Back from the brink

DUBLIN-born Maura
Lennon is a petit woman, who doesn’t look 48, despite having spent many years
working in some of the most difficult circumstances on the planet.

Her bubbly personality masks the steely determination
necessary for the selfless, sometimes hazardous career she has pursued since
early adulthood.

In 1985, the 21-year-old newly qualified nurse joined
GOAL for a six-month spell in Ethiopia, to help the victims of the catastrophic
famine that cost nearly one million lives. Her planned six-month stay stretched
to two years, broken only by a Christmas fortnight at home.

Her career with GOAL has lasted now for 27 years,
during which time she has served in numerous countries across the developing
world.

She returned to Ethiopia recently to visit GOAL’s
programmes there, anxious to see how things have changed in the intervening
years.

She was nervous, excited and emotional about returning
but was delighted by the many positive changes since 1985.

Unfortunately, there are some things that seem
destined never to change in parts of the Horn of Africa, where Ethiopia is
situated.

“I visited the Dolo Ado refugee camps, which are home
to around 150,000 mostly Somali victims of the latest famine in the Horn,

? she
explained.

“The smell of human misery hit me straight away, and took me back to
1985. You can never forget that terrible stench. It stays with you forever, as
anyone who has experienced it knows.

?

Maura witnessed scenes during the famine that have
lived with her ever since.

“Effectively we had to play God, forced to decide who
would live or die. There was only so much food to distribute to the people, and
every morning starving families would queue outside our feeding centre. You had
to turn people away, knowing that most of the rejected wouldn’t be back because
soon they wouldn’t be alive. That’s a terrible responsibility, but we couldn’t
avoid it.

?

One mother
presented Maura with a ring, which later became her wedding band.

“She was so grateful that we could feed her children
and save their lives, she gave me this ring,

? she explained.

“I’ve always
treasured it. When I got married it became my wedding ring.

?

Many equally
grateful parents named their children

‘Maura’ in lasting recognition of the
little Irish nurse.

Maura now has four children of her own, and parenthood
has widened her perspective on the famine.

“I grew up very quickly in Ethiopia, witnessing so
many truly horrific things. But when you’re 21, you can’t be completely mature,
no matter what you’ve experienced. The deaths of the children naturally
devastated me. But it’s only now, as a mother, that I can begin to appreciate
what it must have been like for the poor bereaved parents.

?

Wherever she went, death was ever-present.

“I’m not a midwife, but once, as the only Westerner
and medically trained person in a village, I was on a dirt track trying to save
the life of a young mother and her newborn twins. Most of her neighbours and
her poor husband were gathered around us, looking on. Both babies died, and
then the mother died as well. That was heartbreaking, and I was a long time
getting over it. She and her babies were just too weak and malnourished to
survive. Some of the villagers were angry with me. They had invested so much
faith in me being able to work a miracle, and felt I had let them down. Though
I don’t think I was ever in any real danger.

?