What a wet, wet, wet day we’re having. Actually, we’ve had almost more rain than sun since I came ten days ago. Apparently it’s rainy season. I dragged myself out of bed for seven am breakfast this morning and was delighted to discover we were in the midst of a torrential downpour, lightning, thunder and all. Sitting on deck 7, my new favorite place to read, thunder erupted so loud over my head my heart nearly jumped out of my chest. It was great. Don’t think for a minute that because it’s wet, it’s also cold. The rain does bring with it a cool breeze, though, making it a comfortable, balmy kind of climate. I’m hoping to acclimatize to the warm before I’m confronted with the truly scorching heat when the rains dry up
I’ve just come from a dress ceremony in the hospital, the second I’ve been fortunate enough to attend. Each woman gets a brand new African dress and headdress upon discharge. To explain, I’ll have to back up a bit. Many women in Benin give birth in rural villages with a midwife, or maybe only a family member, attending. Often this is fine, neither the woman nor her baby suffer complications. Occasionally, however, for whatever reason, the labor is long or the baby is big, things do not go well. Too often the baby dies. The mother can also have internal tearing. If the tear goes un-repaired, it can become infected and eventually cause a hole, or fistula, between vagina and urethra, or vagina and rectum. The result is a continuous unrestrainable flow of urine or other body fluid. As one would imagine, it would be somewhat disruptive to be constantly wet and smell of urine. Many of their husbands leave them or kick them out. Almost all are unable to continue work. Some are abandoned by all family and friends.
Mercy Ships offers free surgery to ladies with this affliction. Sometimes the damage is extensive and beyond the surgeons’ ability to repair, even with muscle or skin grafting. How exciting, though, when, after fourteen days with a foley catheter, the catheter is removed and a woman is dry for the first time in five, maybe ten years! The expression on their faces literally changes. They have been restored as people, as women. And they are beautiful. I’ve had the honor of getting to know a few of them. In my few days here, I’ve been at the bedside of one woman whose surgery failed. I was devastated for and with her. Yet the next day she was dancing with the other ladies, determined not to let her hope of healing die completely. After all, maybe she could have a second surgery when the Africa Mercy comes to Togo. And I’ve rejoiced with a woman whose catheter I removed and remained dry, urinating in a toilet for the first time in thirteen years!
So the dress ceremony is more than a fancy way of getting discharged from the hospital. It is a recognition of a life changed. An induction back into society; an affirmation that each one of these precious women is known by her Creator who cares about every intimate detail of her life. It is beautiful, and I am filled with gratitude to be a part of it.
