In advance, I apologize for any grammar mistakes/historical conflicts. While I study Muslim religion, my knowledge of this time period in these particular places is weak. Edits can be made. 

[hider=Esra]Name: Esra Gad El Rab

Age: 22

Gender: Female

Birthplace: Tafilet, Morocco

Religious Affiliation: Muslim

Secular Affiliation: House of Alaoui

Level of education: attended many classes and lectures at her mosque in Tafilet & Rabat; 
trained as a healer

Social status: middle class (in Morocco)

Occupation: midwife & healer, mother & wife

Appearance: It’s a joke between Othman, her husband, and Esra that she is the better looking of the two. One because it is not hard to look more attractive than her club-footed husband who also sports drooping eyes and poor teeth. Two because Esra isn’t horribly attractive herself. She has too many freckles on her face and her bottom lip is too fat to be considered “pouty.” Her eyebrows are thick (almost identical to Othman’s) and her small nose is almost as wide as it is long. As a child, she couldn’t wait to wear a hajib because of scar behind her left ear that left a large bald spot. Othman helps comb out her black hair at night. She’s got the type of body babies like to bury their faces into; soft and warm and fleshy. Othman says this is her most attractive feature (even more so than her green eyes).

Personality: Esra doesn’t like to be interrupted. Even when dealing with her four children, she becomes frustrated if cut off when speaking or forced to stop a chore before she was finished. She appreciates routine as any healer would who has had to deal with the results of a break in routine (a dead mother or a maimed child). She might admit that she likes stories too much. But she also might begin to tell a story about why she likes stories so much. She likes broken, lopsided things more than perfect, smooth things. After getting something new, she likes to knick or tear it. Othman hates her tendency to stare at a person’s knees as she talks to them. When on a ship, she brings along her own spices and ingredients to cook with. She never asks if this okay to use the kitchen. But if brought food from the cook, she will eat it all and give thanks for their generosity. She won’t let her children or husband have any of it.

Skill set: Familiar with oils & tonics & herbs for aliments; she’s assisted with the occasional surgery; sewing, cleaning, cooking, & the general know-all of mothering.

Languages: Arabic (fluent) & Berber (fluent)

Bio: Tafilalt is no place to grow-up. Rabat was no place to have a family either. But both places are home to Esra. Her father did her best to shield his family from the anarchy of Tafilalt. He balanced the books of several date palm merchants for a small commission when traders came through the Shara either west towards the Barbary pirates or east towards the Algerians (though Sultan Ali Cherif and his son Sultan ibn Sharif attempted to turn the cluster of ruins and anarchy into something resembling its previous glory over three hundred years ago). The job is appropriate to a man who is as flavorful as [i]khobz[/i]. His employers could be Shi’a Muslims or Jews and he’d get along just fine with his bent back and down cast eyes. Omar never knew how to handle his children, though, even the boys. He would squint at them as if he’s not entirely sure what they were doing in his household each meal time he came home. 

Her mother, however, knew just exactly how to handle the mischievous boys and the catty girls. Three older brothers and three younger sisters set Esra in the middle. For five years she assumed the position of the one and only little sister. When her sisters came along she was confused by the amount of attention they received and dumbfounded by the responsibilities now attributed to her because she became the eldest daughter. For the thirteen years she lived in Tafilalt with her family, she didn’t have a good relationship with her sisters and often fought with them.

She married her cousin, Othman, when she was fourteen and he was twenty. She only met him a handful of times, but she enjoyed how he hobbled around already with a cane he carved himself. He had a good voice for storytelling. Esra knows this is what led her to fall in love with him. Othman explained to her on their trip from Tafilalt to Rabat after their wedding that he was a carpenter. A simple carpenter who was contracted by Barbary pirates to make repairs to their ships. Esra explained to Othman that her father was a banker for date palm farmers. A simple banker who’s money was made off the backs of slaves. 

If she wasn’t living with Othman’s father and two wives she was on the ships with Othman. Esra’s first child was born in the cabin of a ship with a French name and a Captain who wasn’t Muslim, but respected the religion nonetheless. She was there to accompany the Captain’s wife (a Spanish woman that wore too much lace) as they journeyed into the Mediterranean to sell European slaves along the Algerian and Tunis coast. Often as the only woman on a ship she learned how to take care of herself (how to wrap rolled ankle or what helped her stomach during bad waves). That translated over to her time on land as well when she started working at Rabat’s hospitals in the women’s ward. 

With her four children either strapped to her back or toddling after her, Esra became proficient in healing and child birth on and off the sea. Despite her time in questionable company, Esra never knew real danger. Her births were always smooth. Her children always strong. Othman temper is fair and the Captain’s of the ships she was on respected Othman’s work so much that they and the crew never harassed her. 

During her travels along the coast collecting slaves for the Ottoman empire or illegal goods for whoever had deep pockets at the time, not once had she ever stepped foot on foreign soil. She always stayed in her family’s cabin until the cargo was loaded and they were out to sea again. It wasn’t until Portugal 1666 that she got off a ship when docked. Little dingies brought them to the shore of Sintra. They were supposed to dock in Lisboa. She wished the Captain stuck to his plan.

Notes: Although she is a healer, she primarily took care of women due to gender segregation as outlined in the Qur’an. [/hider]