A Gift from Darkness

by Andrea Claudia Hoffmann

  “Don’t worry, I’ll think of something,” I reassured her, trying to make myself sound confident. I kissed her goodbye.

  “Please let me know where you go and how you both are.”

  Even though I’d tried to make myself sound strong and self-sufficient, I felt desperate as I found myself all on my own in the street again. I wandered aimlessly around. Now Gift and I were homeless. The girl had had a hard start in life, I thought: she wasn’t even two weeks old. I had looked forward so much to having her, but her birth had coincided with a disaster. Would it destroy us? Or was there hope for us somewhere in the world?

  I didn’t want to go back to the refugee camp: among people who had seen so many terrible things, the past was omnipresent. My wounds would never heal there. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the beggar women who sat by the side of the street asking for alms. Should I join them? Beside them, under the trees, sat the Qur’an students, eagerly filling their slates with suras. They too already lived on alms. Once they grew up, would they also earn their living with plundering raids?

  I was almost glad that God hadn’t given me a boy. At least Gift would never turn into one of those monsters I had met in Kauri and Gavva. Even though I knew from Moussa that women too were carrying out suicide bombings, I still saw them chiefly as victims. I knew what they had been through in the Boko Haram camps. Wasn’t it obvious that such a life would end in despair? What would have become of me if I had stayed there any longer?

  Those gloomy thoughts went with me as I walked through the streets. I carried Gift on my back. How could I protect her against all those terrible things? Somehow I would have to look after this little girl, give her a home. But how in God’s name was I to do it all on my own? I had never learned a trade. How could I make a living? No one had explained to me how a life without a husband worked.

  If I hadn’t had my daughter I might have given up. I would have lain down in the gutter and waited to die, I felt so weak and so shattered by everything I had been through. But my daughter wouldn’t let me drown in self-pity. She needed very particular things from me: my breast, warmth, clean clothes, water to wash with. And it was my duty to provide her with these things, by any means possible. “Look after me!” she seemed to be shouting.

  When dusk fell I discovered that I had been walking in a circle: I found myself in the Christian quarter again. Here in Jerusalem there were lots of churches. The biggest and most visible was the EYN church with its bright white building. But hidden behind the walls were lots of little churches of every imaginable denomination. In one of the side streets I discovered a Catholic priest. The young man in the clean white surplice was standing by a big iron gate, and was just about to disappear behind it. But I caught him just in time.

  “Father, I don’t know where my child and I are going to sleep tonight,” I said to him, and curtsied the way you’re supposed to.

  He looked at me with helpless pity. “Are you all alone?”

  “I have nobody.”

  “I wish I could help you,” he said and looked at the ground. “There are so many of you…Oh, dear Lord.” At first I thought he was going to leave me there and disappear. But then he said, “Well, come with me. I’ll show you where you can spend tonight at least.”

  He led me to a shack slightly below the other buildings. It was not far from his church, behind a rubbish dump. It had clearly been a kind of box room or storeroom for a shop, but had been cleared because it was damp. That was apparent from the flecks of mildew on the walls. Two other women were already living there with their little children. They made room so that Gift and I could join them. “Where have you come from?” they wanted to know. “Where is your husband? What is your child called?”

  Ruba and Talatu were very nice women, and I made friends with them on that first evening. They were both in a similar situation to mine: Ruba’s husband was dead, Talatu’s husband had disappeared. So they had to get by on their own. They earned some money by braiding women’s hair. They were both very good at creating refined hairstyles in that way. I went with them and became their assistant. That way I learned the art of hair-styling. It’s a very useful craft in Africa: it would seem that all women are interested in it. Even the poorer women in the refugee camps would pay a few nairas to have their hair braided.

  That was how I spent the first few weeks of Gift’s life; one night turned into many. I didn’t make much money, but it was enough for us to survive. The most important thing was that I was eating enough for my milk not to dry up. It was the only way I could feed my baby. When we ran out of food I went to the priest and asked him if he could help us. The kind man never said no: he could always spare something from the church kitchen. I was, and remain, incredibly grateful to him for helping me keep my daughter alive. Gift meant everything to me. After I’d lost everything else in my life she was the only thing that mattered.

