The Ambiguous Odyssey

It’s in moments like these that I am filled with some unspoken form of joy, pride, and hope. Today marks the fourth anniversary of the growing mound of grief we have become. It is hard to come to terms with the thought that when this started I was a teenager that just turned sixteen and now I am twenty and in my third year of university, still alive. Four years later and I am still beating the odds, one torturous day after the other. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought this is how my life would turn out; a constant fear of tomorrow. As this aggression continues to end the souls of many and leaving people homeless you would think that this is where it ends. You would think that the bombs are all we fear; those missile falling from the sky like comets just with the additional fear of death, but it is not, these four years have changed the place I call home. The pain lies here in the fact it hasn’t changed because of the destruction of homes or the death of people al...

My dear, you will never be the right person at the right time, but the fault does not lie within yourself rather it lies in the depth of their faults, their insecurities, their self-loathe. So, don’t you dare put the blame on yourself or carry the burden of others.  The burden of those who give themselves valid excuses to give you the cold shoulder, those who decide that you are the one to blame for every mishap they come across, those are the people you happily cross out of your life. Sometimes those people are the same people who once built walls and fought dragons to protect you but little did you know that one day you would need walls to shield you from them. So, gently my dear, take a deep breath, take a step forward, and set yourself free. Set yourself free from the chains that are no longer visible for these chains have been holding you back for so long. They have been holding you back from all the possibilities of a better tomorrow. Yes, it is hard to break through the shac...

The gift of life is truly an out of this world experience. As I was running around the hospital from the operation theatre to the gynecology and obstetrics section to make sure the patient's blood pressure was stable for her surgery, I ran to double check a few points with the doctor and there was a birth, not any birth but twins! August 2nd, 2018 my third birth to attend and I was filled with butterflies. Twins! I took the papers from the doctor to give the patient's husband to run the labs and to give the BP patient her medications. In that moment I learned that nothing is faster than a second in a hospital; everything happens in the blink of an eye. I ran back to the labor room and a beautiful little girl was on her way out to this world, head first prepared to get down to business. The umbilical cord was cut and she was placed on the heater, disturbed by the excessive lighting and crying for dear life. Just a few feet away her mother was awaiting her second baby to joi...

I remember the very first baby I saw come to life had such a beautiful mother.   Finally, we were upgraded to the labor room! The first week was filled with gauze and linen sheets. It was an eternal process of making beds and folding gauze, and honestly I started to doubt  the day to enter the labor room was ever going to co me and if it was worth all that preparatory work . Everyday, women would come and give birth and there would be other nurses in-training like ourselves that were very “pushy’, so as you could imagine, we were always asked to leave and they would get the chance to watch the gift of life. Next thing we did was go in extra early and build strong relationship with all the people in the labor room. However, we would always arrive 2-3 minutes later than a birth, yet we would get to clean the beautiful newborn and dress them up and our mission was soon to be accomplished! So, the next day we got in, there was such a beautiful woman, painfully l...

July 24th I was moved unfortunately from the ER to the gynecology and obstetrics sections and oh boy was I disappointed. As soon as I set foot there I was given paperwork to fill out and we all know how boring that can be, so I got the worst first impression. The nurse who was in charge of the section Sister Shahinaz was the sweetest, kindest, most giving nurse I came across. She honestly taught me so much and for that I am eternally grateful. I changed sections with a fear of cannulas which she helped me overcome. So, a few days into the section she told me to go get a patient from the OT, I obliged and went. As soon as I arrived, I felt a cool air striking me, and my heart ached when I saw her there lying in fetal position, so vulnerable, so fragile. Almost a dead body on her side, on the cold, unsteady bed and that devil-like surgical nurse standing like a tyrant above her frail torso. Yelling at us to hurry up and transfer her to the other bed to move her b...

We grow so accustomed to certain rituals, like the way we have our morning coffee without a touch of cream, but I never thought I would find death so routine. Three years into an unjust war against my country and each day turning into another dozen of funerals, yet here I am sipping my coffee and staring at a screen as if nothing is happening. It’s not that I am unmoved by the reality of what’s going on, rather I’ve been programmed into an object that finds death nothing out of the ordinary. The daily raids that steal these lives no longer fill me with sadness but the void is filled with hatred and rage towards not only the coalition that’s attacking us, but also the people who watch the suffering silently and believe -yes, truly believe- that they are allowed to be so unbiased. Three years into this war and here I am done with my first year of university but have absolutely no future to think of, not a single plan for the next few years other than praying that my backyard won’t d...

I am here to describe my experience as a nurse in the ER. At first, I thought I would spend my first week in training in the pediatrics section or even better with the premies. However on July 16, I was destined suddenly through a series of coincidences into the ER. The moment I set foot in there I was shocked not by the filth -even though that truly was a problem- but rather the treatment how there is suddenly this huge gap between the person who wears a lab coat and the common citizen. These people enter this hospital in seek of help, of assistance, even if this is a public hospital they are still live beings who deserve their fair share of care. My mother has always been a strong believer that hospitals aren’t the answer, hence, I’ve never entered a hospital here in Yemen. This experience gave me a broad vision of the reality of my country.   No, this isn’t because of the coalition. Yes, there are a lot of bumps on the road due to the coalition, but to know that people no l...