Home Is Not a Country

Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | YA | Published in 2021

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1

Part 2, Pages 83-135

Part 2, Pages 136-190

Part 3

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Part 2, Pages 136-190Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “Old Country”

Part 2, Pages 136-154 Summary

Following Nima’s father to a cafe in “Baba,” the girls watch as he is greeted by name. Although social, he is tense. After others leave, Ahmed wrestles with his thoughts until another man joins and talks of his desire for a child and his plans to leave the country. Ahmed’s face falls, and Nima expects to hear his wishes to bring his family to America. Instead, in “Coward,” her father reveals his desire to leave Aisha because he does not want to be a father. Upon hearing this, anger and shame replace Nima’s adoration of her father, and in “Mama,” she swells with love for her mother and their life together.

Nima returns to her mother’s gathering of friends in “The Game.” Aisha shares names for her daughter: she prefers Nima, but Ahmed loves Yasmeen. After a debate, they play a game to decide. For each round won in favor of Yasmeen, Nima loses part of her body and vice versa. Both girls fear the prospect of dissolving entirely, so Nima kicks the tea, which spills, abruptly ending the game. Yasmeen is angry while Nima feels unsettled.

In “Quiet,” Yasmeen pulls Nima outside, and eventually, they go to the rooftop of an abandoned building on the river. There, in “A Country,” Nima momentarily forgets the game and enjoys the sights, smells, and muffled sounds from below. As Nima calms, she reminds “Yasmeen” that they wanted to warn Aisha of Ahmed’s abandonment. Nima does not want her mother to adore such a cowardly man. She asks if their parents are together in Yasmeen’s life, but the girl refuses to answer. Realizing Yasmeen knows more, Nima feels betrayed by this girl whom she considers a sister.

In “Half Possible,” Yasmeen admits there is no parallel universe and only one of them can exist. Their fates depend on which name is chosen. Right now, Yasmeen is trapped between two worlds, and she only shimmers into existence because Nima wishes herself away. While they talk, Yasmeen inches closer and pushes Nima off the roof. As she falls, Nima grabs Yasmeen’s shirt, pulling the girl with her.

Part 2, Pages 155-172 Summary

Landing in the river in “A Single Possibility,” they grapple, and Yasmeen pulls Nima under. Finally, Nima understands that they “are opposite ends of a single / possibility” (155), meaning only one of them can exist. As Nima frees herself, Yasmeen gets stuck underwater and is pulled down. In “Yasmeen,” Nima reaches beneath the surface to grab the girl’s braid and then dives down to extricate her foot from a net. Succeeding, she and Yasmeen swim to shore.

In “Yesterday & Tomorrow,” Nima pities Yasmeen. Although she knows Yasmeen is not dangerous or better than her, Nima still resents her decision to save the girl. Yasmeen complains about the difficulties of existing between two worlds and about how Nima ungratefully wastes her life. Ashamed, Nima knows the girl is right.

At “Dusk,” they see Nima’s mother hurrying to Hala’s house for a gathering. Once there, Aisha laughs, telling the women she loves this country and imagines what it was like decades ago. In “The Lesson,” her mother leads a dance while Nima teaches Yasmeen the moves. Nima questions Yasmeen’s situation in “An Alternate Possibility,” and Yasmeen admits that she is waiting for any life to inhabit. In response, Nima shares that she loves her life, but wishes she could be better.

When Yasmeen shares all she desires in “A Life,” her body begins to fade. In the next two poems, the girl shimmers, her hair and eyes change colors, and her features morph. Then Yasmeen stumbles into tables at the party, scaring the guests who witness this invisible destruction. As Yasmeen’s body flings itself repeatedly against a tree, Mama Fatheya emerges with incense and prayers, sending Yasmeen away and telling everyone how nasty this jinni seems in “Spirits.” Nima recoils, for she knows that Yasmeen is not evil.

Part 2, Pages 173-190 Summary

In “Alone,” Nima is not relieved at Yasmeen’s absence but instead feels a loss. In the next poem, Nima wishes to be in America with her mother. As she thinks this, she feels the invisible hands of Yasmeen pull her to stand. The spirit girl admits that she no longer wants Nima’s life but wants to help instead because Nima has been so kind to her. In response, Nima suggests the possibility of getting Yasmeen a life; momentarily, Nima disappears while Yasmeen becomes visible.

