Guest Post: Nichole Graber-Simmons: Haiti vs. Uganda - Post Disaster Differences

 

My good friend, Nichole, a Foreign Service officer stationed now in Jamaica, reflects. A most excellent piece!

Scenes from Haiti...

Haiti 2

Stephanie’s blog has once again inspired and awed me at her world, her work, her passion, and her courage.   She is experiencing adventures in a part of the world most Americans will never visit let alone know much about.  It is hard to believe that I was there just a few years ago, in the very village where she is living.  I was working with a development organization after the 30-some year war had ended as we helped the feeble transition of war-torn communities along, carrying out healing ceremonies, rebuilding communities, and shutting down some of the internally displaced camps.  I had run into some social workers who said those communities were some of the most traumatized they had seen.  This was mostly because Joseph Kony, head of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) who was terrorizing communities in Northern Uganda during the long war, made his child soldiers carry out atrocious acts, so traumatizing that the children would feel they could never reintegrate into normal society again (and thus never try and return to their families).   The stories I heard were almost too horrific to believe, and yet as the Acholi people began to move out of the camps and put their lives back together, I only saw beautiful communities coming together to help one another, mourn the dead, and tentatively hope for lasting peace.  The townships had been so ravaged by war and poverty, some of the poorest places I had seen, and yet people were taking pride in their mud huts, keeping them clean and living with a sense of dignity that had not been afforded them for so many years.

Flash a few years later, and I find myself in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, a year after the terrible earthquake of January 2010.  Again, a place that looked like it had been through a war with slow rebuilding taking place.  I was to spend the next two years in this capital city, but it only took a few months to start to see the organized chaos that makes up the daily lives of most Haitians.  And it wasn’t so much the suffering that struck me, but the lack of dignity in the way Haitians in PaP were living in such filth, garbage all around, no regard for the environment, burning tires and trash piles in the street. Ghandi said that a nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members, but if that is the case of Haiti, then that nation is headed for trouble.  I was shocked at how animals, children, the elderly, and the disabled were disregarded and left to fend for themselves.  The mentality of each man for himself and pure survival was seen in every facet of life; there was no sense of community or social capital.  Even though the poverty stats coming out of Haiti are similar to Northern Uganda, the quality of life between the two cannot be compared. 

Why does one society do so much with the little it has while the other throws away so much of what it is given?  Do Haitians really care enough to want to improve their situation, and if not, how does one get them to feel a sense of ownership about their country and problems?  The natural richness of the island and the amount of international money and remittances that have gone into Haiti far outweigh the odds that Northern Uganda has been up against, and yet one society lives in beauty while the other lives in trash.  Is it history, colonization, governance, culture, donor involvement, or a combination of all of these?   These are questions that I’m still trying to figure out in such complex and complicated societies.  We may never reach an answer that gives us any kind of solution to the problem, and is it even our place to try and figure out their solutions.

 

As opposed to Uganda ..



Uganda 2









Who needs a Scale Anyway?

Interesting discovery this week on a newborn exam … the local way of measuring growth…strings around each of the extremities and waist to gauge weight gain. I was impressed. This information is passed down from woman to woman, from grannies to new moms, as all great things seem to be.

Meet Martin

Martin on the left. Stewart on the right, whom you will meet later. Always, always fascinated with my camera.

Meet Martin. He is our grounds man who comes on the weekend to tend to the yard, clean the paths from weeds, cut the grass – *totally with a machete*, gardens and helps me build flower beds :). He is there as the sun rises on both Saturday and Sunday, already working when by the time I wake up at 8 a.m. He works his whole holiday break. All of this and he is only 17 years old. He is working to pay for his school fees because he has 3 other brothers and sisters who also are in school. School fees cost about $75a year which is prohibitive for many students to attend. His parents are farmers and work hard just to make ends meet.

He decided as a young boy that he wanted to become a doctor. He isn't sure where his dream came from as all of his family lives in a small village and no one has directly influenced him with medicine. "I just always knew," he tells me. This will require him to have 3 more years of school in the village, pass his exams and then move to a bigger city to attend a boarding medical school attached to the hospital. When talking to him about his future and dreams it was evident to me the depth of this boy's soul, or as I aptly call it: he is an old soul. Much wiser than his years and primed to make a true impact for his family and community.

