Muslim Lesbian Nerd Diary

Ah, the life of a young brown Muslim woman living in the City of Ottawa, Ontario. My name is Choukri Ali, and I was born in the neighborhood of Vanier to a Somali Muslim father, Ahmed Ali, and a Pakistani mother, Amina Khan. I'm used to people looking at me and my family. You don't see a lot of African Muslim men with South Asian wives, so my parents and I got a lot of stares wherever we went. Doesn't bother me because the opinions of bigoted white people, the world's fastest shrinking demographic, don't matter to me.

I am a student at the University of Ottawa, studying civil engineering. Being a minority and a female in this male-dominated and lily-white field isn't easy, but I've never been the type to let any of that stop me. In my classes, I routinely outperform the white dudes, and they both hate me and grudgingly admire me for it. The world is changing and a lot of these pale goons have no clue how to deal with those changes.

In the City of Ottawa, if you're smart and you don't look like them, they have a problem with that. Trust me, the aging white men and women working in Canadian government offices downtown have a real problem when it comes to diversity, even though they hide their bigotry behind their phony smiles. Unlike a lot of minority students at the University of Ottawa, I know how the game is played. Trust no one, and study the strengths and weaknesses of both friend and foe because, ultimately, they're all out to get you. Welcome to Ottawa.

Recently, I landed an internship with Mon Engineering, one of the top general contractors in the City of Ottawa. They handle half the construction downtown. When I arrived at their office, everyone stared at me. I was expecting it because I am a tall, curvy and lively, brown-skinned woman who wears the Hijab. If I ever showed up at a place full of white people and they didn't stare at me, I'd actually be worried. Getting stared at is the norm when you're a minority in the capital. Welcome to my life.

I spoke to Aries Mulligan, the Director of Operations for Mon Engineering, and he was pleasant enough. I got the internship and they kept me around for six weeks. In the end, I got the recommendation and the signatures I needed, along with the magical words "work experience" stamped on my academic record. Most other interns in the civil engineering department got to spend at least eight weeks with the real-world firms they were sent to, but hey, I am who I am and I knew what I was up against from the get go. Yeah, I am a bit cynical and a little jaded. Given my life, can you really blame me?

My parents are quite demanding, and as much as I love them, sometimes I feel burdened by the sky-high expectations of the very couple that brought me into the world. My father Ahmed Ali often told me how he came to the City of Ottawa, Ontario, from the City of Mogadishu, Somalia, in the 1990s with nothing. Dad went to school and paid for his engineering studies at the University of Ottawa by working at the local Canadian Tire Store. That's where he met my mother, actually.

My mother, Amina Khan, moved to the City of Ottawa, Ontario, from the City of Jamrud, Pakistan, with her mother, Bushra Khan. At the time, Mom was studying business administration at Carleton University and worked as a cleaner at Canadian Tire to help pay for school. When my father and mother met, even though they came from different worlds, it was love at first sight. I bet it was.

A tall, skinny and dark-skinned guy from Somalia and a tall, chubby and painfully shy young South Asian woman from Pakistan. Even though Somalia and Pakistan are both predominantly Muslim countries, culturally they couldn't be more different. Nevertheless, in spite of objection from their parents, Ahmed Ali and Amina Khan got married, and produced little old me. The daughter of two worlds. The living embodiment of their hopes and dreams. No pressure at all, right?

I had a pretty standard life in the suburb of Orleans, which my parents moved to the year I started high school. They finally saved enough to buy a house. While living in the suburb of Orleans, I learned French and also made friends with Somali and South Asian youth, and got to know both cultures. I found myself feeling out of place among both Northeast African Muslims and South Asian Muslims. Apparently, I was too black for the Pakistanis and the Indians, and I was too brown for the Somalis and the people of Djibouti. Welcome to my life.

The funny thing is that fate dealt me yet another blow, dooming me to further uniqueness and exclusion. What do I mean by that? Ladies and gentlemen, you'd better sit down for this. I am a Hijab-wearing, biracial Muslim woman who partakes from the love that dares not speak its name. Get it? I am a woman who loves women, for those you who are thick in the skull and absolutely cannot get a damn hint. I've known this about myself for quite sometime now.

Of course, I've never told my parents or my friends. I simply pretend to be a good Muslim gal, too busy studying at school or going to the mosque to think about the opposite sex. It's worked well so far, but I am desperately lonely. When you're a Muslim woman and you're also attracted to women, it's definitely going to complicate your life. The Muslim world is quite conservative, and not ready to deal with issues of gayness and lesbianism. Are there gays and lesbians in the Muslim world? Absolutely. I know of no other like myself, however.

One day I met this lovely young woman named Fatouma Adewale, originally from the City of Kano, northern Nigeria. Fatouma is tall, dark-skinned and lovely, and looked stylish in her white blouse, black jeans, black leather boots and glittering black Hijab. Fatouma is studying electrical engineering at Carleton University and came to the University of Ottawa to visit her younger brother Yousef. I happened to be friends with Yousef, whom I know from the Muslim Students Club, and that's how Fatouma and I met. One look into her eyes and I knew that Fatouma was like me, a woman who loves women.

Fatouma smiled at me and we shook hands, and then she invited me to grab dinner with her and her brother Yousef. We went to a little Lebanese restaurant located near the campus, and spent three hours chatting away. Yousef had to go to the gym and meet up with his girlfriend, and gave Fatouma a hug before leaving. I smiled at Yousef and wished him good luck, then my eyes met Fatouma's. We smiled and continued talking, and then exchanged numbers. Fatouma wanted to see me again, and I was all for it.

That night, right before we left the restaurant ( we'd been chatting for hours and the place was closing ), Fatouma hugged me fiercely and then kissed me oh so briefly on the lips. I gasped, and my heart soared. Fatouma smiled and wished me a good night. We parted ways. I walked to the bus stop with a smile on my face and a song in my heart. I am the awkwardly tall, Hijab-wearing biracial daughter of an interracial Muslim couple and I am an aspiring engineer and a budding lesbian. I thought of myself as a unicorn for the longest time. Now, it would seem that I have finally found someone just like me.