All of Halima Abdi’s sorrows have their cradle at the hands of an incompetent doctor. Pregnant with her final child, Halima was excited to bring life on earth for the fifth time when indecipherable aches raided her body. Instinctively, she walked herself to a local clinic without aid and was embraced with several painkiller injections. No tests done, no diagnosis conducted. This medical ineptitude instantly torpefied her from the waist down. 

Sentenced to a bedridden life, the slow consciousness of living with paralysis dawned on her. Espousing the nursing role, her husband fostered her and to the paramount of his ability, he ensured her dignity was maintained. In addition to this, he was still her sole breadwinner and had to find ways of making ends meet. In one of his trade travels, he was bushwhacked, denuded of his life and wealth. 

With her guardian gone, Halima stared into the abyss of dejection as she became boxed in a black horizon of despair. With no one to clean her up and her children still young, Halima found herself drenched in her own urine, unable to turn herself in bed. Agonizing bed sores took root on her backside. Devoid of a lavatory, her children urinated and egested within their compound. At times they would find their meals at the hands of a do-gooder. Other times they settled for enaverting hunger.

Yet with such a trying, doleful life, this 32-year-old mother of five manages to board and ride on the grateful train. She quells her sadness with never ending prayer and belief in her God. Halima harmonizes her grievous existence with the cadence of fate. “God is the one who brings everything. The good and the bad. So if God has fated this upon me,  I am grateful to him. I believe in him only,” she said with conviction. 

During school days, with her kids occupied in public institutions, Halima’s loneliness is amplified. Time passes without consequence as she remains entombed in her own mind chasing away all negative thoughts through invoking God and awaiting the arrival of her little companions. “I just speak well to them. I tell my family God’s will has made me like this. They cry at times. They say our mother is like this. They say we have no father. I slowly talk to them,” she said with tearful eyes.