He is soft-spoken, quite and shy to use his English, although it is much better than he lets on. English is taught in school here, but only as "that" subject. This means that the other subjects are taught in the local language, of which there are many in Uganda. Without someone to practice English with, it is the same as any foreign language (despite it being the official language of Uganda) and harder to learn well. I, therefore, notice right off when someone has very good English and lives out here in the village. It is different than city life where more English is spoken. To me, it shows they have worked hard and studied for many years. Martin is one of them. 

Meet Martin. He is a pretty cool kid, or rather adult -- as most 17 year olds here are married with kids. He is an exception. 

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In Honor of Logan: TREES

I write this post while chomping on a fresh guava. I don’t even know if I’ve ever had a guava before now…

 
 I am sitting here thinking that the innocence of childhood always makes me smile ...

Logan, my 6 year old, cousin is following my Ugandan adventure

along with his mother.

always a fan of children being exposed to the other cultures, languages and beliefs 

this does nothing short of *thrill* me to death --

that a 6 year old mind might be molded through my experiences. 

His question to me was "Are there any pine trees in Africa?"

Seeing that he lives in Mississippi where pine trees are plentiful 

it seemed a well thought out question and assessment. 

I was impressed he even thought to ask!

But the answer is No. I have seen none here in Uganda.

Instead, there are plenty of these ...

banana, guava, lemon, passionfruit, papaya, mango

all of which grow right outside my hut. 

It is beyond wonderful to say the least. 

*Parents: It might be a good idea to discuss these exotic fruits with your child and then go shopping for them to introduce new flavors to their diet, as well as begin age appropriate discussions about how food travels around the world to get to your plate and what this means for the planet, food quality and price. 

Passionfruit flower. No wonder they are so divine; they come from this!!

Passionfruit flower just opening.

Passionfruit is left on the tree until they turn slightly yellow. They shrivel and brown on the shelf.

Guava tree that is harvesting right now!

Guava if you've never seen one.

Beautiful banana tree. Check out the huge beautiful flower at the bottom.

Fields of banana trees surrounding our birth center.

Brenda

Pretty grainy because of the light filtering in. This was our crew, including the child that started wailing when she was watching the shoulder dystocia...kids are so perceptive. Oddly enough, the one holding the baby is not the mother. She is the one in the white dress. Her name is Susan.

It was a 5 day labor for a woman who didn't speak the local dialect. Madi >>  Acholi >> English >> Acholi >> Madi in everything that was said. Initially I thought it might be twins (Which are often surprise twins in the end) because I found two heartbeats. There are no such thing as Ultrasounds here to let me know before. Plus, it is a local belief that the mother should not know if she is having twins before the labor because it means that her delivery will go smoothly. Her big belly was just so big!

She was exhausted by the end and could barely move to the floor where she wanted to deliver on all fours. Her water ruptured all over the floor and it was an enormous amount. The baby was very big and had a shoulder dystocia, meaning the shoulder get stuck after the head delivers. This is an emergency and requires the mother to listen and follow direct instructions to get the baby out. This was not happening. She went into "Labor Land", or so it has been called, and was not fully with us. I believe that rationale thinking sometimes is lost during active stages and pushing for the mother. This is how it was...things got hectic, the cord then snapped off the placenta, kids were screaming ...... it was a good birth.

Traditional Birth Attendant, Catherine, with baby Brenda

The next morning she smiled up at me her beautiful white smile and said she wanted to name the baby after me to remember how much I helped her. Steph-a-nie, I spoke out slowly a few times. With difficulty in the pronunciation for the mother-in-law, it was decided to forgo my name and name the baby the name of my mother. Brenda. This was much easier and they all smiled and clapped with delight.

So, Mom...this one is for you. Lots of Love from Uganda.

Breast is Best.

TIME magazine cover?

Breast is Best.

This has been told to us by both nature and plenty of research and is pretty much irrefutable. Yes, irrefutable! Plenty of mothers have their spin on why this isn’t the case, but it is - hands down.

