Village Tragedy

 This week, for the second time since I came here, someone that I know has died.  If you remember, the first time it was the mother of our local shopkeeper.  While her death was of course very sad, she was quite old and ill with diabetes, etc.  This death is much more of a surprise and much harder to bear.  It was one of my seventh form (grade) students.  But she was not only one of my students, she was in the same class as my youngest sister and they were close friends.  She is also the younger sister of one of my very best students/close friends.  She was a really shy girl so I won’t write all the details of her death here, even though it all seems to be very openly discussed in the village, but from what I have gathered she basically bled out after a cyst ruptured in her uterus and then no blood went to her brain.  Even though she was apparently suffering for about a month, she didn’t tell anyone (friends, family, etc) and looked perfectly normal and healthy.  On Thursday night (2/10) just before I went to Baku, I heard she was ill but no details.  By the time I returned Tuesday (2/15) she had had an operation and was very ill in the hospital.  By Tuesday night she had died.  I didn’t know until Wednesday morning when students from my other 7th form class told me.  At first I really thought it must be gossip, that the students had it wrong, but within a few minutes my counterpart confirmed the news.  I went with all the teachers and students to her house after school and watched them carry her body away to the cemetery.  It was so surreal and I still can’t quite believe it has happened.  I think I’m going to use it as motivation to do some lessons about women’s health for this girls’ group (basically a Girl Scout troop) that I just started.

While she is the only person I know personally who died, unfortunately my village has seen a lot of death this month.  In addition to Aytac, one of my fellow teacher’s father died, one of my fellow teacher’s husband died, and a small boy (age 3 or 4) also died.  And probably more that I haven’t heard about.  I guess February is just not our month.  I hope we’ve had all the bad news we’re going to get.

Allah rəhmət eləsin.