We are visiting another shelter, this one in a building lent to the ministry by a local church.  It houses about 20 women and serves as temporary housing for women who have been abandoned by their husbnads and young girls who were married to military men and later abandoned. 

They live here while negotiaons with their husbands are made.  My God's grace one woman and one girl have been reconciled to their spouses.  The residents attend training programs at one of the other centers.

Here I had the chance to tape interviews with some of the women and girls. I have done this sort of thing all over the world. As I had done in other places and at other times, I wrote out cues for them to follow as they began: “Hello, my name is _________.” “I am from _____________.”

Knowing none of the residents could use this helpful tool in English, I thoughtfully asked our translator to write it in the local language. Despite this forethought, the women completely ignored it. Then I realized – none of them could read. It’s the same reason I often found men teaching the sewing classes – none of the women had been able to attend school. They could not even read the numbers on a ruler to know where to cut or stitch the fabric.

Meeting Noel was a difficult experience. She came in and sat down, sharing her story almost mechanically, with dead eyes. She was holding her son, whose unknown father was one of the men who violated her. When she finished and stood up to leave, I stood as well to thank her. But she hit the corner of a table as she stood and was knocked off balance, her son slippling from her arms.

I instinctively reached forward to help. She pinned her son to hip awkwardly and recoiled, sucking in her breath, trembling, with a pleading, desperate look on her face. I had never seen such a reflexive fear before.

Then it hit me like a brick: She was reliving her rape. She was alone in a room of strange men (Dorcas had stepped out shortly before). I can only imagine what horrors ran through her mind in those brief moments. I withdrew, trying to apologize across barriers of language, experience, and gender, with fresh wounds on my heart.