Being a Midwife, breasts and breast milk is part of my domain now. As weird as it might sound to some, I think about it and pay attention to it way more than any single girl should. I talk a lot about it to mothers and spend a lot of time making sure babies are latching, sucking and feeding often. It seems that a lot of what I do has a lot to do with someone else’s breasts. It is an interesting reality. :)

Breastfeeding just makes me smile. This is for lots of reasons … the numerous health benefits for both the mother and baby – lowered breast cancer rates, decreased ear infections, increased lifetime immunity, weight loss for the mother, convenience, oxytocin which increases bonding, decrease in bleeding, appropriate weight gain for the baby, less allergies, less GERD, increased gut health, birth control!, increased IQ…..and the list goes on …. Plus, it comes in pretty attractive dispensers, it never spoils, and is always at the right temperature!

 

I’m a fan.

In the US, I often run into mothers who believe that 6 months is the magic number. It is a hard line to tow. One the one hand, 6 months is better than no months and I am fully supportive. On the other hand, 6 months is way lower than any international recommendation I’ve ever known and is pitiful when compared to what could/should happen. What is the best response?

If I had better internet here to look up concrete stats and facts, I would. The numbers never lie and it is widely known that the US falls far behind in not only the rates of breastfeeders, but also how long babies are breastfed for. It has always been my understanding that the WHO recommends 1 year of breastfeeding (adding in solid food as appropriate simultaneously); however, because the US had such poor rates to begin with, bringing mothers who breastfed for 2-3 months up to 1 year was a big stretch. This caused the American Academy of Pediatrics to lower the recommendation to 6 months to accommodate the effort it would take to reach the goal. This is where the false security of 6 months initiated.

This blog is not the space to go into all the ways that our government (with maternity leave policies), our country, our culture and our mothers could all affect better breastfeeding and WHY in the US it is how it is. Not to mention the trickle on affects from a public health stance of more breastfed babies. I am only throwing it out there to inform and offer new seeds of thoughts to those that might consider the American way as the best – or only – way. 

I understand all over the reasons why breastfeeding for mothers that work is an effort, sometimes ALOT of effort; really, I do understand. However, there is only one chance at this opportunity to affect the rest of your child's life and this seems to need priority over any inconvenience or effort it might mean. Is this a tough approach? I don't think so. It seems Good Parenting 101 to me.

Hung in the maternity ward at the hospital. Can you imagine the same in our hospitals?

Here in Uganda breasts and breastfeeding is everywhere. Kids are breastfed for 2-3 years, eating too, of course, but always having access to their Mom. Tandem feeding (a 3 year old and a newborn) is common and no shame in exposing breasts out in public is the result. Moms breastfeed in church, on buses, when walking, during eating … there is no such thing as covering up with the special blanket mothers tend to use at home. It is as normal as the pregnancy itself. I must admit, it is a nice change that no one bats an eye. Plus, hardly any women here wear bras so the whole process is very simple.  

I have yet to encounter anyone with latch problems or sore nipples. NO ONE uses a bottle or pacifier or nipple shields or Lanolin crème. Why, then, I wonder are all of these non-issues here issues at home? I could go into all of the reasons I believe this to be true, but suffice it to say ……I believe when there is a will there is a way. Breast is always the best and I will always encourage Mom’s to feed for as long as possible, even when if it means a lot of effort. The results *far* outweigh the costs.

naptime.

Guest Post: Acholi Women by Sarah Harper

Acholi women 

strong, shy, timid with men but fierce with one another

An unspoken rule that they are beneath men

Their place is in the kitchen 

by the fire

Their role is to bear children 

to carry on their family legacy through their little ones

Their survival to work the fields

Do they have rights? Could they refuse?

Must they always acquiesce to the man?

Like stacking firewood...one child after another

They are the pillars of this culture

the foundation of the community

They endure what they must because it is their life

It has been taught to them from a young age

Woven into the fabric of their thinking

Without them the crops are not harvested

the coals not stirred 

the posha not made

Babies to be nursed

tied to their backs 

while beans boil

and rice simmers...

*Sarah is one of the students here with us. Baby catcher + Talented Writer. Budding Poet discovered in Africa?