It took us four days to reach our destination albeit with two airlines. We took Kenya airways to Nairobi where we spent a night. The following day we boarded Sabena airlines which connected us to Brussels. We spent anothre night. There was a Sabena flight to Berlin the next day. We reached Berlin airport at 9:25 in the morning from where we traveled by train to Frankfurt.
The journey was extremely tiresome for me that I developed a fever. Canon Lewis ran a foundation. It was an NGO which looked after teenage girls and old women. He was a protestant clergyman and a qualified medical doctor. He was sixty four years married to Rena who was forty five. When we got to their house, Canon Lewis and his wife were staring at me. I blinked several times before I opened my eyes fully. I wondered how I had got to this place which I understood to be a hospital. Rena smiled at me. I did not know what was happening. I was feeling very week and dizzy. The sight of my dad gave me some relief and comfort to ask what I was doing in hospital. I turned from the glaring states to face the wall.
‘She’ll be fine.’ Canon Lewis asked his wife.
‘Yeah; she’s a strong girl.’ Replied his wife. My dad did not say anything.
Later that day, I felt sharp pains in my stomach. I tried to sleep on my back. I was very week and I realised that my abdomen was wrapped in bandages. I pushed the bed covers down my legs to see what was wrong with me. To my consternation, I no longer had the belly. I felt my stomach as every one looked at me. My bed was crowded. Apart from my dad, the Canon and his wife, there were two other doctors; a man and a woman who both wore clean, clear and stainless eye glasses and glittering white medical gowns. The woman stepped closer to me.
‘Do you feel so much pain?’ she asked in clear English. I was in a state of confusion. I remembered I was pregnant and wanted to ask for my baby but incidences of being raped emerged in my brain. Tears started running down my eyes. I did not want the baby and the doctor seemed to understand.
‘You’re going to be alright Whitney.’ She said. ‘But you’re not going to have your baby. She died inside your stomach.’ I saw stars around her and felt the real pain of surgery.
I rested my head on the pillow as I looked at the ceiling wich had too many bulbs. I remembered the drivers’ threats to me at the house back home when I was chased from school. I then heard the voice of the doctor who had just spoken returning in echoes. “You’re going to be alright Whitney but you’re not going to have your baby.”
I think sleep overtook me and I dreamt that I was carrying my baby and the driver was chasing me while shouting; Whitney, Whitney, give the baby to me, return the baby as his voice receded I woke up with a start. Canon Lewis stood there beside the bed and commended me for being strong. His wife told me I had had an operation, and that the baby had already died by the time I was operated.
What happened next is what will bring you back to this page next week.
