The True Story Behind the Drawing – African Mother and Child

When I first looked at her photo I had no idea she’d endured banishment, humiliation, and a death sentence. What I saw was a snapshot of a sweet African mother holding her child. There was something about her eyes. And I wanted to draw them, badly. It wasn’t until after I finished the drawing that I learned their story. And cringed. And cried.




About ten years ago in Utah, I went to a slideshow presentation about a humanitarian mission in Mali, Africa. One of the last slides was of this mother and child. I fell in love with it. After the show was done, I asked the nurse giving the presentation who I could contact to ask permission to draw that photo. She had taken the picture and kindly agreed to let me draw it. We exchanged addresses and phone numbers.



While I waited, the memory of the picture haunted me. It was very exciting when the picture arrived in my mailbox. I went right to work. When I’d finished, I was able to talk to this nurse again and heard the story.



The nurse was part of Ouelessebougou Alliance, a humanitarian foundation that provides many services and kinds of help. At the time I spoke to her, the Alliance was sending a medical team, which included an ob/gyn doctor, each year right after Christmas to Ouelessebougou in Mali, Africa.



And each year as they arrived at the medical facility the Alliance had built, they passed a long line of cheering women. Many walked for days and waited even longer.



But the team could only stay a week, could only help so many, and could only bring as much donated equipment as would fit in the back of their single jeep.



Many of the women in line shared the same problem. Infertility. Their culture, unchanged since Biblical times, placed a woman’s value upon her ability to bring children into her family. Polygamy, although shocking to us, was normal. So was starvation and infant mortality. Children were prized above all else, because they were the future of the family.



When a woman was unable to conceive, she was seen as a burden – dead weight – eating food that could be given to the children.



In time, she would be cast out of the family. Often, her parents wouldn’t take her back because she was unmarriageable. Many of these cast-offs wandered the streets, despised, suffering every privation, begging, most often dying. It was a death sentence.



Unless . . . this humanitarian team could do something.



The woman in the picture was taken inside. She was put under and cut open. The doctor and nurses looked and then shook their heads. She had no fallopian tubes. Even here in the U.S., the odds for fixing it aren’t good. Still, they had to do something. Grabbing some IV tubing, they rigged make-shift fallopian tubes, sewed her up, sent her to the crammed recovery room, and prayed. Still, everyone knew it was impossible.



The week finished. The team packed up, and drove past the dispersing line of women who hadn’t made it in. Hopefully, they’d survive another year. Have another chance.



The team returned the next year.



And the next.



And in that cheering line was this woman – smiling – cradling her sleeping child.



She returned to show the volunteers why they sacrificed to come each year.

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I love sharing her story, and the story of the people who go, unpaid, halfway around the world to help. If you are interested, you can learn more about the Ouelessebougou Alliance at their website: http://www.sistercommunity.org/ or http://www.ouelessebougou.org/



If you choose to make a donation to their Alliance, I want to thank you! I’m serious! We have problems everywhere, here even, but I’m so touched when I learn of people with good hearts.



You’ll make my day if you comment and/or pass on this blog. I’d love to share this mother’s story and assist the Ouelessebougou Alliance in making a difference.