In “The Plan,” they walk to the café, Yasmeen blurring again. Once there, they find Nima’s father and his friend who wishes for a baby. When the man departs, Nima pushes Yasmeen toward him, encouraging her to become a real person, the man’s child. Now alone, Nima resolves to embrace her own identity.

Once at her grandmother’s house in “Leaving,” Nima impulsively whispers to her mother that Ahmed is planning to desert her and then watches as they argue in the car. Moments later in “The Officers,” a truck pulls next to their car. Nima watches the familiar scene unfold when the officers leer at Aisha and demand that she come with them. Instead of a shot being fired, though, Nima throws rocks into the group. They shoot at her, but the bullets fly through her body while Ahmed speeds safely away.

Later, when her parents return, holding each other in “Leaving,” Aisha pleads for Ahmed to stay, but he refuses. In “Gone,” Nima stands with her mother outside, confused because she thought she was changing their history and future; only then does she realize that it was never fate for Ahmed to be with them. In “Left Behind,” Nima’s mother cries into the next day when Hala visits and shares that she is being sent to America. She begs Aisha to come with her. When Hala leaves, Nima strokes her mother’s hair, whispering that she needs her. Aisha looks at her belly and calls her Nima, her “saving grace” (188). As her mother says this, Nima fades and reappears in their apartment in America as the bathtub fills with water.

Part 2, Pages 136-190 Analysis

Water continues to symbolize clarity and calmness, particularly when Nima and Yasmeen grapple in the river. Only when Nima is submerged does she recognize the situation: “she forces me back / under the water / & i am so afraid i am almost calm the thoughts / unspooling slowly before me i understand her plan / to make herself the only option” (155). Because of the calmness the water provides, Nima can see the reality of the situation for the first time. Although she has sensed before that Yasmeen was withholding information, it is not until she is underwater that Nima knows they are actually foes and not friends. However, the truth is not easy for Nima, for when she first enters the water, “the waves which looked so gentle from the shore / splash up into [her] face fill [her] mouth & sting / [her] burning eyes” (155). The truth, like water, can sting. However, Nima needs this shock to the system to fully understand that Yasmeen is not helping her, but instead, trying to kill her. Moments later, Nima gains clarity not just about the situation, but also about herself when she watches her alter ego sink in “Yasmeen.” Nima thinks, “i know / i should just let her go let myself become the only / possibility eliminate the other / but i can’t just leave her there leave the body / that is my body to die” (157). While in the water, Nima understands who she truly is, a good and compassionate person. She cannot, in good conscience, allow this spirit girl to perish even though she is her foe. In her few minutes in the water, Nima experiences the clarity and calmness needed to understand both herself and her situation.

The river scene also highlights Nima’s learning and growth in this bildungsroman and shows how her use of Imagination as a Coping Mechanism both enables her growth and must be surrendered in favor of confronting reality. Upon entering the past, Nima envisions Yasmeen as the sister she never had and her father as someone to idolize. As her time in the past progresses, Nima learns that both people and relationships are more complex than she imagines. She sees Yasmeen’s selfish desire to usurp Nima’s life. Additionally, the story she has crafted about her father as a hero disappears when she considers him a coward for leaving her mother. When Nima tries to alter history by throwing rocks at the officers, her father still plans to leave. Once this truth hits her, she notes that “he was never meant to be ours my father / he was always meant to be gone [...] & my mother & i were always meant to belong / to no one but each other” (185). This realization marks Nima’s acceptance of her life as it is and ends her quest to always imagine a romanticized version of what could have been. Elhillo’s isolation of the final three words—but “but each other”—emphasizes Nima’s understanding that she needs nothing more than her mother. Here, the truth, not what Nima imagines, allows her to not just cope, but relish in the life she leads. This acceptance underscores the growth Nima has undergone.

Nima’s growing maturity also helps her understand Home as a Feeling Not a Place. When she first observes her father in the café, she longs to hear him say that he plans to take the family to America “to call a new country our home” (139). This twist on the novel’s title suggests that Nima still believes that a location dictates a sense of home. When Nima’s hopes are dashed in the next poem, she begins to realize that home is not a place, but a sense of comfort and belonging. Her recognition of this idea is apparent when she strokes her mother’s hair and whispers that “i need you we have a whole life together together / you’re all i need not him you’re all i need please” (188). Because Nima emphasizes her need for her mother alone and not America or Sudan, she clearly understands that the love, support, and comfort her mother provides is ultimately what constitutes home.