom would get mad at him because he was naïve about acquiring the best deals for the food and animals he was trying to sell. I learned from my mom to bargain with people for a better price. I learned that I needed to be aware of what people wanted and aware of how to keep people from cheating my dad. My experience at the market instilled in me the importance of being wise and being aware of my surroundings and whom I let into my life.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Urban Shepherd by Ben Amor. Copyright © 2016 Ben Amor. Excerpted by permission of Dog Ear Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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