Settings of Nujood

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Setting of Nujood In the book I AM NUJOOD, AGE 10 AND DIVORCED there were three major settings; Khardji, Sana’a, and the Courthouse. Khardji was a small, rural, poor, and isolated community. The direct translation of the word means “outside” in Yemeni. There was no hospital; therefore the women there had no help birthing children. It was a poor community; crops were not often grown for profit, but for merely sustaining the lives of many in one household. Nujood’s family was forced out of the town as a result of Nujood’s sister, Mona, refused to marry a man there, and their father drew his jambia out of anger. This is against culture, as the jambia is a ceremonial and decorative dagger; the mark of a man. They were forced to leave by the next sun. Shortly after leaving, the family settled in Sana’a. Sana’a was a more urban, rich city than Khardji by far. There were busses, businesses, hospitals, stores, and everything the city needed to be a functional community. The population of this city was three times the amount of that in Khardji. Women wore niquabs and begged on the street for any amount of money they could get ahold of. The community was always bustling with people and crowds and noise trying to get somewhere all at once. It was as if the entire city was drowned in a sea of people. Nujood’s experience here was not always swell. For a ten year old, walking down the street would be quite the challenge. The challenge would be being so small and seemingly insignificant as to not get washed away by this oceanic mass of human bodies. In this city the inspiration to go into the Courthouse was set alight. The Courthouse is where the book started. This is where Nujood stated that she was ashamed to be there, she was having an internal conflict with the other part of her brain. One was saying “yes, yes you have to do this”. While the other was saying “No, no
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