“Mariam did surmise, by the way Nana said the word, that it was an ugly, loathsome thing to be a harami, like an insect, like the scurrying cockroaches Nana was always cursing and sweeping out of the kolba.” 

When Nana first calls her a harami, Mariam, at the age of 5, does not fully understand what her mother means. Nevertheless, she is able to guess that being a harami means being abject and unwanted, like a pest. She has the sense that Nana may wish to sweep her out of the house along with the cockroaches. 

“‘Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always.’” 

Nana’s lesson to her daughter that a man always finds a way to blame a woman for whatever has befallen him proves tragically prophetic in the novel. This is true for Mariam on both a domestic and political level. The analogy with the north-pointing compass needle conveys the idea that blame will be automatic.

“‘Only one skill. And it’s this: tahamul. Endure.’”

Nana’s idea that Mariam has only one lesson to learn, endurance, is born of the former’s experiences and defines much of the latter’s adult life. By the time she is 33 years old, she has had seven miscarriages and suffered Rasheed’s beatings and contempt; indeed, endurance would seem to be Mariam’s main virtue. Nevertheless, when she bonds with Laila and Aziza, Mariam’s destiny comprises love as well as endurance.