Flywheel Society: Assignment #4 Fiction
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| PHOTO: Joni Kabana |
The rural Ethiopian countryside holds
some of the most beautiful views rich with rolling hills, green acacia trees
and traditional tukil huts with thatched roofs. Amara lived in the countryside
and her story was full of both hope and pain.
Her name meant “unfading, eternal” and she had an unfading beauty about
her. She had brown eyes, braids in her
hair, and a bright smile. Every day, she
spent hours carrying large jars of water back and forth from the well. Her constant heavy load contributed to her
petite frame.
Amara was only 15 when it was
decided for her to marry. She knew this
day was coming but it seemed to come too soon.
In so many ways she still felt like a girl and not quite ready to be a
woman with the responsibilities of a wife and mother. But the decision had been
made and she was to marry. Soon after
her wedding day, Amara became pregnant and she was full of anticipation to have
her first baby. When it came time to
give birth, she was anxious and only had her mother and two sisters to comfort
her. Even though it was rarely talked
about she knew there were dangers surrounding childbirth and she prayed, “God
give me a healthy baby and that I can be strong during the delivery.” She lived
way up in the mountains and a ride to the closest town was a long bus ride
away.
She had labored for hours and felt
like it was time to push. It was in the
middle of the night and Amara knew if something was wrong there would be no one
to help until dawn. She kept pushing and
pushing but nothing was happening. Her
body felt almost numb from the pain and exhaustion. When morning came she knew something wasn’t
right and her sister ran to find someone in the village to help. It was clear her only hope was to get down
from the mountain to a small clinic.
Amara described her long grueling trip; “I finally made it to the bus which was over flowing
with people. It was hot and stuffy and I
felt like I couldn’t breath. As we made
our way down the mountain, the pain became excruciating with every bounce along
with rough road. The pressure was so intense and the pain almost made me black
out.” Her journey was overwhelming and
felt like it would never end.
When she finally made it to the
clinic there were only two women to attend her and thankfully one was a trained
birth attendant. With sweat and tears
soaking her face, she thought, “What is wrong? What is happening to me and my
baby?” When it was finally over her body
exhausted from the pushing and the pain, they handed her a lifeless baby. She looked and it was a boy. He had a head full of dark hair and a tiny
little nose. Amara cried, “My heart was
aching and I wondered if this was a curse from God?” She was told that her body was just too small
to deliver a full term baby and he had died from all the pressure from long
hours of labor and pushing.
“What will
this mean for my family…will I ever be able to have children?” Amara thought. She
worried how her family and especially her husband would receive her if she
couldn’t have children. She had heard of
those barren women who never bore children and she wondered if she would be one
of them. There were no immediate answers
but she returned back to her village with the hope that one day there would be
more babies to come.
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| PHOTO: Joni Kabana |
Ethiopia
is a captivating country rich in culture and beauty yet like many developing
countries, they are still lacking in essential things like access to quality
health care and adequate roads to get to them. In Ethiopia, one in five girls
marry before the age of 15. Each year,
20,000 women die in childbirth and 77 babies out of 1,000 live births don’t
survive. In addition, only 6% of women give birth with a skilled health
professional. Giving birth can be a frightening experience for any
woman but in a country with very few health care centers and even scarcer
doctors to go around the hope for an easy delivery becomes more of desperation
than just a wish.
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