”Getting Ideas”. - A Short Story by Farah Ahamed - 2018

“Getting Ideas” by Farah Ahamed



Farah Ahamed on The Reading Life

“Getting Ideas” is the sixth Short Story by Farah Ahamed upon which I have posted.  I have been reading her work since April, 2015. Obviously I see Ahamed  as writer of significant talent and insight.  

“Getting Ideas” focuses on Aisha, a Syrian refugee living in the UK and working for a NGO, an international human rights organisation. His father has given her advise: “‘We don’t want any problems with the law. Remember, no one will defend your rights. You’re invisible, a refugee. Give thanks for what you have. Be on your guard and make yourself as inconspicuous as possible.’”  She lives alone.  People pretty much treat her as if she is invisible when she is not at work.  Then one exciting day her boss offers her a position as a Children’s Rights Coordinator in Tanzania.  She will be in charge of evaluating the effectiveness of Aid as it applies to schools supported by her NGO.

Her first assignment takes her on a long journey over rough roads, accompanied by a driver and a  young Tanzanian woman who now works for the NGO.  They are on their way to visit a school, supported by aid from her NGO.  Her young assistant graduated from the school five years ago.  Ahamed does a masterful job letting us see how Aisha feels.  She has gone from the UK, where she was near invisible to an important high status official in rural Tanzania.  Depending on her report the school, and the director, can receive much more aid or be cut out.

In a very subtle scene, we see the driver almost, maybe just to himself, mocking her as a representative of USA provided aid.  He knows he is supposed to be humble before her but I sensed resentment.  Of course aid is subject to misuse and appropriation by corrupt officials and maybe he knows this and Aisha seems naive to him.  

Upon arrival at the school all the students, it is a girl’s school, sing a song in honour of Aisha.  The students have developed a play, on their own, to preform for her.  It is, per the male director, meant to show the aid money is helping the girls.  

The performance of the play is a very powerful emotionally moving scene.  It is important that first time readers be allowed to experience this on their own so I will not say much.  It is right out of the #metoo movement so much in the news.  I felt very proud of all the women in the story.  

“Getting Ideas” is a first rate story .  In just a few pages we experience very different cultures and we see a liberation I was not expecting.  I know Aisha will grow into a strong woman and I hope the girls will also. 

I hope to follow Ahamed for many more years.

Farah Ahamed is a short fiction writer. Her stories have been published in The Massachusetts Review, Thresholds, Kwani?, The Missing Slate, and Out of Print among others. She was highly commended in the 2016 London Short Story Prize, joint winner of the inaugural 2017 Gerald Kraak Award and has been nominated for The Caine and The Pushcart prizes. She was shortlisted for the SI Leeds Literary Prize, DNA/Out of Print Award, Sunderland Waterstones Award, Asian Writer Short Story Prize, and Strands International Short Story.

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