Chapter 3

The number of deliveries slowed, but Paul and Nadia averaged one delivery every two days. There were 20,000 refugees in the camp, and a great many of them were married, about ⅓ were children. Over the next four weeks, between deliveries and after-care home visits, the duo started to earn the attention of those in the camp. When Paul thought she was ready, Dr. Abdallah observed her make three home deliveries on her own as a midwife, and he agreed she had earned her midwife field certification. A field certification is different in that it does not give someone a license to work outside a specific area.

With Naida doing the home vaginal births, and assisting with the C-Sections, she quickly became a symbol of the pride for all dark brown and black Nuer and Dinka in the PoC camp. Word began to spread far and wide and a month after her certification, Dr. Abdallah received a call from MSF officials in the capital city of Juba. They relayed that they were impressed with the development and training of local indigenous people to assist in their care. Namely, a certain tiny Black Nuer midwife who is being called the “Black Angel of Life.”

A month after the call, Dr. Abdallah received another call, this one from the chief surgeon and director of the MSF PoC site in Bentiu, in northern South Sudan. It was the largest PoC site in South Sudan that hosted 115,000 internally displaced persons (IDP’s) and refugees. An IDP has been forced to flee home but has remained within his or her country’s borders and so is not legally defined as a refugee. She said that the Janjaweed raided the night before and they had lost 100 black and dark-skinned people; 75 women and 20 men and 5 children under 10 years of age. Word has spread about the “Black Angel of Life” and the rebels were trying to locate and hunt her down. She was becoming a symbol of hope for black and dark-skinned Africans. Dr. Abdallah needed to take the necessary steps to protect her, possibly send her into hiding for a while.

The entire unit went on alert. The first and foremost task was keeping it private and not upsetting Nadia or her mother. Paul never let Nadia out of his sight, telling her that he was just doing routine quality assurance inspections to make sure her work was according to MSF standards. Twenty-four hours later, that same message was delivered by some Sudanese freedom fighters that drove through the night to get to Bor. The news spread like wildfire throughout the entire camp. About 9am, Abibi came running into the unit screaming for Nadia and Paul. They were just finishing a C-section and when they heard the commotion.

They came out of the operating room and Abibi fell to her knees sobbing hysterically, “Please, please, Doctor Paul, save my daughter! Please, please, I’m begging you, please save her!”

Paul knelt and calmly said to her, “We are taking every precaution we can. We have contacted the government and they are sending troops to guard the perimeter of the site. They will be here early tomorrow morning.”

Abibi frantically cried out, “It will be too late! The messengers said they are coming here from Bentiu! They will be here sometime tonight! Please, Doctor Paul, please marry my daughter! They won’t kill her if she belongs to you! Please, please marry her and make her yours!”

“What!?”

Abibi pleaded, “I’m begging you on my knees, please marry her. Please make her yours and protect her!”

Nadia was wide-eyed and shocked that her mother would do such a thing. It went completely against Nuer social custom and etiquette to ask a man to marry her or a daughter. It just wasn’t done. Paul looked at Nadia’s shocked expression and then at Dr. Abdallah. They got her calmed down enough to talk and moved her to a chair.

Somewhat composed, she cried as she pleaded desperately, “Please Doctor Paul, please marry Nadia. We have moved from six places in one year to avoid these butchers. At the last place, in Bimruok, in Bentiu Town. I was raped so violently I could not walk for five days. I hid Nadia in a privy pit up to her neck in feces until I could safely get her out. We simply can’t run for the rest of our lives. I don’t care about my life, just save my precious daughter! If you marry her, they will not kill her. She will be protected.”

Abdul motioned to Paul to come talk in his office. Paul tried to calm the distraught woman and said, “Please, Abibi, please try and calm down. Let me talk to my boss. I’ll be right back. Please calm down, we will find a solution and protect Nadia.”

Paul rose and followed Abdul into his office. Before Abdul could speak, Paul tersely asked, “What the hell am I going to do? What should I do? I can’t marry that girl, she’s only sixteen fucking years old!”

Abdula said simply, “What is the legal age for marriage in New York with parental consent?”

Paul retorted, “This isn’t a joke, Abdul.”

Watching for his Google inquiry to load, he turned, looked at Paul and said, “I’m dead serious, Paul, Abdul replied, “Just for your information, it’s sixteen.”

