FOB (First of Belonging)
They call me a FOB.
Fresh off the boat.
But I was born in Porirua.
The boat belonged to my parents.
They brought two shirts,
three photographs,
four kilos of dried mint
Enough to concern the government.
Anything else to declare?
No.
The officer saw food.
He did not see exile.
He did not see Tehran
folded inside a prayer book,
Shiraz in my mother’s voice,
or the life my father learned
not to speak about.
At school, they ask:
Where are you really from?
Porirua, I say.
No. Really.
Persian.
Like the cat?
Like the cat.
Like the empire.
Like Hafez.
Like saffron in hot water,
slowly giving up its colour
without losing its taste
On the news, Iran is followed by:
war,
nuclear,
threat.
At home, Iran is followed by
the smell of rice,
an uncle complaining,
an aunty yelling back,
and tea too hot to hold.
We hold it anyway.
They call me a FOB.
But F is for First:
the first born here,
the first to call this country home
without having crossed an ocean.
O is for Of:
because I am of my parents,
of Porirua,
of prayers carried across
borders, of a country I have
never touched but somehow
recognised.
At home, we say:
یا†بھاء†الابھی
Yá Bahá’u’l-Abhá.
Words my grandparents carried
when carrying anything else
became dangerous.
Prayers know
how to travel light.
And B is for Belonging:
not the kind given by a passport,
or taken away by a question.
The kind made slowly:
through my mother’s stories, my
father’s silences,
the rice steaming in the kitchen,
the place already set for me.
My maman calls:
بفرمایید
Come and eat.
The tea glass burns my fingers. I
hold it anyway.
They call me a FOB.
They mean
Fresh off the Boat.
I mean:
First
of
Belonging.
Sara Assadi
Year 13
Wellington Girls’ College
