hope

It's one o'clock on a Wednesday morning, and I should be asleep. But I close my eyes, and all I can see is Esther. I want to tell you her story.

Esther was married when she was fourteen. Her first baby was a boy who died in childhood. Her second was a girl, a fine girl. And then the war came. In 1995, when Esther was pregnant with her third child, the country was being torn apart by rebel forces. So when the pains came, there was no hospital Esther could go to. She stayed home, waiting for the baby to come. It was up so high. It just stuck here, she said, gesturing to her heart. It don't come out. The baby die. And still the baby would not come out.

Help arrived in the form of a man Esther refers to as a 'first-aid worker'. He took a pair of rusty scissors and cut the baby out of her from below, damaging her bladder in the process. Esther was left wounded, broken and massively infected. Urine leaked constantly from her body. She sat quietly today, every eye fixed on her downcast face, as she described being carried out and laid on banana leaves, being washed as the maggots fell from her skin. She let her arms hang heavy as she explained how she had not had the strength to brush away the flies. Her eyes were filled with pain as she told us that she was sure she would die.

Her head snapped up. But Daddy God, He save me. Slowly, Esther regained strength. She was able to start taking food again. Her husband went into the bush one day to find some cassava for her and met a band of rebels there. He never came back, and Esther started her new life as a widow. She went to her family's town to tell them of her problems, and they wept together, knowing all to well what it meant for her life. She journeyed to Ivory Coast to seek treatment and was met only with disappointment. For ten years, Esther lived the life of an outcast. When men found out about her problem, she was left alone, clutching a broken heart and empty promises.

When hope seemed lost, Esther heard about a ship that was going to come to Liberia, a ship where they could help problems like hers. She made her way to Monrovia and inquired at hospitals about how she could come to the ship, but greed had reared its ugly head. Extortionists set up shop, demanding outrageous sums of money (fifty, a hundred, even a thousand US dollars) for the chance to register for an appointment. Esther didn't know any better. Didn't know that the ship would come full of people who wanted to love her and have a hand in her healing and who would ask nothing from her in return. She went back to the bush and began burning charcoal to sell so she could scrape together the phony registration fee.

Enter the Ghanaian. A man of God, when she told him about her problem, his response was love. You are my true love. Your problem is my problem. I will wait for you. Together they discovered the truth about Mercy Ships, and Esther got an appointment card, a ticket to freedom from the bondage of her body's betrayal.

So, in 2005, Esther came to the ship. And she had surgery. And she was dry. At which point in the story, the twenty or so ladies packed into our half of A Ward erupted into shouts and laughter and clapping. And Robert, Esther's ten month old son, looked up from his place in her lap, grinned a mostly-toothless grin, and clapped his own pudgy little hands.

Because there is life after VVF. There is hope and there is healing. No, not for everyone; there were a few ladies who silently listened to Esther's story, stoic faces masking their own disappointment as they felt their beds grow wet again beneath them. But Esther and Robert reminded us today that new life can come from brokenness. Healing can come to even the most shattered places.

I was looking forward to posting the rest of Shidou's story for you. I couldn't wait to tell you all about how I went with him and they took off his bandages and we saw each other for the first time.

Instead, like so much else here, the story of Shidou is touched with sadness. I overslept yesterday and when I made it down to the ward, it was to find out that he had already been discharged. I ran out to the eye tent, hoping against hope that he would still be on the dock. Of course, this is Liberia, and nothing moves quickly; he was still very much there. Instead of the blue and white bug-like eye shields he had been sporting the night before, he now wore the coolest pair of silver sunglasses I've seen for a while. His mom recognized me right away as I slipped into the seat next to him. The exchange went something like this:

Shidou! How you feeling?
Fine. (As behind the glasses his eyes rolled, unfocused.)
You see me?
(His mom) Shidou, you see your best friend?

Nothing. Just a little body curled up against my side, fingers laced tight through mine.


Because sometimes the optic nerve doesn't form when the cataracts start so early. Sometimes it takes a while for the child to get accustomed to seeing when he's spent so long in darkness. And sometimes the surgery simply doesn't work.

So I don't know what the outcome will be for Shidou. Just like I don't know what the outcome will be for Liberia.

But I do know that this country has a heart deeper than I anticipated. Like the woman who paid for an almost hour-long taxi ride for a friend and I yesterday, refusing our offer of money as she thanked us for helping her rebuild her country.

Or Victoria, the mother of one of our smallest patients. 'Kumassah's Mom' (as she is more commonly known) rarely stops smiling, and she never hesitates to lend a hand around the ward. She translates for me, laughing with her head thrown back at my floundering attempts at Kpelle, as I try to explain things to my 84-year old friend. (No such thing as HIPAA in Liberia.) We call on her all the time, and she has not once uttered a grudging word.



Liberia stands on shoulders like these.

And she smiles through the faces of little boys like Abraham.