April 13, 2012

13 April 2012, Friday, Kafountine Senegal.  This is my first chance to post, have not really figured out how to send pictures, so perhaps this will be a colorless blog until i am home and can share the pictures. I promise to send them out when we get back. Our trip from milwaukee through detriot and new york was straight forward, as was our long flight across the ocean to Dakar. Then a lovely break at the home of friends of the project, and then 12 hours by overnight ferry to a town 3 dusty hours from Kafountine our final destination. Hazel was great, did very well on very little sleep, and as I met up with more and more of our group, people helped us make our travels even easier. Now a week later, i have a little time to write. Today, maybe last night, was that first day of angst, as we used to say in our mediation trainings. Tears, we are missing our families, children back home are sick, missing their mamas, and the mamas here are missing their kids, their families. Hazel, normally delighted to go to her Tanta Nima, was quieter than her usual self, wishing she could come with me to work instead which was not possible. I did get an update that she was fine after I left. We have been here now for a week. Such welcoming people here, warm spirits, generosity, many children, beautiful women, vibrant clothing and textiles, long stretches of white sand and dust, wild rhythmic music, poverty and daily hardship side by side with life. Our first day we met many people, especially Awa, the most senior sage femme (midwife) --we witnessed her attend our first birth here, a very small, late preterm complete breech, slide easily out of her mother, give a lusty cry, beautiful and healthy... Then on our days off we settled into our new home away from home, walked the town and markets and went to the ocean. Wide and vast blue ocean, long wooden fishing boats, sun bathing cattle on the white sand and the sun, hot and glorious!  We sit here now, after loosing another baby, the first one was on our last shift, a double footling breech that probably died soon after the mother ruptured membranes.... We are being taught how to say "I am sorry", so sorry. This is her second baby, the other also died in childbirth.... We cannot really know what this does to a woman's life. We are so sorry. In Wolof, or even in all of west Africa, this sounds like "maasaah", I feel empathy for you, we say it when women have pain in labor, or we are told to say when a baby dies,"God is good"or "Trust in God". It does not seem adequate. There are no tears, adults don't cry in public... I gesture my empathy to the father's family. They understand.  We are seeing. Many things we don't normally see, somethings very hard to witness. Tired now. Debriefing with students. Hoping for a normal birth, maybe this evening. That would be good.  My love to all of you. Thank you for holding us in the light.