  But then came the rainy season. With the first shower our shelter became very uncomfortable. A big puddle formed on the stone floor where we slept at night. We hastily wiped it away and tried to find the leaks in the roof. But because the whole building was so low, it also seeped in from the sides.

  It was impossible to keep our shack dry. Damp climbed the walls and mildew flourished in every corner. There was a terrible smell and I sneezed all the time. We packed all our clothes and blankets in plastic bags. At night, too, we spread plastic bags on the floor. But none of it did any good: when it really rained, the whole room was under water.

  After a few days Gift developed a runny nose and a worrying cough. I started to become concerned about her. “We can’t stay here,” I said to the others. “We will all become ill, particularly the children.”

  “But where else are we supposed to go?” Ruba asked desperately. The whole city was overcrowded. And we didn’t yet have enough money to rent anywhere.

  “Perhaps the priest has a solution,” I said hopefully.

  The next time he paid us a visit we deliberately didn’t wipe the floor beforehand. We wanted him to see how difficult our situation was. “My God, a human being can’t live in this hole,” he said, shocked. That was exactly the reaction I had been hoping for.

  “I don’t suppose we could seek refuge in the church for a while?” I suggested.

  He scratched his forehead. “The church authorities won’t like it,” he thought out loud. I knew what his main problem was: we were Protestants, not Catholics. And normally the churches only helped members of their own denomination. “But our Lord Jesus would definitely have taken you in…Come with me, girls!”

  We quickly grabbed our belongings, which were already packed away in plastic bags. Then we followed the priest through the rain to the church courtyard. “There’s a shed there,” he said and pointed to another low building beside the church. “You can use that. Will you help me to clear it?”

  We didn’t need to be asked twice: we eagerly carried the benches and chairs stored there into the church. We brought all the rubbish to the rubbish dump. Soon the room was empty—and it was dry! We happily unpacked our clothes from the plastic bags and spread our mats out on the floor. Our cupboard felt extremely comfortable. In our eyes it was a real villa.

  And as you would hope with a villa, there was also a park: the church compound. It was surrounded by a high wall and actually looked like a park. Except on Sundays we had it all to ourselves. When it wasn’t actually raining, we could sit under the neem tree and chat calmly as our children played under its branches. What luxury! The three of us could hardly believe our luck.

  I am grateful for every day that we have been allowed to stay there in safety. From everything I’ve learned I know that it’s not something you can take for granted. That’s why I enjoy every second with Gift.

  We women in the church compound—there are four of us now—still live in poverty. But for my daughter’s sake I am always looking for possible ways to earn money and improve our situation. My daughter means everything to me. She helps me keep my spir
its up, even if we go to bed hungry some evenings because we haven’t earned enough. By braiding plaits I manage to save enough to buy her medicine from the chemist’s shop for her cough. Because after our stay in the mildewed shed it has never left her. Somehow I feel guilty for that. I would so love to give Gift a healthy environment and a good future.

  I want her to be able to go to school, learn to read and write and then have a great job, like being a doctor. I want her to grow into a strong, independent woman. A woman who doesn’t need a man to look after her, but can manage on her own. That will make her much freer than I was.

  I hope that is what we both experience. I barely dare to make plans for the future. When I sit under the neem tree in the church compound with my daughter in my arms, I’m only too aware that our happiness could end at any time.

  Recently I parted company with the long knife that my husband was killed with. After carrying the murder weapon around with me for months, in the end I decided to leave that part of my story behind. At first I considered selling it. But who would I sell it to? At any rate I had to make sure that no one else was killed with it. That’s why I finally dropped it into the public septic tank in a refugee camp.

  But our safety in Maiduguri remains uncertain. The terror goes on, in a different place every day. Sometimes the suicide bombers” explosives go off in the middle of our city. I can only hope and pray that my daughter and I don’t find ourselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. We’ve suffered enough. But of course it can happen to us anytime. It’s sad to admit that.

