“I would like my daughter to live her life well, and not marry just for the sake of it.”

March 21st, 2009

Esperance is 24 years old with a third baby on the way. Her second child died when he was five weeks old. She walked 12 km to get to the ‘Welcome village’ in Masisi hospital, which is situated in North Kivu province and supported by MSF.

“I am the wife of a soldier. I follow my husband wherever he goes because I don’t want to leave him. We are not from North Kivu: I come from Bunia (Ituri) and he is from Kinshasa.”

“We get on well. When I married him, I knew that he was in the military. When the children reach school age, I’d like us to settle in Kinshasa.”

“I would like peace here. And I would like my baby, if it is a girl, to be called Clarysse, but my husband decides about the names. If her name is Clarysse, she’ll have a clear path in life… not like her mother. I married too young. I would like my daughter to live her life well, and not marry just for the sake of it.”

Read other interviews and portraits of pregnant women here.

Read more information on MSF project in Masisi here.