I can feel the sweat on the back of my knees as we sit cross-legged in class. This always happens in the summer in Alice. It feels like at any moment your skin could just melt right off you.
Our teacher is about to tell us something. I gaze up at her pale white skin as she says, ‘We have a new student today.’
The newcomer is standing next to her. She has dark brown hair and light brown skin. The new student commands the classroom, speaking with great confidence. Everyone looks up at her. ‘I’m from Pah Paw Pa,’ she says, before enthusing about the place she has come from. But I start to tune out when I hear ‘Pah Paw Pa’. She’s talking gibberish.
Pah Paw Pa. It occurred to me later that I haven’t taken in her name. She’s just Pah Paw Pa to me. She swings on the swings at lunchtime as if the playground is already hers. I think about asking her about Pah Paw Pa. I just think about it.
When the school day ends, Mum picks me up in her dusty Toyota Camry. Sitting in the back seat as we drive home, I tell her about the new student. I say with a chuckle, ‘She’s from Pah Paw Pa.’
In the rear-view mirror, I see my mum’s eyebrows furrow ever so slightly. ‘Where?’ she asks.
I slowly move my lips: ‘Pah Paw Pa.’
Mum says, ‘You mean Pa-pu-a: Papua New Guinea. That’s where you were born.’
The idea that I was born anywhere but Egypt or Australia is inconceivable to me
For a moment, I wonder if I need to get my ears tested. And then my head floods with questions.
I don’t remember Mum ever telling me where I was born, but I thought I was born in Egypt. Or Australia. One of those two. Papua New Guinea? What Egyptian is born in Papua New Guinea? The idea that I was born anywhere but Egypt or Australia is inconceivable to me. It is just weird. I’m already the only Arab in my school. They always pronounce my name, Youssef, as ‘Yosef’ or ‘Joseph’. But how can I blame them if I didn’t even know the name of my own birthplace until today?
Mum takes a right instead of a left, and I realise we must be stopping by the grocery store before heading home. As we hop out of the car, Mum continues talking about how she and the rest of the family lived in Papua New Guinea for over five years before settling down in outback Australia. Apparently, my sister was the only one out of the three of us born in Egypt.
‘You were born in Lae and your older brother was born in Port Moresby,’ she says.
Mum explained that when I was two, in 2002, her qualifications were finally recognised by the Australian government and they were able to work here. So, they moved to Alice Springs, the first place they were offered a job.
Walking into the grocery store, my mum receives glares from a room of white faces. We’re used to it. She’s always the only person in a room wearing a hijab. But she rocks it with different colours and jewellery. There are some brown and bla(c)k faces around, but usually they aren’t acknowledged at all. You can see people turn their heads away from them or even walk in a different direction.
In the fresh produce section, Mum sees someone she knows. This often happens, because she’s a doctor. The lady has dark brown skin and tight curly black hair. My mum’s face glows. Her eyes bulge and her mouth opens in surprise. She isn’t usually this excited. They start speaking. Not English. Not Arabic. But Pidgin, a common language in Papua New Guinea, which she picked up while living there to communicate with her patients. The lady smiles while talking with her. She seems so excited: it’s like she hasn’t spoken a word of Pidgin in years and she can finally speak to someone. People stare at them, speaking a foreign language in the grocery store, but they don’t care.
There’s a girl behind her. It’s Pah Paw Pa. I stare at her in shock, still processing everything in my mind. She laughs at me. Grinning, my mum finishes her conversation, and we move away.
People stare at them, speaking a foreign language in the grocery store, but they don’t care.
At home, Mum sits me down. She starts to explain Papua New Guinea to me. She shows me a black and gold bird of paradise painting in the living room and explains that this is the bird on the PNG flag. And that the reason why her rice is always so delicious is because she adds coconut milk. In Papua New Guinea they used fresh coconut.
*
It had taken my family seven years to tell me where I was born.
*
The next day at school, I find Pah Paw Pa on the swing set.
‘Are you from Pah Paw Pa?’ I ask. I know I’m saying it wrong.
‘Yes, I am. Papua,’ she says. She keeps swinging as she speaks to me.
‘I was born in Papua New Guinea,’ I say. ‘In Lae.’
She smiles and tells me she was born in Port Moresby. ‘I’m Papuan and proud,’ she says, as if someone had questioned it.
So there we are. Two proud people. Smack-bang in the middle of Australia.
Youssef Saudie is an award-winning journalist. He grew up in the red centre of Alice Springs as an Egyptian migrant. He has a passion for telling stories and has recently finished his bachelor’s degree in journalism at RMIT University. You can follow him on Twitter
This is an edited extract from Growing Up in Country Australia (Black Inc Books).
