Dawn of a New Day: Electro Pop Hijab

On a school day after helping with the household chores, Fadila takes a short walk down a beach sand road to school. Down the road palm trees mark where the land meets the ocean though here the beach is home to bandits rather than holiday makers. In the naked cement brick classroom, with Islamic style cut-outs, she sits with two others at an old school wooden desk. She carefully writes on a small black slate – her eleven year old fingers turning grey as she rubs out the chalk to turn the page.

She says her best friends are her family and her favourite thing to do in the holidays is to be with them and do extra studying for school. Her mother, in a bright orange Hijab that reveals only her face, says that her daughter sometimes comes home after a scuffle in the school yard. Though Fadila can most probably outwit her school mates it does not always combat the comments that pass her by. Whether this is for being an alien or looking different is uncertain.

Fadila was born to a family of Niger with a rare birth defect that affected the formation of one nostril and one eye lid. The nostril is purely cosmetic – something that Mercy Ships often cannot help because in the vast numbers of those needing help the functional problems take priority. However, the gap in Fadila’s eyelid has given exposure to a portion of her eye – creating white scar tissue which if left untreated could lead to blindness. Fadila passed two screenings and will have plastic surgery on both her nostril and eyelid.

Fadila’s father has three wives – in matching orange Hijabs. They have been living in Benin near the Nigerian border since Fadila was a toddler. In the afternoons Fadila joins them for Islamic prayer and scripture studies in the women’s prayer hut next to their house. All the women in the area join them and soon there is a pile of plastic slip slops at the edge of the mats. Below Fadila’s purple head veil and her scriptures have been read to pieces.

Though Mercy Ships’ volunteers are motivated by their love for Jesus Christ surgery is given to anyone regardless of their faith. I guess we are inspired by the way Jesus had compassion for suffering people and how he healed them. Fadila will be able to have a more comfortable life after surgery but like the rest of us her time will eventually come to an end. She may have the opportunity to hear the gospel while she is here but ultimately any choice of the heart can only be made genuinely by its owner. I think back to how I was hotly offended by the gospel. It dared to imply I was not the god of my own universe – that maybe I was missing out on an intimate, satisfying, and adventurous relationship. It sounded out right wacko. But I’m glad I risked my ego.

When Fadila is wheeled out of the OR and into the recovery room it isn’t long before her mother is summoned. Her mother’s Hijab is luminous pink today and dominates the hospital ship corridor as she makes her way to her daughter. It is simultaneously conservative and NuWave Electro Pop. A few days before she had told me the condition had brought shame on the family but here she is talking softly to her daughter, taking Fadila’s hand as she swims her way up from the remnants of general anaesthetic.

Days later the bandages are removed. I’m not sure if Fadila was expecting an instant recovery but she is staring silently into a little blue hand mirror. I can’t figure out if she is displeased at the sutures and swelling or if she is curious at seeing her face neatly closed up for the first time.

Back at home Fadila sits by the fire as the neighbours and her family examine her new, recovering face. In her low voice she speaks to her young cousins about her experience – using big hand gestures to demonstrate the size of the ship. Her mother is laughing as she recounts her experiences to the huge crowd crammed into their back yard.

Tomorrow Fadila will go back to school. She says she will have to work extra hard to catch up the work she has missed. Her mother tongue is still incomprehensible to her class mates but hopefully her stay on the Africa Mercy will have rubbed out one reason for feeling different.

Please Pray:

That the the crew not feeling well will get better.

For Yacinthe, Fadila, Bernadette and Ambroise's speedy recovery.

That Yacinthe will be able to go home before I leave.

That all of these patients will come to know the Lord.

For God's grace in translating the Fon interviews in a very short space of time.