Petals of Opportunity: Chapter One

She is a beautiful girl with a tranquil nature. Her quietness has a delicacy of an exquisite flower. It is rare to find such beauty and elegance in a young girl. She is Musa Sharif.

Her endearing humble spirit and genuine modesty are qualities distinctly prevalent on first impression.   It is easy to conclude these qualities have been cultivated from a sheltered life surrounded by love. This is only true in her distant past. Her fairy-tale childhood was shattered.  She now lives a daily nightmare in a disturbing reality.  

Upon her arrival at the ship Musa was vulnerable and terrified

Musa is an outcast. Every day she struggles with social exclusion defined in the endless bouts of bullying and provocation. These desperate circumstances were generated from an innocent accident in her early infant years.

Since birth, her home has been in Kotobo, a large town, in the outskirts of Bo, Sierra Leone.  There she lives with her mother, four brothers and four sisters. Prior to the accident she already endured a tragic loss when her father died. This left her mother to solely provide for the whole family. Fortunately for Musa, from an early age, she had formed close bonds with her brothers and sisters who protected her until the disastrous event occurred.

This happened on a typical day. Her mother, with the older siblings, applied themselves to their daily chores as usual.  It was clear and bright so Musa and her brother wandered into the bush. As they played in the searing heat of the day a stick suddenly fell from a tree.  Her brother said “it came out from nowhere and hit her eye.”  It had struck Musa directly in her left eye. 

The inevitable happened. Her eye became acutely inflamed and sore. They had no money to visit a clinic to seek medical advice. It was a pressing challenge just to provide a daily meal for the family.

With poor nutrition and polluted water the severity of the wound escalated over time. A swelling developed behind her eye which steadily grew over time pushing her eyeball out of its socket.  It was this protruding eye that caused distress and grief leading her into an isolated existence.

Musa is now eight years old. She has never been to school nor been educated. She has no friends. Yet in her desolate life there is a faint hope that the future may change. It is this hope that feeds her inner strength. The evidence of this is apparent in the early morning when she sings traditional African songs to life her heart whilst everyone is asleep. 

Then one day she was taken by her family to stay with one of her brothers who had moved to Freetown. Her brother was studying at College. He took Musa to be screened at Mercy Ships.  She was admitted as a patient on board the Africa Mercy.

She was now no longer just isolated but alone and terrified of the alien surroundings. For the first few days she sat silently in her hospital bed with her eyes cast downwards and never uttering a single sound.

Over the next few weeks Mercy Ships crew embraced her with loving kindness. Even her brother joined in to gently and affectionately nurse her broken soul.  However, her surgery was delayed because the cat-scan machine had broken.  The scan was required to provide the details for the surgery.

Despite this Musa started to emerge from her silence. Firstly she raised her head high enough to glance around the ward. The Mercy Ships crew encouraged her curiosity and looked into her eyes when chatting to her. She was startled and bewildered.  It had been so long since anyone had accepted her and talked directly to her.  She started to murmur single replies.

Over time the crew discovered she had a life dream to go to school. So they provided colourful crayons, took her hand in theirs and wrote her name. Her capacity for learning is phenomenal. After only the first time she copied her name with no assistance.

This was the moment there was a breakthrough. A radiant smile lit up her face. In her shyness she kept glancing down but unable to contain her joy she repeatedly looked up beaming to the whole ward. This is when she realised her faint intangible hope to be healed was actually happening.



During her stay on the ship Musa emerged from her silent cocoon and

achieved one of her dreams; to write her own name. Her smile was priceless.



Then the idyllic bubble burst. It was taking some time to mend the cat-scan machine so Musa was sent home with her brother to wait. Her dream world had ended. Distraught and quivering with fear Musa left the ship unknowing what the future held for her. Would she return to be healed?