Midwife Clinic, Malagita

The Mini midwife writes,

Hi it’s me. I’m here to talk about my trip to Malagita. Mommy and I left super early to go to a prenatal day, there we would meet a lady named Christina, who runs the birth center called Good Samaritan. It is located deep in the back roads in the jungle. We took boda-bodas and I couldn’t help looking at the beautiful sunrise and the wind in my face as we zoomed past cars and trucks where we came to a crowded taxi park. The taxis were in the back of an outside market center. It was super crowded there, with the holidays and all. We practically had to squeeze through while people tried to sell us all kinds of things including shirts, live grasshoppers, and matoke. This was their home their work. I felt like I had stepped into another world. We finally reached our way back to where the taxi was parked. We sat down and it was another hour until we finally left for Malagita. While we waited, we bought hot chapatis from a vendor and ate them in the back of the taxi. We chatted with the local women waiting for the taxi to leave.

When we got there I got to meet Ms Christina. She is wonderful and does everything, takes care of her children,runs the birth center, practically stays up all night for 10 births at least, and doesn’t have a husband to take care of the children so she can rest. There wasn’t any body there yet so we waited around and I signed her guest book. When I signed it I felt important like I was finally a part of this place and now I can stay up with her and help woman give birth. She told me her story about how a midwife was needed, and she started school. Then on a trip to see the Nile River, she came across this small village where a laboring woman was struggling to get onto the crowded taxi she was riding on. She got off right there and has stayed there ever since. The birth center was crowded and her desk was unorganized, she has an ugly blue tablecloth over the desk because people used to write on the desk. The walls were dirty. Trash was piling over the makeshift "trashcan"-- a small box. While we waited for the village mothers to arrive I played with a couple of little girls, as anyone knows me, thought I would. The women began to arrive, they didn’t have appointments, just came whenever they could. My mom started prenatals. I was super excited. The mothers had small booklets instead of files, and you wrote the date at the top and then write how many weeks they were, then wrote their baby’s position, the baby’s heart rate. Easy. We did this over and over again. Each time a mother came in to the room with a smile excited. Then one mother came who’s book said she was around 24 weeks. My mom tried to feel for the baby’s position but couldn’t feel anything. Christina uses a device called a pinard to hear the baby’s heart rate. It is pretty old fashioned, more like a stethoscope than the modern Doppler my Mom is accustomed to using. She uses the pinard at Christina’s because it is best to use what the local birth attendants are using. So we looked for the baby’s heart rate using a pinard, but you really can’t hear a heart beat before 28 weeks with it. So Mom brought out her Doppler which is more accurate Unfortunately she still couldn’t find anything. So we called in Ms Christina for a second opinion and she couldn’t find anything. We told the gal to come back in a few weeks. Once she left we guessed that maybe she actually wasn’t pregnant after all. Can you imagine thinking you were pregnant for 24 weeks and in actuality you were not pregnant? We did more mothers, all the while a mother laid on the floor in very early labour. I felt super bad for her. The labour was too early for us to do anything though, so she just rested on the mat. Lots of young mother’s came,one mother was only fifteen. Some were eighteen, some were sixteen, the same age as my older sister. Just thinking of her lying there us checking up on her makes me feel bad for those young mothers. One young woman’s belly was super warm. We looked at her baby’s heart rate, and it was super high. I got worried, was the baby okay? We later figured out that she had a fever. We gave her medicine for the fever then sent her home. Then it started rain.

It got dark in the rooms, and drumming on the roof from the pouring rain outside made me a little anxious to go home. Hunger was creeping up on me since we hadn’t eaten since breakfast and it was now 3:00. I was worried we couldn’t get home in time for dinner, since no taxis would be running in the rain. It was crowded in there with mother’s sitting on the porch waiting for the rain to stop. In Africa everything stops when it rains. Once it stopped pouring, we made our way out through the mud and got in another crowded taxi. It wasn’t the easiest trip, but sometimes that happens. Everything can’t always be easy, then there would be no excitement in things.

We Throw Mud at Birds

Marian invited us to her rice garden. Her mother is a single parent so they all work in the garden to sell rice to make money for school fees and food. She invited us there, early this morning, and so Dad, Dora and I woke up early, got on the back of a boda-boda (motorcycle taxi) with Marian. We started out on the paved roads but the pavement doesn’t get you everywhere so as suspected, we were soon on a dusty trail through the sugar cane fields. When the bodas could go no further, Marian led us through sweet potato bushes and corn stalks up and down steep, narrow paths. Finally we see her mother and elder sister near a soggy marsh full of tall green grass. Of course, it wasn’t grass at all, it was rice and we were just in time for harvesting.

Marian’s sister showed us how they harvest their rice. She hopped down off of the dirt dam that worked as a pathway, and splashed into the ankle-deep water without shoes. She hacked away at a few stalks with a short scythe but that wasn’t what we’d be helping with. And of course I mean the “royal we” because I would be behind the camera lens. Her mother led us over the dirt dam to the other, cleared side of the muddy field to demonstrate harvesting the rice from the stalk.



For those who haven’t collected rice from the swamp, it’s strikingly familiar to wheat but with more grass leaves. It has the grains at the top, long leaves protecting it and roots in the mud. When enough stalks have been gathered up, they put them all in a big pile, grab them in bushels and beat them on a tarp to remove the grains quickly instead of pulling them off by hand.

