Threads of Destiny

It is May of 1993. Bullets are flying through our unprotected windows, shattering furniture into starbursts of wooden fragments. The bloody civil war is making its way into my Somalia home. Details of a terrifying journey across the ravaged capital city in an attempt to find safety inside our high-walled compound are still fresh from the night before. My mind is filled with the sights, sounds, and smells of terrified people running for their lives, tires burning, and barbed wire strewn about the streets. The sounds of exploding rocket-propelled grenades are followed by screams of unrelenting pain. The thought, like a blazing beacon of light, strikes hard and fast: how did a farm girl from Iowa find herself in the midst of one of the bloodiest civil wars in history?
For an instant my mind flashes back to another tragic time, where, instead of a frenzied mob outside, there is a single, rage-empowered man inside, screaming obscenities and forcing himself on me sexually in the middle of the night. His relentless fury knows no bounds. Supine and muted by powerful hands, I lie under an animal surveying its captured prey. Only the sounds of the freeway traffic beyond indicate life apart from this. I long to be able to reach far enough to grasp hold of someone on that freeway who could pull me to safety. But no one comes.
My cage is a large, four-bedroom house in a secluded section of the city. Situated third from the last on its block, this large and imposing old frame house stands out dramatically to even a casual observer. The long, narrow street closes off at a dead-end, and except for the freeway beyond, no other sound penetrates the stillness of the aged, sparsely furnished fortress. The hot breath and massive force on me are stifling. Looking into the eyes of an angry and powerful stranger, I begin to kick, bite, and scream. I am positioned with his hand over my mouth, arms pinned beneath me, alone, and without hope.
He tells me that no one cares and that no one will come. And no one does. He warns me never to tell anyone and threatens that if I do, no one will believe me. Viciously demeaning me with obscenities and crude treatment, my assailant rapes both my mind and my body. In this nightmare I am forced to listen to hostile words that are destined to haunt me for years to come, as this violent young man tries to convince me, as well as himself, that I want this to happen. I feel all the life being slowly sucked out of my insides, leaving me to wonder, “What will be left? What will I have to offer when this is over? Will anyone ever take my word that I have been raped by a medical student? Will anyone take my word over his? Can I prove it?”
These terrifying thoughts, prompted by his threatening words, are enough to keep me immobilized with fear long after he vanishes. I lie there, afraid even to blink or breathe, fearing he might return. This is the only time in my eighteen years that I remember being so strikingly afraid, and at the same time angry enough to kill. The reality is that I can never get back what has been so brutally taken.
Eventually I am able to cry softly. The man has not come back; he has disappeared. I don’t know his name and can’t remember his face because I couldn’t stand to look at him. I only remember the harshness of his voice, the brutal force and roughness of his hands, and the smell of his body mixed with the alcohol from his breath, which hangs like a pungent blanket across the darkened room. All that is left is the blurred vision of a cruel stranger remaining to haunt me.
The menacing fear that gripped me as a result of this experience left me emotionally paralyzed for many years. But now, ten years later, in the present sweltering heat of war-torn Mogadishu, Somalia, my fear is a motivating factor for survival. Though fear is not a stranger to me, under the surface I have a peace that surpasses all comprehension. I know now that I am not alone and I never will be again.