Bloodcurdling

"Bloodcurdling". This is not a word we often use.
Yet the word itself brilliantly expresses its own meaning. On Wednesday evening this week, bloodcurdling is exactly the word I needed to describe what I was hearing.

About 10pm, I was downstairs in our office room, trying to catch up with a few emails. Suddenly, a terrible screaming noise started. At first, I thought it was stray dogs howling- a frequent night-sound in Africa. As the noise persisted, I listened more intently and then noticed that I could hear dogs barking separately to the screaming. This meant that it was not dogs I could hear.

The noise worsened in volume and pitch. It became a desperate, howling scream. I realised with horror that it was a woman screaming somewhere nearby. I opened the window to try and gauge where the awful sound was coming from, In the black of a Juba night, it was hard to tell exactly where the lady was; but it was easy to tell that she was in great distress.

I felt afraid for her but did not know what to do. In Juba, I can't rush outside to help- it simply would not be wise. I can't call 999.

I could not settle to work again and I could not sit down, because I was aware of some terrible event happening. It was a a fear-filled scream. My mind slipped into question mode:
Was she being raped?
Was someone attacking her by the compound wall?
Was someone trying to kill her?
Was someone going to attack her and then come to attack us inside the MAF compound?

Disturbed, I said a prayer for the woman. I paced the room- but when the dreadful banging noises and the shout of men's voices reached me, I bolted upstairs to wake my sleeping (worn-out-pilot) husband. Then I burst into tears. My palms were sweaty, my legs were shaking. Some dreadful, horrible thing was happening to a lady and I could do nothing to help.
Despite me waking him so abruptly, Andrew was tranquil and sensible, calming me down. But it was a horrible situation. I also felt fearful. Was the banging sound just a preliminary noise before another shooting incident?

The screaming stopped after maybe 10 minutes. After 15 minutes or so, the frightening banging noises stopped. The sound of voices began to fade.

I did not sleep well that night. I kept waking up, worried about the woman and upset for her.

The next day, our MAF neighbour took a translator with him and went round to the houses behind MAF to ask people what had happened. It transpired that one of our neighbours had a violent husband. In a fit of rage, this husband had tried to kill his wife, attempting to break her neck. When that did not work, he resorted to savagely beating her. That is what we at MAF had heard, along with her desperate screams for survival.

Thankfully, other local neighbours intervened, They removed the man by force and beat him in turn!
He is now in prison.
The woman is in hospital,
Her young son, who must have been there for the incident in their tiny hut-home, is being looked after by relatives.

 I hope we can visit this lady at her house when she comes out of hospital, to show our support for her in this horrible situation.

Domestic violence, sadly, happens all over the world. But Juba is the first place in my life that I have ever heard such a horrifying sound of someone screaming for their life. A truly bloodcurdling sound.