Another important job in harvesting is keeping the birds away. There was a woman sitting on the edge of the rice pit the whole time we were there, yelling and throwing things at the birds that would come to eat the unharvested rice. I didn’t fully understand her job till I saw a well-aimed mud clot shoo away a whole group of flying thieves. Dora and I learned the important body mechanics of throwing mud on sticks. The woman, Monica, would stick some wet, red mud on the end of a long stick. It took at bit of practice to stop flinging the mud at my feet but if you imagined throwing a fishing line towards the sky, the bit of mud would fly up, land in the field and frighten away the birds. Dora got it pretty high a couple of times; I got it a few times too. One of Marian’s sisters was very good at it. Every now and then, one of the girls would let out a shrill whistle. I asked, “Why do you make noises like the birds? Wouldn’t it be better to make a noise that scares them?” I cupped my hands over my mouth and barked, low and loud like my dog, Nana, does. They were surprised when I did that. Dogs and Ugandans are not friends here.  Most Ugandans are very afraid of dogs. They said the birds aren’t afraid of dogs because they can just fly away. So we introduced them to the Southern way of getting rid of pests. It’s basically translated as, “You! Go on and get!” but when said in the proper accent, it’s pronounced, “Yongit!” (YON-geet). They thought this was lots of fun though of course, their enunciation was a little off.

We took a short break and ate blackened corn and played with the clay that remains after the rice is harvested. Then it was time to see where the rice went next. After saying our goodbyes, we followed Marian down the train tracks that led from beyond Kampala to all the way to Kenya. It was so warm that I felt like my feet were going to be steamed in my black combat boots. Finally we reach our destination, the edge of Lake Victoria. Marian’s brother was there with previously collected rice, drying it out in the sun. After a few pictures, it was back up the hill, through the corn, sugar cane and rice.

A good time was had by all, we definitely learned a lot. Marian and her wonderful family are our ticket deeper into this rich culture, one garden trip at a time.

For the Record, I Won the Muddiest Shoes Award

On the 27th of November, I had a once in a life time opportunity to go to the all-night Worship Night Festival at the national stadium in Kampala with the current training school. When was I invited? The morning of the day we were to leave. But like a true missionary kid, I had my bag for the weekend packed in an hour. The last time I was in Kampala, it was 3am and we were driving back from the airport so I had no idea what to expect besides lots of driving to get there. The bus picked us up two hours late, true to African time. Dinner wasn’t available as were already late and by the time we got to our first destination, it was dark and we were tired. On the first night, we would visit the church that would be running the worship night and have a mini worship night, then we would go to a missionary lodge where we’d sleep, early the next morning we’d head to the stadium where the worship night is held. We’d help however we could and then the actual worship night would start at 6pm and end at 6am. We had a long weekend ahead of us. The head church was called Light the World Church and they were singing when we arrived. Though, since we were late, they were already in full swing. The atmosphere was incredible! The Holy Spirit was obviously there, it felt like the wind was knocked out of me as the music flooded my ears and the lights blinded my eyes. The stage was filled to almost overflowing with choir singers in bright colors dancing in perfect yet unchoreographed movements that flowed together like a fluid machine. Many songs were in Lugandan but it didn’t matter, the rhythm of the unknown words was as meaningful as the words I understood. They had a few speakers spread out between songs, probably to keep people from falling asleep. The last song was literally the word “Amen” over and over and the singers danced around the stage as we filed out to get back on the bus.

At the missionary lodge, they provided Rolexes (basically a fried egg rolled in a chapiti, which is sort of like a thick tortilla) and I don’t believe I’ve ever eaten a better meal at midnight. I shared a dorm with the only other three girls in the team and as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out like a light. We didn’t have to leave till 11am so I slept some more even though the turkey next door would not shut up!

When we got to the stadium, even though the church had been there most of the day, there was still work to be done. The team helped by setting up chairs and wiping them off and I flitted about taking pictures. I even got special access to go on the stage and the stands to get the shots I wanted. All was going fine until, rain. Rain is the enemy of anything productive in Uganda. When it rains, everything stops. So after the team spent all that time wiping down chairs, they would have to do it all over again when the torrents ceased. Until then, we hid under the stands. Our only prayer was that it wouldn’t rain when the worship started.

The rain passed on and we went back to work until the sun started setting and the lights started to come on. Ms. Marg, who watches out for me like I was her own daughter, stretched her VIP status over me too so I got a front row seat to the proclaiming of God’s glory. The first choir was the same from the night before and I admired their ability to stay awake. The choir was bigger than I anticipated, it was so massive, half of them had to stand in the mud that the sun didn’t have time to dry (my shoes were filthy). I don’t believe I could ever fully worship like Africans do. God loves all kinds of worship, but I personally find the African’s dance absolutely exhilarating. One of the best songs that got people jumping went like this, “Jesus is Savior, He came down from heaven. When he landed, He landed in Israel. When there was trouble, He came down to Africa. So we must praise Him, praise Him in an African way!” When you first entered the stadium, they gave out white handkerchiefs. At first I didn’t understand why until the choir started waving them around. I looked behind me and the entire stadium was like an ocean of white flags, bright in the stage lights, waving surrender to the Almighty God. Truly a magnificent sight, the stands, the field, the stage, packed with people who were only there to worship. When the songs and dances slowed down, it was around midnight and I was already beginning to lose the battle to stay upright. I reminded myself to stay awake for the children’s choir, one of the reasons I was excited to come in the first place. When the children pranced up on stage, wearing tribal prints and big smiles, I was instantly enamored. They were excellent, singing and dancing with exciting joy. Then there were sermons and I found myself nodding off. At 3am, we agreed to go back underneath the stands where we left the bags and we found the rest of the team catching up on rest time. That’s we decided to start heading home. I was too thrilled because I couldn’t stay awake much longer.

I will never forget the experience, it was truly amazing. So many people in one place, filling the stadium with praise, it gave a perfect picture of God’s love for Africa and for the world, “so we must praise Him, praise Him in an African way!”