Go down two flights of stairs on the Africa Mercy and
you’ll find you’ve stepped out of a ship and into a busy buzzing
hospital. On the wards you’ll find kids playing, patients visiting, and
plenty of African music. Listen and you’ll hear conversations in English
echoed by translators in French or one of Guinea’s three local
languages – the chatter abounds like white noise.
One would expect that a 13-year-old girl would be among the chattiest, but not Memouna.
Memouna’s pronounced facial tumor began
above her left eyebrow, spilling down her face to the corner her mouth,
displacing her left eye. This tumor, a neurofibroma Memouna has had
since birth, left her looking like one side of her face was sliding off,
like Dali’s famous melting clock in a desert. From behind the curtain
of her deformity, Memouna saw the world with her good right eye. And to
her despair, the world saw Memouna.
For 13 years she was taunted for her
appearance. Moreover, superstitions run deep in West African culture and
physical deformities are believed to be the sinister mark of someone
cursed. Memouna was not only teased by peers; she was dismissed as
something less than human. From the drooping facial tumor came the
source of a broken spirit.
“She was not happy because in Africa
people stay away from her. She would cry because she did not understand
why no one liked her,” said Memouna’s 17-year-old sister Aminata, the
oldest of her nine siblings.
On Wednesday September 26, 2012, Mercy
Ships surgeons removed Memouna’s tumor. After her operation, even under
layers of bandages, the transformation was profound. Memouna’s profile
no longer appeared rough and misshapen; her face had been physically
lifted from the weight of the tumor. Nurses hoped her spirits would
follow, but countering years of social isolation is a much more invasive
procedure.
In the days after her surgery, quiet
Memouna said nothing while her father and sister took turns staying at
the hospital and speaking on her behalf. “I’m sorry, maybe she will talk
another day,” her sister would say.
“It was a long time before I realized
she spoke. She was so silent that I didn’t think she could,” said Lynne
White, a Mercy Ships ward nurse. “But I can understand it, she went from
spending her life keeping to herself with no friends and then she came
here and was overwhelmed by the attention.”
- – -
On a night about a week after her
surgery, Lynne came into the ward to find Memouna listening to
headphones, nodding her head to music and mouthing the words. For the
first time, Memouna seemed…happy.
“I couldn’t believe it, so I did
whatever I could to try to get a laugh out of her – I started dancing!”
Lynne said. “Memouna, oh she just laughed and laughed. It was
wonderful.”
Two weeks later Memouna arrived on the
dock with her father for a check-up. She kept to herself, waiting on the
benches when she was spotted. “Is that my Memouna!?” Lynne said. At her
name, Memouna glanced around to find Lynne not walking, but dancing
over to her. “It’s you, you’re here!” Lynne cheered, waving her arms in
the air.
Memouna clapped her hands and covered her mouth, trying, and failing, to hold back her giggles.
Now, even though she does not give up her laughs easily, we can see the real Memouna.
In those moments, there is a cute teenager in a pink sweatshirt and
orange nail polish where a timid, downcast child used to be.
With the removal of Memouna’s tumor comes the chance for physical and spiritual healing.
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