"they say we are at peace now"
it was a slow morning at the women's centre and i had only had 3 official clients. my fourth, unofficial, patient wasn't on the books. this left me with a lot of time hanging out in the consultation room with "a", the masalite who, i hope, will take over the women's centre when i'm gone. "a" speaks fluent english, arabic and masalite and is, for all intents and purposes, a female mayor of sorts. as a woman who is educated, intelligent, compassionate, relatively rich and incredibly well-respected, she is privy to every piece of information that exists in habillah, and today she shared more of it with me than i could have ever possibly hoped to hear. it reminded me of the first night i arrived home from aghanistan, when kate d, kate v, peter and nathan were waiting at my house and stayed up late into the night with me. i showed them my pictures and told them story after tragic story until the point when kate d lay down and begged "please stop". that was the moment that i realized that i was numb to the point where they had just become 'stories' to me- i had forgotten that those words still had the capacity to hurt those who heard them. today as "a" was talking, i started by listened raptly, wishing i had a tape recorder so i could remain faithful to every word of it in this repetition. towards the end of it i just sat there, stunned, and the only words running through my mind were "please stop, please stop, please stop". (it took hours to tell the stories- they aren't all included here).
it all started when joyce, one of our midwives, came into the room and told me she needed to talk to me. there was a woman whose husband wanted to know how pregnant she was as they had only been married 2 months and she seemed much further along than that. thankfully (yes, i've learned to become thankful for these things) he was only planning to divorce her if it turned out she was pregnant with someone else's child. joyce did an examination and decided that she was around 5 months pregnant- and that's when she asked me to double check. the woman came in and i asked her to lie on the examination table. as soon as she lifted up her shawl i could see that she wasn't just 2 months pregnant. upon feeling the fundus and the baby, i wasn't surprised to find the heartbeat with the fetoscope. we sat down and "a" started to talk to her. she turned to me and told me that the girl said she had only been with her husband and there was therefore no way she could be more than 2 months pregnant. i told her that we knew she wasn't two months pregnant, but that we would never tell anyone that and she was free to tell her husband whatever she wanted. i asked "a" to ask the woman if she wanted to tell us what had really happened. they spoke for awhile and then "a" turned to me and said that the woman was going to go home and tell her husband that she was 5 months pregnant and if he divorced her, he divorced her, but he wouldn't kill her (they were masalite, not nomads). she had 5 children from her first husband who had been killed in the fighting and this man had married her anyways, so she hoped he would be understanding. she left and i asked "a" what the woman had said. she stared off into space and told me that the women whose husbands had been killed in the fighting were the ones who were the most defenceless. at night they had no one to protect them. during the day they had no one to help provide for their children. some of these women had given in and were now selling their bodies. it was going to happen anyways, and this way they could at least buy food for their children afterwards. girls were doing the same, as some of the older men used their desperation against them. in the name of survival, and the survival of their children, these women are forced to compromise everything they believe in and when they became pregnant they are ostracized for it.
i asked "a" how it was that habillah remained free from major attacks, and she told me the story. it was august, i'm not sure what year, when she heard the plane overhead. she went outside and saw it flying low over habillah and then she felt the first bomb hit the ground. she ran inside and told her children to lay on the ground and she gave them a verse from the koran to recite. the plane passed over habillah, dropping more bombs as it went. her husband had been walking down the street with a friend when one of the bombs dropped. he hit the ground and lived, while his friend stood standing and was torn apart. anyone who was on the main "street" was annihilated, men, pregnant women, children- they found many of their remains blown up into the trees. a male neighbour ran into "a's" yard and told her to take her children and run as they were going to level the village. she gathered her 6 little boys, the youngest just a month old, and ran for the forest. it ended and they cautiously returned, only to realize that it wasn't over and run back to the forest. when the bombing started again, two of her sons bolted into the forest and weren't found for hours. there was a woman there who was in such shock that when she finally went to give her children some food she looked at them, stopped short and started screaming when she realized that she had saved children who weren't hers, and hers were missing (her children were later found). they spent the night in the forest under a tarp that "a" had thought to bring and they slept in the mud.
the next day there was a huge nationwide uproar about the attack. many in the upper eschelons in khartoum had come from habillah and they were furious about the attack on their former village, family and friends. a helicopter was immediately dispatched for habillah, holding some high-ranking officials who were sent in to have a meeting and do some damage-control. during that meeting the paramilitary surrounded habillah and prepared to finish destroying the village, as was always the case. the planes bombed the villages into shock, horror and submission, and the next day the horsemen rode in to rape and pillage. the problem this time? there were government officials present in habillah that day, and one of the paramilitary commanders was at that very meeting. the officials, realizing that, for once, their safety was in jeopardy, demanded that the commander stop the attack. they then decided to convince the nomads to leave habillah standing as it would benefit them to have it still exist. where will you buy your sugar and your soap if there is no market? no, leave the village standing so that you can use it to your advantage. and so they did. and this is why habillah remains standing, one of the few villages that wasn't destroyed.
and now? now there is this tentative "peace" in the land. the paramilitary are still armed and are still in complete control of this area. they can beat and steal from the villagers right in front of the police and soldiers and neither of them care enough to step in. they can kill without consequence. no one will leave this village, or any of the other IDP camps, until the paramilitary are disarmed and controlled. many of the people talk wistfully of when the UN peacekeepers will arrive and protect them. then, they say, only then will they feel safe enough to return home. and yet... "a" told me that the paramilitary had already told them what will happen if and when the peacekeepers arrive. the moment their planes touch down in sudan, whether it's here or khartoum, the paramilitarty will kill every single black african that they can. their belief that the peacekeepers are here to fight them and protect the blacks has made them decide that they will take as many of the blacks with them as they can. you came here to defend the black sudanese? oh, sorry, there's no one left for you to defend. go ahead and kill us, you were going to anyways. suddenly people aren't so excited about the prospect of being "rescued". being rescued only sounds like a happy ending if you live to see it happen.
