Miss Jean Louise: Â The Birth of A Legend
Miss Jean Louise, The Queen of GISHWHES, was born in a hut in Khor Angar, Djibouti. Â This hut huddled on the north side of the fort trying to hide under the shadows of the high wall for as long as it could during the unrelenting heat of the African desert day. Â The inhabitants of the hut skiddered along the small walls inside the hut to stay in that shadow as the day moved along. Â
It was on just one of these scorching acid breath days that a white woman wrapped in layer upon layer of burlap sacks that reeked of the coffee they once held, fell breathlessly into the door of the hut.  The woman who lived in the hut quickly grabbed the younger woman and pulled her inside and into the small patch of shade veiling the far corner.  She tried to revive the woman by rubbing her blistered hands and feet with palm oil.  She dipped a cloth in water and put it to the woman’s cracked lips. Â
The woman never opened her eyes, but whispered painfully, “please...listen.”
The older woman understood some English.  She learned from one of the pilots who came through the Obrock Airport, or landing strip as it was, who used to buy palm candy from her and visit her for companionship many years ago.  She looked down to the woman in her lap, stroked her hair and said, “yes,  my dear?”
The prone woman grabbed her benefactor’s arm, and urgently said, “My baby,” and pointed to herself under the pile of burlap she was wearing.  “My girl needs to know my story.  Please tell her about me...”  Her voice started to fade.
The older woman gave her a few drops more water from her brittle plastic 1968 World Cup mug, and unwrapped the layers of burlap revealing a round pregnant belly protruding from the otherwise sickly thin woman.  Her weathered hand tentatively touched the swollen moon and felt movement beneath the thin skin.  “She will be here soon.”
“Tell her.”  She began again, sipping water to bring forth the words she knew she had to pass on.  “Tell her that I escaped for her.  The ship.  The men that stole me, stole us.  They were pirates.  They took my ship and me.  I waited until I saw land and I smothered the man who guarded the lifeboat.  I washed up near here and tried to make it to the fort.  I found you.  You must save her.  She is coming“ With that, the woman passed out of consciousness again, but the movement in her belly became more forceful.  Her baby was indeed coming, and coming soon.
For several hours, the older woman did her best to save both the mother and the child. Â It was hard work in blazing hot air, and she fed the mother water, and squeezed her hand and encouraged her to push. Â In a final gasp of hot breath, painful moaning and gushing blood, a small girl was brought into the world. Â The midwife was not expecting much from the girl as she was coming into the world dehydrated, undernurished and in squalid conditions, but the girl kicked the midwife square in the jaw and opened up her mouth and screamed. Â And thus, Miss Jean Louise was born. Â Her mother died soon after, but the woman who birthed her, made sure that Miss Jean Louise was given to a family who loved her. Â
Miss Jean Louise would always keep that battered World Cup mug as a souvenir of her place and midwife.  She would keep the story she was told of her mother’s heroism as her inspiration to go out and fight normalcy, the patriarchy, and pirates.  Â
