Her name is Sidah

Her name is Sidah. Sidah is a beautiful dark woman from a little town at the Bahian coast called Serra Grande. She is a mother of 26. She's already been mother for 13 years. She remembers it very well. At the age of 12 she got a boyfriend. A nice young man who was slightly older than she was back then. They where madly in love. Holding hands while eating tapioca at the town's square. He would climb up the tallest coconut trees to pick her the biggest nuts. Sidah was looking all proud at her strong 16 year old man. One night after another tapioca dinner, they found themselves cuddling on a nearby beach. Sidah found it pleasant. From one thing came the other an after that night on the beach, Sidah could not call herself a virgin anymore. That, if she actually knew what that was.

Time dripped by, like a tap losing its water in a constant rhythm. Sidah was feeling sick. Sidah was... constantly feeling sick. The food she always liked most, she could not stand anymore. It was that horrible smell. She would ask her mother: "Mom, what's wrong with me? Why is it that my belly is growing and that I can't stand the smell of your delicious manioc soup anymore?" "My dear," her mother would reply, "I think your suffering from worms and just stay out the the kitchen." Sidah would glance up at her mother and receive this answer as a Sinterklaas gift rapped in last years wrapping paper. Something was not right, but what it was she couldn't tell.

A friend of Sidah also noticed her belly growing and growing. She learned that, that had something to do with babies. Sidah did not knew. Sidah did not go to school nor did her piously Christian mother talk about these physical and unclean matters. Sidah was told by her friend to really see a doctor.

"Dear Sidah," the doctor uttered, "it seems to me that somebody will ring your doorbell soon, but let me first ask you a few questions." He looked with one eye up to Sidah's mom who accompanied her during the consult. "Did you ever had a boyfriend?" Sidah felt her ears starting to glow. The presence of her mother was making her blood run a little faster and feel a little hotter. She stuttered and avoided the doctors' eyes. "Yes, but we broke up a few moths ago." The doctor went on with a calm and determined voice. "Sidah, did you ever had sexual intercourse with your boyfriend?" Again, the doctor holding one eye fixed on the mother. She uttered nothing, but he could tell the question he asked caused the acute irruption of sweat on the mothers forehead. Sidah felt next to her. Her mother was still there, but her spirit had changed. It changed in a entity of shame with in the middle the eye of God prying at her. Sidah was glued to her chair unable to move. She knew she had to give a positive answer, but she was unaware of the relation between the question and her illness. What did sex had to do with babies, after all? She decided to glance up with her most innocent twelve years-old eyes and stated: "No, Doctor, I did not have sexual inte-something with him!" 

The doctor smiled and leaned back in his chair. His hands touching the back of his head. He looked at her for a short while. Then he laid his eyes on Sidah's mother. She did not look back. Than he stretched his arms straight into the air, looked with bright and clear eyes and spoke with a voice leaving no room  for any other possibility: "Well, than it was the wind."

Sidah glanced up. Her eyes bright and cheerful. The doctor just revealed a great secret to her. It was like switching on a light for the first time. She experienced the deep joy of understanding the cause of an effect. "Off-course," she thought, "I've always knew it somewhere, my big belly is caused by the wind." Sidah looked at her mother all proud and shameless. "See, Mother! It was the wind that made me pregnant!"

The mother looked at her daughter, her head slightly tilted. Than she looked at the doctor, with eyes asking to reveal the truth. The doctor first held back, but after a short tense silence he yielded and leaned forward to Sidah. "My dear, let me explain you something..."

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This is not just a story. It's real! And it's not unique. Loads of kids in Bahia, Brasil, lack deeply any form of education. It made a deep impression on me.