Mona Stories · Read & Watch
Before Abu Azza traveled, he asked me to look after his land and help his wife if she needed anything. I thought of it as an ordinary promise between neighbors.
Six months later, Um Azza called and told me to come to the farm immediately.
A promise I treated as a duty
My name is Hassan. After earning a qualification but finding no suitable job, I returned to farming and caring for livestock in my village.
Abu Azza owned land beside ours. His daughter lived away from the village, and he frequently traveled to work with her husband. His wife remained responsible for the house and farm.
During one visit home, she asked him to stay because she was tired. He said it would be his final year abroad. Before leaving again, he asked me to help and told me to take payment for my work without embarrassment.
I irrigated the land and maintained the machinery. Months passed, but I did not ask for payment. I was uncomfortable requesting it from his wife and assumed he would settle the matter when he returned.
A conversation about more than money
When Um Azza called, she asked why I seemed less present. I explained that I was still doing the work but felt that no one had noticed my effort or asked whether I needed to be paid.
She was embarrassed that I had not spoken earlier. As we continued talking, I complimented the care she took with her appearance. The conversation shifted in a direction I should have stopped.
The next day, she called me back to the farm. She had prepared tea in the small shelter and was waiting.
She spoke about the years her husband spent away and how alone she felt. She suggested that she could offer something more than money.
I reminded myself that her husband had trusted me with his home and land. Instead of leaving, however, I stayed, and an affair began.
Two versions of the same household
Afterward, Um Azza treated the relationship as something ordinary. She said I understood her in a way her husband did not.
I kept telling myself that each visit would be the last. Then I returned again, tied to a secret that had become more powerful than the work I originally went there to do.
When Abu Azza came home, she became distant and treated me as simply a neighbor helping with the farm. He thanked me and called me trustworthy.
That praise hurt more than an accusation would have. I knew that I had betrayed the very trust he was expressing.
The relationship resumed when he traveled again. Um Azza described me as someone she needed during his absence, a role that wounded my pride even as I continued accepting it.
Hassan ends the story without an escape from the situation. He asks how a promise meant to protect a neighbor’s household became something that threatened it instead.
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Original Mona Stories narration. Playback controls are set to English; available audio and captions depend on the video.