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Miriama
I will always remember the one evening when on my walk home towards my simple adobe hut, I came across my neighbor, Miriama, lying on her side, on a mat under the wide expanse of stars, quietly and gently nursing her tender baby boy. She seemed so peaceful and content, her baby fat and adorable. It happened to be my sonâ??s seventh birthday, and I missed him terribly â?? for two weeks we had been not only worlds away but also incommicado (FuniFuni has no running water, no electricity, and no telephones). As I smiled at Miriama, the thought struck me: what a double-edged sword life can be. This mother of FunuFuni most likely gave birth to her baby in an adobe hut, on a mat resting on a dirt floor. Seven years prior, my son was born in a sterile white hospital room, caught by a midwife wearing a surgical mask. We each had sons and there was much joy. My son grew to age five in remarkable health â?? but it is a real possibility that Miriamaâ??s cuddly boy will not survive to his fifth birthday. And if he does die, it will be from something that could easily have been prevented, from diarrhea caused by unclean drinking water, water that could have been cleared of killer parasites through the installation of a simple purifying pump; from the prick of a mosquito â?? pricks that could have been avoided by sleeping under a $10 mosquito net.
But Miriama and I have more in common that we could imagine: our love for our children is great, our goals for them greater: we both dream that our children will grow up to be healthy and educated. But the chances that my goals will be reached are within reach, while Miriama will likely face much struggle, for the simple fact that I happened to be born in a city 5,000 miles away.
How can the inequities between the mothers in our world be so great? What mechanisms are in place in this world that cause our country to face problems with children being overfed and obese, while children in Mali face malnutrition on starvation?
We all need to start caring about the future of children around the world as if they were our own children.
What have you done recently to help out a mother or child in need?
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Childbirth, malnutrition
During the fifteen days following childbirth, women eat special dishes such as fish from the nearby Niger River â?? and are encouraged to eat when ever they are slightest bit hungry. The new mother is helped out by her daughters (if they are old enough) or her female neighbors with the many chores around the house: drawing water from the wells, pounding millet (the staple grain that needs to be extensively processed with a large mortar and pestle), preparing meals, taking care of younger children.
When I asked Zubaila about her thoughts on combating malnutrition in a country where most people survive on less than $2 per day, she sighed. â??Most women breastfeed children up to a maximum age of 18 years, and a minimum of 24 months. Most babies enjoy their first solids at six months of age, rice or millet porridge with fish powder called RuYi. Some children obviously arenâ??t receiving enough nutrition. And it's often difficult to tell a woman that she or her children may be suffering from malnutrition. It's a matter of pride. If you approach a woman the wrong way, she will usually angrily retort: 'Are you trying to tell me that I don't have the means? That I don't know how to care for my children?'â?¦So I usually delicately suggest that perhaps the baby might have malaria. And I make food and health recommendations that I can only hope the mother will find the means to follow." She takes time to educate new mothers on both nursing mother and child nutrition, making much use of her illustrated UNICEF guide, which featured easy-to-understand nutrition charts.
Zubaila is currently training several women from surrounding villages, and four women from FunuFuni. She looks forward to the inauguration of the schoolhouse, which will be completed by the villagers in about two months. Not only will the children finally receive a formal education, but the school will also be used as a womenâ??s education center in the evenings, which will fit well with the African proverb: â??If you educate a woman, you have educated a population.â?? It is likely that Zubaila herself will hold some seminars and womenâ??s meetings at the completed school. The government of Mali has agreed to send and support a primary school teacher to every school funded and built by Building with Books. In a country where 66 percent of men and 77 percent of women have not attended school, the building of this rural schoolhouse represents a huge step in the right direction towards a healthier future for both women and children.
Recently, the First Lady of Mali, Madame Toure Lobbo Traore, herself a former midwife, has taken steps towards her goal of cutting maternal and newborn deaths in half by the year 2010. Together with the first ladies of several West African nations, she is working to increase funding in national budgets for maternal and child health programs. As a testament to her hard work, the healthcare budget has substantially, though as always, relatively, risen in Mali in the past ten years, so that the number of women and children who have access to health centers has increased from 20 percent to 65 percent.
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Zubaila Tu
Zubaila Tu is the one and only midwife in FunuFuni. Cheery and bright, with a dimpled smile, Zubaila is 57 years old and has served as the village midwife for the past 19 years. Her only formal training was from an agent from UNICEF and two Peace Corps volunteers that visited the village and trained her 19 years ago. But her true mentor was her grandmother, a midwife that she followed around as a little girl, quietly observing and then serving her as a young assistant. Zubaila also birthed 10 babies of her own: her first child was born when she was just 15. Of those ten children, only 4 survived, fitting with statistics on birth survival rates in Mali.
There is no birthing room or center FunuFuni. Zubaila Tu travels to the home of the woman in labour, and tries her best to set up an adequate space. But since most women live in small, two room cottages with dirt floors, no chairs and no beds, an adequate birthing room means clearing out the usual inhabitants and laying a straw mat on the floor.
