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Tamar's Story
** WARNING: This is a very difficult story. While in Sudan, I always devote a certain amount of my time just listening to the people. In this way, I have been blessed to learn not only much of the culture but also what generations have endured. The following is a true and very difficult story of a little girl. As was my custom, I was the first human to rouse on the compound. But the sun barely beat a crowd piling around our gate waiting to give their testimony to this strange white woman who walked with a stick to beat off the wild dogs. Un-customarily for me, ‘testimony' had nothing to do with Christianity, but rather carried the pure connotation of that of which a person could give first–hand account. The guards came to me shortly after sunrise to tell me there were already more than one hundred people waiting to see me. I waited in the dining tukel: a mud-brick room we built so the staff could take meals in shelter from the sun. The first person brought to me was a mere child; she appeared to be maybe thirteen. As images of what this young thing had probably endured flooded my head, I admitted to myself, I did not really want to hear from this girl. We had positioned three chairs in the tukel; I sat in the middle with a translator to my right and the girl on my left. “What is your name?” I asked, not really wanting to know. “I am Tamar.” “Tamar, she was the daughter of David,” I said, sadly remembering how she was raped by her kin and never knew justice on this earth. “What is your name?” she asked without looking at me. “Kimberly,” I replied. “I mean your Christian name. What is your Christian name, your given name?” “That is my name,” is what I said, but what I thought was, “My God, will these people never stop killing each other over the name that they chose or are given? ‘Christian: Peter', ‘Muslim: Mohammed', it is only a name. A name does not determine who you are or what you do.” Or so I thought at the time… “Are you from Nyamlel?” I asked trying to move on. “I was born here, but they took me away a long time ago.” “The Murahaleen: the Arabic Muslims.” Tamar reminded me of a large bird craning its neck to clean under its wing as she bent and twisted her head away from me practically sticking it under her left arm. “Yes, the Arabs, but there were many from Darfur riding with the Murahaleen, too, weren't there? I have heard that before the attacks on Darfur happened, the Darfurees were part of the Muslim Militia. I asked if that is what she meant. “Aye. Nluck (This is a sound the Sudanese make by sticking their tongue to the roof of their mouth and then sucking it off like a plunger being pried from a sink – the sound means yes.) Darfur men don't rape with the Murahaleen anymore because the Muslims rape and kill their people now, too.” “What do you mean, ‘They don't rape with them anymore?” “When they got me, I was only this (she held her right hand to the side of our chair indicating the height of perhaps a seven year old) ‘agement'. Many of them got on top of me. I could not fight them off; they were so big. I just tried to go to sleep, but I kept waking up as one would finish his work on me and the next would begin. I tried hard to go to sleep through them all, but I kept waking up and another and another would be working hard on top of me.” “I am sorry.” I wanted to express empathy but all I felt was nauseous-ness and rage so I dared not venture down that path too far. “Did they mutilate you?” Suddenly and without any preamble, Tamar hiked her legs to place her feet on the opposing arms of her white plastic chair as she brusquely raised her dress up to her chin. “Yes! See? They cut me here. I cannot feel anything down there anymore. Sometimes I just pee and pee and pee because I cannot feel when I need to go.” I fought the storm of emotion that squalled against me. “Do you live with your family now?” “No, they will not have me; I am marked. I bleed now, so I should be making babies for Sudan, but no man will have me because I am marked by the Murahaleen. I live in the bush. I heard that there was a Kawaidja woman who wanted to know our stories. I wanted to talk to you. No one has ever wanted to hear what happened to me. We are not allowed to talk about it. Who will you tell?” I knew that when she said, “I bleed now,” it meant she had a fistula. I also knew that if we had a sterile surgical unit, she could easily be healed for less than 150 USD. “Tamar, I will tell everyone who will listen. I will tell the world your story and I pray that through your courage, the world will make the Murahaleen stop this evil.” “This would be a very good thing.” Tamar pulled her dress down and stood to leave. I asked her to stay and have some tea and biscuits. She smiled. As I drank a cup of liquefied coffee crystals, Tamar drank her tea (with three heaping tablespoons of sugar and equal amounts of powdered milk) and ate her English-style biscuits (sugar cookies). I was never more thankful than at this moment that James had advised me to carry in sugar, biscuits, tea and powdered milk. There were no such luxuries on the local economy. Your contribution helps us to rescue, tend and protect the many “Tamars” of this world.
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