Elayne Clift is a writer from Vermont who recently volunteered two weeks of service at the Edna Hospital.
A writer! You know what that means?
It means there’s now a perceptive and beautifully-written journal entry which can help you better to understand the life of the Hospital and the culture of Somaliland.
She is not real happy about the treatment of women in Somaliland….
I am beginning to see the dark side of this country and culture, where voiceless, disempowered women must have their husbands’ permission to have a C-section or an induction for medical reasons. (If they need a hysterectomy their father must agree – her body belongs to him.) I watch as husbands come to sign (or not), ignoring their laboring wives who walk the halls. Imperious and authoritarian, they swagger in and out self-importantly. The doctor says he has seen them deny their wife her life, even when she is crying to be rescued.
On the other hand…
The longer I’m here the more I like the Somali women I meet; they have a good sense of humor, are generally warm and appear to welcome our help. At lunch we are joined by an American missionary surgeon and his wife; the doctor can hardly control himself as he whispers to me, “Can you imagine going to Wyoming and telling people to change their ways?”
Another excerpt, describing her experience teaching a class of first-year nursing students…
They seem rapt when I am speaking, mesmerized perhaps by this elderly white lady who talks of strange things, but when I ask them questions or want to know what their questions or thoughts are, they are silent. I say, “Allah gave you a voice! Women’s voices are beautiful! You must not be afraid to use your voice!” but this falls on deaf ears – they have been long socialized into silence.
Please follow this link, and read the full journal entry:
Into Africa: A Somaliland Experience