In 2007, Zubaila birthed 307 babies from FunuFuni and its neighboring villages, of which 270 survived.
When I spoke with Zubaila via translator, she remained optimistic but expressed her one wish: a sanitary birthing house for the women of FunuFuni. â??If only I had more sanitary conditions and better suppliesâ?¦if only the women were better educated on maternal and child heathâ?¦life would take a turn for the better in our peaceful village,â?? she half-smiled as she held a napping baby on her lap. Zubailaâ??s one and only â??instrumentâ?? was a pack of razor blades for cutting umbilical cords, her only education tool an illustrated book on maternal and child care by UNICEF.
She continued, â??We have no methods of pain relief during difficult labours. If the labor does not progress, the only solution is to find a way to get to the nearest village with a small hospital, Marakala (20 km from FunuFuni). Usually itâ??s a painful ride by donkey cart. And many pregnant women do not survive the journey.â??
Most girls in FunuFuni have their first child between the ages of 18 and 20. However, sometimes younger girls do become pregnant out of wedlock at earlier ages. â??We consider this an accident,â?? Zubaila whispers to me in her grandmotherly way.
â??What if a woman doesn't want to have any more babies: what does she do?â?? I ask, my western innocence shining through.
â??It's a woman's obligation to have many babiesâ?? sighs Zubaila. â??If she doesn't, her husband will refuse or leave her.â??
â??And what about women who are unable to become pregnant for whatever reason?â??
â??Women who can't have babies pray, pray and pray,â?? Zubaila lifts her hands to the sky up for a moment.
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FunuFuni
Seven hours by plane to Paris, another six to the capital city of Bamako, Mali followed by eight hours via bumpy van on a dust whipped road past the small city of Ségou sits the small village of FunuFuni. I had arrived there all the way from Chicago to meet a unique goal: to break ground on a elementary school â?? the first ever in this tiny village where the future students filled my days with laughter and made digging into the hard ground littered with hibernating desert frogs all the more meaningful. Sharing my same goal were 17 Chicago public high school students â?? all of us brought together by Building with Books, a U.S. based organization that encourages and inspires student to volunteer in their local communities and help build schools in developing countries.
The children of FunuFuni ran freely about the village all the day long: they played soccer with an old nylon sock filled with sand, they skipped along with sticks rolling popped bicycle tires, and watched us as we mixed cement, pounded out bricks, and dug out a foundation under the hot African sun, their parents working beside us. Fathers taught newly-apprenticed construction works like me (a Chicago Public Schools teacher by trade) the ins and outs of making a durable cement brick. Mothers drew water from the central deep well and carried bucket after bucket to the cement mixing station. The excitement of the children over their new school â?? over which their parents and these odd outsiders were working so hard â?? was palpable. They arrived daily at the construction site to check up on our progress, were eager to learn English words and s, and couldnâ??t get enough of the pencils, notepads and picturebooks that I had brought along to share.
The children of FunuFuni are survivors for the simple reason that they were born in a country where only one in five children makes it through childbirth. Children in Mali are not even named until they are at least a week old: newborns face a myriad of troubles, with one in four children dying before reaching the age of five. Their killers are malaria, dehydration brought on by diarrhea, and respiratory illnesses such as pneumonia. Killers that could be eradicated through such simple steps as parent education, clean drinking water and timely vaccinations. 78 percent of children are not immunized against preventable disease by their first birthday and access to medical care is extremely limited or altogether non-existent.
The mothers of FunuFuni are survivors in their own right as well: more than 1,500 women die during childbirth in Mali for every 100,000 live births. Childbirth and its complications are the number-one killer of teenage girls in Mali. Compare this statistic to that of the U.S., where 17 women die during childbirth per 100,000 live births. Again their killers could be eradicated through simple steps. Death can start via infection from an unsanitary knife that cuts the umbilical cord. A simple tetanus vaccination could spare mother and infant. But again, the majority of women in Mali lack basic medical care and formally educated women are the minority.
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Intro
My name is Amy Souza and I just returned from a trip to Mali, Africa, where I worked to build a school in a small village. I am a Chicago public school teacher by trade, and my trip was sponsored by an organization, Buildingwithbooks.org. While in Mali, I had the chance to interview the village midwife via translator. Zubaila, the midwife, has zero birthing supplies, apart from the occasional used razor blade. I was able to leave behind a pair of nail scissors, and I promised Zubaila that I would do my best to send over some basic birth supplies. I am now seeking donations of birthing supplies which I myself will send over to Mali. My translator, Pascal, who lives in the capital city of Mali, Bamako, has agreed to transport the package to the rural village of FunuFuni, where Zubaila lives and works. I will also be sending money for Pascal to purchase items that can easily be purchased in Bamako (cotton swaps, cotton balls, rubbing alcohol, etc.). Might you have some supplies that you are willing to donate? Please email me at amydelfinodesouza@gmail.com so we can arrange for the pick-up or mailing of the items. Alternatively, consider donating towards my goal of $500 here at chipin. I thank you for your time and consideration, and please email me with any questions or comments that you may have at amydelfinodesouza@gmail.com Amy Souza
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