In preparation for the trip I read about the women who had been abducted, and forced to serve the rebels who were devastating the country.   How horrifying to be subjected to violent men who were constantly on “brown brown,” a mixture of cocaine and gun powder, adding to their disconnect to the reality of the hell they were imposing on the country.  Some of the young girls were made into commander’s wives and had to mother the rebel’s children.   These women lived through the horrors of struggling daily for survival in a war zone, under the constant threat of the perpetrators who raped them for years.

I admit that in writing the above description I had to constantly withdraw my grim choice of words.  I had to retract my harsh dramatization of what it was like for the woman captured by the rebels and replace it with softer words.  But I do not think it is a topic that should be made more manageable for the reader.  Nicolas Christoph and Sheryl WuDunn’s book, “Half the Sky,” does not spare the reader any details in the stories of women around the world who suffered through unimaginable abuses.  The stories are not told for shock value; they are the reality of the women’s lives, and the truth should be known.