"a" finally trailed off and came back to an awareness of the room. looking at me she said incredulously "they say we are at peace now".
it all started when joyce, one of our midwives, came into the room and told me she needed to talk to me. there was a woman whose husband wanted to know how pregnant she was as they had only been married 2 months and she seemed much further along than that. thankfully (yes, i've learned to become thankful for these things) he was only planning to divorce her if it turned out she was pregnant with someone else's child. joyce did an examination and decided that she was around 5 months pregnant- and that's when she asked me to double check. the woman came in and i asked her to lie on the examination table. as soon as she lifted up her shawl i could see that she wasn't just 2 months pregnant. upon feeling the fundus and the baby, i wasn't surprised to find the heartbeat with the fetoscope. we sat down and "a" started to talk to her. she turned to me and told me that the girl said she had only been with her husband and there was therefore no way she could be more than 2 months pregnant. i told her that we knew she wasn't two months pregnant, but that we would never tell anyone that and she was free to tell her husband whatever she wanted. i asked "a" to ask the woman if she wanted to tell us what had really happened. they spoke for awhile and then "a" turned to me and said that the woman was going to go home and tell her husband that she was 5 months pregnant and if he divorced her, he divorced her, but he wouldn't kill her (they were masalite, not nomads). she had 5 children from her first husband who had been killed in the fighting and this man had married her anyways, so she hoped he would be understanding. she left and i asked "a" what the woman had said. she stared off into space and told me that the women whose husbands had been killed in the fighting were the ones who were the most defenceless. at night they had no one to protect them. during the day they had no one to help provide for their children. some of these women had given in and were now selling their bodies. it was going to happen anyways, and this way they could at least buy food for their children afterwards. girls were doing the same, as some of the older men used their desperation against them. in the name of survival, and the survival of their children, these women are forced to compromise everything they believe in and when they became pregnant they are ostracized for it.
i asked "a" how it was that habillah remained free from major attacks, and she told me the story. it was august, i'm not sure what year, when she heard the plane overhead. she went outside and saw it flying low over habillah and then she felt the first bomb hit the ground. she ran inside and told her children to lay on the ground and she gave them a verse from the koran to recite. the plane passed over habillah, dropping more bombs as it went. her husband had been walking down the street with a friend when one of the bombs dropped. he hit the ground and lived, while his friend stood standing and was torn apart. anyone who was on the main "street" was annihilated, men, pregnant women, children- they found many of their remains blown up into the trees. a male neighbour ran into "a's" yard and told her to take her children and run as they were going to level the village. she gathered her 6 little boys, the youngest just a month old, and ran for the forest. it ended and they cautiously returned, only to realize that it wasn't over and run back to the forest. when the bombing started again, two of her sons bolted into the forest and weren't found for hours. there was a woman there who was in such shock that when she finally went to give her children some food she looked at them, stopped short and started screaming when she realized that she had saved children who weren't hers, and hers were missing (her children were later found). they spent the night in the forest under a tarp that "a" had thought to bring and they slept in the mud.
the next day there was a huge nationwide uproar about the attack. many in the upper eschelons in khartoum had come from habillah and they were furious about the attack on their former village, family and friends. a helicopter was immediately dispatched for habillah, holding some high-ranking officials who were sent in to have a meeting and do some damage-control. during that meeting the paramilitary surrounded habillah and prepared to finish destroying the village, as was always the case. the planes bombed the villages into shock, horror and submission, and the next day the horsemen rode in to rape and pillage. the problem this time? there were government officials present in habillah that day, and one of the paramilitary commanders was at that very meeting. the officials, realizing that, for once, their safety was in jeopardy, demanded that the commander stop the attack. they then decided to convince the nomads to leave habillah standing as it would benefit them to have it still exist. where will you buy your sugar and your soap if there is no market? no, leave the village standing so that you can use it to your advantage. and so they did. and this is why habillah remains standing, one of the few villages that wasn't destroyed.
and now? now there is this tentative "peace" in the land. the paramilitary are still armed and are still in complete control of this area. they can beat and steal from the villagers right in front of the police and soldiers and neither of them care enough to step in. they can kill without consequence. no one will leave this village, or any of the other IDP camps, until the paramilitary are disarmed and controlled. many of the people talk wistfully of when the UN peacekeepers will arrive and protect them. then, they say, only then will they feel safe enough to return home. and yet... "a" told me that the paramilitary had already told them what will happen if and when the peacekeepers arrive. the moment their planes touch down in sudan, whether it's here or khartoum, the paramilitarty will kill every single black african that they can. their belief that the peacekeepers are here to fight them and protect the blacks has made them decide that they will take as many of the blacks with them as they can. you came here to defend the black sudanese? oh, sorry, there's no one left for you to defend. go ahead and kill us, you were going to anyways. suddenly people aren't so excited about the prospect of being "rescued". being rescued only sounds like a happy ending if you live to see it happen.
"a" finally trailed off and came back to an awareness of the room. looking at me she said incredulously "they say we are at peace now".
posted by Amy Osborne | 1:34 PM
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