  Uncertainty will be our constant companion for a long time to come. I will never again be able to believe that the worst is over. But neither do I believe that the best is over for Gift and me. Maybe one day we’ll get some good news.

  Return flight—Patience stays

  I can’t pretend I’m not relieved when Renate and I—under very tight security once again—set off for the airport. Another hour or two and a plane with us on board will take off and I will leave this very tense place and all the dangers that lurk here.

  At the same time I have a guilty conscience. I have the freedom to leave; Patience doesn’t. She looks sad when we say goodbye. She is at the mercy of this place. She and all the other women whose lives have been destroyed by Boko Haram are unable to escape their fate.

  They would all love to believe that the terrorist organization will soon be defeated, as the Nigerian president repeatedly claims. People have welcomed hopeful signs in that direction. In April 2016, for example, the United States committed to its military partnership with Nigeria, and the promise to share secret service information with the government: they plan to help locate the women and girls who are still being held prisoner, including the Chibok girls.

  One cause for optimism is the fact that the army has been able to regain a considerable amount of territory over the past year. As they retreated, however, Boko Haram carried out appalling massacres of the civilian population—and many refugees don’t dare to go back to their villages because they are afraid that the fighters are still somewhere in the area, and might strike again at any time. Unfortunately, that does often seem to be the case.

  “This terror calls for stronger and better coordinated measures from us all,” the departing UN General Secretary Ban Ki Moon demanded. “All regional and international efforts must concentrate on protecting the people in northern Nigeria and the neighboring countries.” South Africa and the United States have sent military support to combat Boko Haram. Demands have also been made for their crimes to be prosecuted by an international criminal court.

  But the reality on the ground is still a long way from that. Only two weeks after we left, the Islamists sent more suicide units to Maiduguri. It was the Christmas attack that everyone was waiting for. This time it came a bit late, at New Year’s—but with terrible brutality: two women, former kidnap victims, blew themselves up. Twenty-nine people were killed, eighty-eight injured. Patience and her daughter were only shaken.

  The biggest challenge they face at the moment is the stigma with which everyone who comes back from captivity has to live: the women are seen as dirty and dishonored, since it is assumed that they were raped in the camps. Raped women are treated as the dregs of society: in the social hierarchy they rank below widows. They are despised for what they have been through. There is also the anxiety that they are converted victims, who secretly fraternize with their tormentors—and will set off a bomb at the next opportunity. A new marriage is effectively impossible, even for young women.

  If a woman comes back from captivity pregnant, her family will do everything they can to abort the fetus. Babies born from a union with a Boko Haram fighter often disappear without a trace. The general view is that the “Boko Haram genes” mustn’t be passed on to the next generation, because they are supposed to have diabolical qualities. For that reason Patience will have to take great care with her daughter. Too many people are likely to assume that Gift is the product of a rape in the camp.

  But there is a glimmer of light for them: Renate has managed to buy a plot of land. It isn’t the one in Jos that she wanted originally, but she’s found another one in Gurku. She’s building houses for the widows there now. At the moment there is room in Gurku for fifteen women and their children. Soon she hopes it will be more.

  Her association, Widows Care (http://www.widowscare.com), in Maiduguri is also coming up with many different ways to improve the lives of the two thousand or so registered widows and help them take charge of their lives again. Renate Ellmenreich is proudly convinced, in spite of all the setbacks and difficulties, that her team will be able to give them their future back.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank my literary agents Christine Proske and Barbara J. Zitwer for their mentoring and advice, as well as Renate Ellmenreich and her organization, Widows Care (http://www.widowscare.com), for taking me with her to Nigeria.

  Andrea C. Hoffmann

  (http://andreachoffmann.com)

  Andrea C. Hoffmann is a political editor and Middle East expert for the news magazine Focus and has been traveling the region for more than fifteen years. She recently coauthored The Girl Who Beat ISIS: Farida’s Story (Vintage, 2016) and Raif Badawi, the Voice of Freedom (Other Press, 2016). Hoffmann’s reportages about Iran have been awarded numerous prizes.

  Patience Ibrahim lives with her daughter, Gift, in northern Nigeria.

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