Dec. 15, 2011
Dear Friends and Family,
Brenda and Ida have passed over one week now at Earth Birth in Uganda. All is not as one might have expected, but when is it ever? Yet all is well.
I have not spoken with Brenda so my report below comes from three phone conversations with Ida—challenging because the delay time is about 5 seconds, but still wonderful—and also from a few emails. Brenda is posting regularly on Facebook, so if you are a Facebook user you could friend Brenda Burke and read her posts. That’s where I read that 2 babies have been named after Ida!
Earth Birth is in a very rural part of Uganda, north of Gulu in the North Central part of the country. It is the dry season there and it is very hot—Ida says that by 8:00 am it is what we would call unbearable. Everyone stays out of the sun during the day.
Ida is living with “Nighty”, the Ugandan Woman who is the cook for Earth Birth, and Nighty’s sweet 2-year-old son Stewart. She is so happy to have this easy way to be friends with Nighty and Stewart, and spends a lot of time with them. The dwelling is a round one-room building made of either block and covered with a mixture of mud and cow dung (check the link below if you’d like to see) and thatched with a grass of some sort. There is solar-generated electricity in Nighty’s hut, which they can use for lights, the sewing machine, or Brenda’s laptop which Ida borrows sometimes—too seldom—to write home at night from under her mosquito net. I know that she hopes to write a group letter to you all too, but that time has not yet come.
On the first day they arrived, at the first hour, a large snake was being killed and Brenda and Ida were brought to watch. “Good,” said Ida’s mother upon hearing this, “now you know to ask about where those snakes live and how to avoid them and what to do if you see one.”
Earth Birth exists to train traditional Ugandan midwives so that they can help ensure the safe delivery of babies in their own communities. There are currently 30 midwives in training there, though they are not all there at once. Usually there are 1-2 Western midwives there as well, doing cultural exchange of information and skills.
Since Ida and Brenda’s arrival 11 days ago, they have attended 6 births but only one of them was at Earth Birth. This has been surprising, since typically Earth Birth sees 4 or more births a day. In the last few days, some sad facts have come out that explain this change. In the nearby town of Atiak (a 7-minute walk) there is a clinic that performs circumcisions and does have a midwife on staff too but apparently she is not seen currently. There are some current tensions between this clinic and Earth Birth. Apparently (remember that I learned this on a bad phone connection from someone who’s only been there 10 days and doesn’t speak the language, so there’s a lot more to learn before we can call this the whole story) some hold bad feelings for Earth Birth, and those people have been spreading rumors that it costs money to give birth at Earth Birth (not true) and that they leave the umbilical cord uncut for too long and so HIV is transmitted to the babies (also not true.) And, this last week the clinic in Atiak has been handing out vouchers to all the pregnant women in the area which, if the women give birth in the Atiak clinic, they can redeem for some stuff.
In the midst of all this, last week the 4 Western midwives happened to be at the Atiak Clinic because they had a mother who needed something there, and by chance while they were there no fewer than 4 babies being born and the only person there to attend was the circumciser. The women, set on hard tables in dark rooms, were alone and so the 4 midwives assisted in every way. Time will tell the story of how this affected the whole drama as it unfolds. Many questions have arisen about how the social relations issues will be addressed with wisdom and skill.
In the meantime, Ida and Brenda are the only two Westerners at Earth Birth (Rachel, the founder, who invited them there, was present for the first week but now is off at Earth Birth Haiti). In the absence of births, they spend their days looking for other ways to be helpful. For Ida that is taking the form of sewing projects. She was asked to bring along certain kinds of fabrics for making baby carriers and some other things, to teach the women there how to make them. Rachel and the Earth Birth midwives hope that they can sell these items to add a little income for their families. So Ida sits on the sewing machine in Nighty’s hut, and has now created and refined some prototypes of the items requested. Lots of questions there too - she’s not sure if the women sewing them will be sewing by hand or have machines, nor how to get more fabric, nor many other things. She’s learning in the dark on the fly, as have so many before her.
There hasn’t been much music-making, for one reason or another that she doesn’t know. Ida told me that earlier today she had been sitting in a large circle of women and children, not understanding their Acholi language but loving to be there with them, and having the urge to sing with them. She said it took a lot of doing to gather up her courage to offer to teach a song, mostly because she didn’t want to interrupt whatever they were doing and had no way of knowing, because of the language barrier, if she would be saying “Wanna learn this song?” right after someone had said “Well we’ve lingered here way too long and we really must be getting home now!” But finally Ida did it, she offered and then taught them a song. They loved it and sang it for a long time, and have been singing it more throughout the day!
Even though there aren’t many births taking place, the midwives are going out every day to do ‘prenatals’ – code, Ida says, for just making nice connections with pregnant women. They do so many prenatals in one day! Ida performs them alone, with a translator at her side. Of course this is a wonderful way to be with the women, even though the births may not take place until after Ida and Brenda have departed.
The “ambulance,” an old car with frequent breakdowns, is as of today broken down again. Nighty and the other leaders had planned to drive to Gulu for the last food and supply shopping of the year but, according to what I heard from Ida today, the Ugandans in charge of such decisions now need to figure out if there’s enough money to both fix the car and buy more beans and rice. (Only yesterday I got the wiring of our fundraising money accomplished, and though my understanding is that that money is already earmarked, I don’t know how such decisions are made). Also, the 2-year-old batteries for the solar system are shot, and the refrigerator can’t be plugged in anymore or the rest of the system fails. Daniel is going to help me write up some battery care tips to pass along per Ida’s request, for solar batteries should be able to last 10 years.
I love to hear about them sitting with elderly midwives, communicating without language and hugging and kissing to show their love; playing with the children; Ida trying her hand at a Ugandan hoe, and of course the singing of songs.
All is well. Thank you for all the loving thoughts and prayers that you are sending out for Brenda and Ida and for the people with whose lives and hearts they are intertwining.
Love,
Liz
PS – Here’s the website of Earth Birth, where you can read about their mission, see more images and watch a GRIT tv interview with it’s co-founder Rachel Zaslow: http://www.earth-birth.com/
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