Welcome! You've reached my blog; an attempt to document & share this rollercoaster & adventure of a life I'm fortunate to be living. *Disclaimer-website still in progress! Enjoy!
Once the blood was in place, the patients dove fully into their new characters. We had them load up into a line of waiting Land Rovers which would escort them outside the MSF gates in preparation for the beginning of the drill. I assumed they would walk to the waiting vehicles, but that is not what happened. Instead, people began to limp, fall on the ground, dragging themselves, yelling out in pain, asking to be carried, flailing their arms dramatically. It was crazy to say the least.
Together, we celebrate what it means to be alive, to be living and working together; one team made up of many nations. Although our backgrounds are very different, we are-brought together by our shared experience of living in Agok and of caring for and serving our patients. Together, we celebrate the newest country in the world. It is an atmosphere pregnant with hopes, longings and anticipation; all finely balanced upon a fragility, which speaks of defeat, loss and the exhaustion that comes with being resigned to a life of war.
Even when we live together, we segregate ourselves. We form our little groups, find our place of comfort and all too often forget that there is much to be learned from the very people who we find ourselves judging. We miss out on this deep well of great beauty when we fail to take the time to hear people’s stories. I don’t say this as an admonishment. These words are for me as much as they are for you.
After 7 flights and almost 6 days of travel, I have finally arrived in Agok. I took a small, 8-10 seater World Food Program plane to get here and arrived on a dirt landing strip covered with children who barely made it out of the way before the wheels made contact with the earth.
The definite highlight of the day was seeing a kiddo come into the clinic dressed as Santa Claus (his mother completely unaware) and seeing another kiddo named 'Beyonce' (not the typical Congolese-refugee name) ;)
Spending so much time with pregnant woman here in the settlement and being so close to life and death on a daily bases has caused me to do a great deal of thinking, specifically about the differences between delivery in a country such as Uganda and the U.S; the differences not only in the delivery itself but also in the preparation leading up to the birth. Back home, we have the power and the knowledge to be in charge of our bodies (in most cases) from pre-conception to post-delivery. We can plan whether or not to become pregnant and after our urine dipsticks display a '+', we have nine months to fully prepare for the coming child. We order parenting 'how to' books, attend parenting classes and workshops, practice prenatal Yoga, consult with our friends who have gone before us, outfit the baby's room and line up friends who can deliver meals. Once the delivery gets closer we go to work in our search for the perfect midwife and if we are lucky, a doula as well. We visit birthing centers and hospitals and start choosing how and where we will bring new life into the world. Through every step of the process we are receiving routine antenatal care, which includes ultrasounds to tell us whether all is well inside the womb. In Africa, and many other areas of the world, women are never consulted about the decision of whether to get pregnant. Theirs is a life of subservience and reproductive surrender. There are no books for them to read or classes to attend on how to be a good parent, there is no one telling them what they should or shouldn't eat as the baby begins to grow inside their wombs. As their gestation period winds to an end, there are no ultrasounds, no fancy birthing suites and no pain medications. They do what their ancestors have been doing for millenia before them. They squat on a dirt or concrete floor and bring new life into the world. Their bodies know what to do and for many, both baby and mom come out of the experience healthy. The problem however, is that for the majority of women, this is not their story. According to the WHO, almost 800 women die from pregnancy or childbirth-related complications around the world every day, with 99% of maternal deaths occurring in developing countries (primarily Africa and areas of Asia and the Middle East). http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs348/en/
At six years of age he was unable to walk and appeared to be perhaps 3 years old, his head being completely disproportionate to the rest of his body which had stopped growing early into his development.
