Gulalai Naseri

Gulalai Naseri, my midwife friend in Afghanistan, works at the only maternal hospital in the capital, Kabul. They attend from 40-60 births a day. But at night, Muslim women are not allowed to leave their homes – in labor or not. Gulalai has lived through Russian occupation and Taliban occupation and now American occupation – and women still do not go out at night. So, she does, and always has, if she gets that phone call in the night from a woman in labor who hadn’t made it to the hospital during the day. “It’s what I must do,” she tells me, and shrugs her shoulders. Her husband, fortunately, is a rare man who feels the same way. He drives Gulalai to the women’s houses, stays during the labor and birth, and shares tea with the father in another part of the house. One morning before dawn last year, coming back from an all night labor and birth, Gulalai assumes her normal position lying down in the back seat of the car, while her husband drives home. On this night, the Taliban stop them. They take them both out of the car. The Taliban men scream at her husband for taking his woman out at night. He said they were coming from a birth – what can they do? No matter, they shouted, you know better. They tell him they will behead his wife, right there in front of him, to punish him. Gulalai’s husband begged on his knees. Gulalai stands silently, with her arms crossed over her chest. Finally she speaks to the Taliban, in a puffed up voice, “We were at the home of Colonel Ahmed. He has a son. Go ask him.” So, they let them go home, because this warlord is very famous in Kabul. They did, however, beat them unconscious and left them beside the car. She told me they woke up in the morning, got into the car, and drove home. Gulalai still goes out for births. All the midwives do. There is no one else.

Gululai Naseri - Ann Davenport