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| Composting latrines to the left, Outdoor Shower in Center and my Home! |
My house is made of dung, I urinate and defecate in two different areas – both heat composting toilets of sorts, banana and papaya trees are growing outside my window, it rains everyday now so the gardens are ripe for planting and my shower is outside with a sheet as the door. I am in Attiak, Uganda. I have been here for 1 week today and already have loads of stories to tell…
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| Inside my Hut. |
I am here to work as a Midwife in a birth center called, Ot Nywal Me
Kuc, meaning “House of Birth and Peace” in local Acholi language. This
place is in far Northern Uganda, about 20
miles from the Sudanese border. It took me 8 hours on a local bus from the
capital, Kampala,
to reach Gulu and then another 2 hours drive to reach the compound.The land never ends here. There are tall grasses and banana trees that line the entire road with small communities dotted here and there. There are lush green mountains in the distance and red dirt everywhere.
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| Looking out my door at the flower garden to the Solar powered Birth Center... scattered with infamous jerry cans | for water. |
There is one main road the stretches
from Kampala (where I flew in) all the way through Sudan, which runs directly
outside our compound. Here, large cargo trucks travel day and night, mostly
loaded with hitchhikers and freight that is coming and going. I’ve seen huge
trucks with 50+ people on top, jerry cans for water tied on the back and a load
of cattle underneath. Very impressive; more so because none of it is paved,
very washed out and is under road construction – which could take years to
complete. There are people, bikes, boda bodas (motorcycles used for taxis) and
goats tied along the way. It is like the main interstate of Uganda. This area is incredibly rich in history, which is part of my attraction, but before I go into the important history of this place, you should at least know what in the world I am doing in Uganda... ??
In essence, I came here for more experience .. a residency of sorts .. with a focus on out-of-hospital Midwifery care since I had none of it in my training. I also came here to breathe and recalibrate and do work that I deeply believe in with local women in a place that truly needs safe care. The maternity care here is inconsistent, brutal and understaffed. In all honesty, this is the type of work that drove me back to school in the first place, so it is rewarding and exciting to now have tangible skills that I dreamed of for so long. However, it is a big learning curve to switch from Vanderbilt University L&D to a remote birth center in Africa with very limited supplies. Births are done by candlelight with Traditional Birth Attendants from surrounding communities at my side. I will stop here because this will be an entirely separate blog post to come.
Mother Health International
I want to give you all a brief history of this area, as well as the back-story to Mother Health International and how they began their work in this area. It is really compassionate story of two American midwives, Rachel and Olivia, who invested in this area and built – with the community’s help – a safe place for women to birth.
Northern Uganda is infamously known for it’s 23 year long war, which began in the 1980s and ended only 5 years ago. With several coups and attempts of overthrowing the ruling government, several resistance movements, including the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) was formed. Joseph Kony, which is a name you might have heard of, headed the LRA. For years the LRA and other rebel groups raped and pillaged villages, specifically in the Northern part of the country. Atiak, in particular, took a brunt of the abusive.
In the 1990s Atiak was also home to a horrific massacre, which has really distinguished the area. After arriving to the village, soldiers divided the community – women with children here, boys under 14 here, boys over 14 there. They took who they wanted – child soldiers and child bride wives, lined the rest up and shot them all in a row. This tragedy is still recent and most definitely lives on in the area. Most everyone still living here was affected somehow by the war – loosing family, raped themselves, etc … you can imagine how horrible … this includes the women we are caring for.
Aid organizations were slow to respond and towards the end of the war an IDP (internally displaced people) camp was established in the center of Atiak. Medicines San Frontieres was here and built the health center and the church still has bullet holes in it from the massacre.
One year after the war, the founders of Mother Health International (MHI), Rachel and Olivia, were based in Gulu (largest hub, 2hrs South, where most rebuilding efforts were based) working as midwives at the local district hospital. Realizing the true need for appropriate (or rather any) women’s health care, they assessed the need in the area and found that Atiak was most in need and received the least assistance. With much time and consideration they built the Ot Nywal Me Kuc birth center, creating a safe and reliable place for women to get care and give birth. Today, the birth center is run by Rachel and Olivia - from the USA, along with traditional Ugandan midwives from the surrounding communities (they work in week long shifts) and volunteer International midwives.
With only a week under my belt, I am still wide-eyed and excited about each opportunity here. I wake up excited about the adventure the day will bring -- birth, war, resettling efforts, birth customs and traditions... all full topics in their own right. Right now I am watching the sun rise, enjoying fairly decent internet speed and listening to the roosters crow. I'm about to go make some tea.
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