Published May 26, 2008, last updated on March 4, 2013
The tangy smell of labor and delivery was in the 90 degree air and sweat trickled down my back as I stared at the infant’s body. Her heart had been beating moments before, marked by the jog of her little umbilicus up and down. Now she was motionless and gray, wrapped in a bloody sarong that had been worn by her expectant mother, Amina, hours before as she fetched water, bought mangoes at the market and let her black eye drift skywards, deep in thought about her baby.
Or this is what I dreamed that she was doing earlier in the day. Since I spoke French and she spoke Djerma I would never know her true thoughts and actions in the hours before this raw moment.
