DanChurchAid
Ethiopia
Medina’s broken future
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| Medina Duna is 21 years and already mother of three children |
Until seven years ago, Median Duna used to go to school. However, when she reached grade 4, she became sick with fever for which she planned to cure herself with traditional medicine and “holy water”.
The Holy water is a hot spring bath found in a village near Bulbula, town south of Addis Ababa. This water is believed to have a healing effect by the community members, and those who are sick come to the area for a period of time in order to immerse their body in the water.
At night, while Median Duna was around the spring, staying in a small hut with her relatives, a group of people came and kidnapped her. They took her to a far place.
“I was screaming, but nobody was around to help me,” she explains.
The people who abducted her, assisted by a traditional healer, circumcised her and she was locked up for two months, until the wounds she had healed. After that, she was given to a man to be his wife.
“A ceremony was held, even in the absence of my family and friends to enjoy with,” she tells.
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| Median Dunam, in front, fetching water while others are washing clothes in the same stream |
Three children is enough
Today Median Duna is living with her husband and her to daughters aged six and three, and a seven-month old boy in a in a small circular hut made of straw and mud, only three meters in diameter.
The family is producing maize on their quarter a shared of hectare land, and own a cow and a calf. The maize, and the milk from the cow has been the sole source of income for the family until now.
She hopes she will not have any more children:
“But I cannot make myself not become pregnant. There is no health unit in our village.”
Medina Duna also wishes to send her daughter to school:
“But there is no school around here,” she says.
The nearest school is found in Bulbula town. It is also where the nearest health clinic is found, and where she could get either birth control pills or injections to avoid pregnancy.
That’s too far away because a one-way trip is about a five hours walk.
Medina Duna now hopes that after she has become the owner of four female goats some of her troubles will be solved
She is planning to send her first daughter to school. She also hopes to get the opportunity to get family planning using income from goats for service at the clinic as well for payment for local transport.
Moreover, she hopes to start additional feeding her seven-month-old boy, who is now solely dependent on breast-feeding.
Text and photo: Messay Bekele, Finance Officer, Yohannes Chanyalew, Programme Officer, and Tegene Hailegiorgis, Relief Officer, DanChurchAid’s Regional Office in Ethiopia
Ethiopia
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