Self-Sustaining Enterprises Blog

Last week our helper Mary seemed a little subdued when she arrived.  She set about the usual chores; sweeping, dusting, washing dishes and consulting the list I’d written for her.  It was only later in the morning, when we sat down to tea, that I discovered what was troubling her.

She’d been on her way to work on an achaba (motorcycle taxi), when she saw a crowd of people.  They were standing on a narrow bridge, looking down.  She said to her driver, “Let me stop, so that I can see what’s going on.”

She climbed off the bike and joined them.  The bridge spanned a wide streambed through which a narrow river flowed.  There on the sand, not far from the water, lay a baby.

The child was lying face-down, crumpled and broken.  From the wrappings it was impossible to tell if it had been a boy or a girl.  But it was a big baby, Mary told me, not a newborn.  She stood there in the rain, looking down on that awful scene.

I was appalled.   “If this happened in the United States, the police would arrest that mother for murder!”

“Here also,” said Mary, “if they can find her.” 

And then I knew.  The shadows of secrecy would most likely descend and obscure this sad little story, because a family here would desperately shield themselves from the shame of such disclosure. 

What brought a mother to such desperate straits, to choose a bridge instead of a hospital?  Was she too poor to feed another mouth?  Was she young, disgraced and abandoned by the man she thought would marry her?  Was she a widow, and some relation of her late husband’s had forced his attentions and this unwanted child upon her?  Did she have a chance to marry, but her future husband had made it clear that this baby had no place in that new life?  Was she suffering from postpartum depression, and this seemed the only way out of her hopelessness?

We looked at each other, horrified.  And then I realized how much more terrible and inerasable that sight was for Mary, looking off that bridge with four-month-old Grace, so warm and helpless and safe on her back.

Live from Jos,

Karen