“So fucking what!” Paul spat back.

“Look Paul, I’m being dead serious and brutally honest. I don’t know whether to know yourself, afraid to admit it to yourself or simply afraid to admit to the rest of us that you love that girl. Everyone in this unit can see the way you two look at each other. It’s as if everyone knows you two love each other but you two!

“Whether you know it or not, Abibi is correct. If you marry Nadia, you will be protecting her. After the murder of twelve of our people in Ethiopia, the government had been clamping down in these killers and withdrawing their support because these people are killing the very people that are saving thousands. You will protect Nadia and possibly hundreds of others in this camp by marrying her. Why can’t you just admit you love the girl? No one here thinks you’re some pervert. We see how you two are with each other. It is a healthy relationship.”

“Abdul, I’ve been struggling with myself over this for two months. Yes, I do love her. I fell in love with her the moment I first laid eyes on her.”

“Well, if you love that woman, you need to do something about it.”

“Alright then, I do it. I’ll ask her to marry me. If she says yes, then I’ll do it.”

When Paul and Abdul walked out of Abdul’s office, every eye ― Celeste, Dashiki, Gupta, and the Sudanese orderlies ― was on Paul. He walked over to where Abibi was sitting with Nadia next to her and asked Nadia to sit in his desk chair. He took a knee in front of her and the silence in the room was so thick, you could have cut it with a knife. As soon as Paul took his knee, Celeste pulled out her phone to start recording the ensuing event

Paul said, “Nadia, I have loved you from the moment I first saw you. Do you think you could open your heart to me and be my wife? I will honor and cherish you all your life. We will grow old and raise a family and spend a lifetime loving each other.”

Nadia had tears streaming down her cheeks and she clutched both of her breasts and said in a loving, but pleading manner, “Doctor Paul, I have a heart filled with love for you also from that very first day. But I desperately want to go to school and become a nurse. If we marry and I have a child, my schooling will come to an end.”

Taking both of her hands in his, Paul replied, “Nadia, I promise you that we will not have any children until you graduate nursing school. We have birth control on the cabinet. One injection will prevent you from getting pregnant for three months. You have my word: no children until you graduate.”

“You promise me?”

“I promise.”

Nadia looked at Abibi and her mom nodded. She smiled, threw her arms around his neck, and said gleefully, “Yes! Yes! I will marry you! As long as I become nurse, I marry you!”

Abdul said, “Abibi, I need to examine you to verify your claim that you were violently raped. We need that evident to prove to a judge that allowing Nadia to marry will save her and your lives.”

She nodded and followed him and Dashiki into an exam cubicle. They came out ten minutes later and he handed Paul the signed and witnessed report. He said, “Her cervix is scarred with a 1½ centimeter, unstitched tear in her vagina that has healed and scarred over. She will lose some sensitivity, but she can still bear a child.”

He turned to Abibi and said, “We need for you return to your tent and bring all your documents: your citizenship papers, birth certificates and everything to show a judge. Do you have Nadia’s birth certificate?”

“I never had one. All I have is the registration of birth that they gave me.”

“Well bring that. Hurry and both of you come back here. You will all need to drive to Juba and see a judge to get married.”

They both turned and quickly left. Abdul told Paul, “Come with me.” He and Paul went into his office. He immediately called the MSF officials in Juba and made arrangements for them to see a judge and prepare for Paul’s arrival with Nadia and Abibi. He then had one of the UN peacekeepers that monitored the base bring a vehicle around and wait for the girls to return. Paul grabbed his papers, his MSF contract and passport.

When the girls returned, they started to leave and Abdul said, “Dashiki, you go as a witness to the marriage.”

They all loaded into the Humvee and left.

When they pulled up in front of the courthouse, Several MSF officials were waiting. Vladimir Sikovsky, the regional director met them. He said to Paul, “We have arranged for you to meet with Judge Kedar Ochola, the Juba Provincial Judge. We have been in contact with Dr. Abdallah and have obtained all the information we needed to fill out the request to vacate the 30-day notice of marriage and rule on an immediate ceremony along with the marriage license application. He will rule on both today. Hopefully, all will go well, and you will leave here a married couple.”

Once inside, Paul and Nadia signed their application, they then had to wait almost thirty minutes to see the judge. In the meantime, Vladimir arranged all the paperwork with the proper documents to be ready when they were called in.