Spoiler Alert: There's a Giraffe!

 It's been such a busy six weeks (six weeks?!) since we arrived back in Tanzania.  As you've seen from my previous several blog posts, most of what I was doing during February was catching up with Mama Maisha.  The last part of that month was spent with a team from Asheville, NC: my co-founder Dr. Reta Graham (in pink at left), medical resident Dr. Bre Bolivar (sitting on my left) and nurse Deb Bentley (standing behind me).  With my ever-present rock star team of Ellen Kawira (sitting on my right) and Grace Weaver (taking the photo), we spent ten days visiting and training all our Maternal Health Advocates, doing education about prenatal care and contraception for over 200 women in the villages, and even making a field assessment about whether or not to transport a woman in labor to Shirati Hospital or send her home to deliver with a Traditional Birth Attendant.  (We sent her home on a motorbike with some supplies for a hygienic birth and she delivered a healthy baby boy that evening at the local TBA.)
In addition to the boost that Reta, Bre and Deb provided to the Mama Maisha program, they also poured a lot of balm into my tired heart and soul.  I always come back from America exhausted from working so hard and a little sad to have left family and friends behind.  Reta has been an incredibly important person in my life from the moment we met.  When I met Bre Bolivar, the first words addressed to her directly were mildly insulting, but she totally rolled with it, and thus we recognized in each other a "kindred spirit".  It will be a long, long time before I forget the look on Deb's face as we shared some adult time over beers and chips (french fries); she was talking about her husband and suddenly interrupted herself to say emphatically and delightedly "I just LOVE my husband so much!"  All three of these women showed me in a hundred ways how much they love their husbands, and it's pretty rare to be with women who've been married for between 5 and 15 years who are still so infatuated with their husbands.  It was lovely to be around.

 When they left Shirati to head back to Nairobi to fly home, they invited me to go with them.  They had big plans for their one day as tourists, and I was having so much fun with them, how could I say no?  We went to a place that makes and paints their own beads, providing a really great income for women.  Then we went to the Giraffe Park, where Bre kissed the giraffe.  Then we went to lunch, and I ate an insane amount of food.  The shopping was Reta's thing, the giraffes were Bre's thing, lunch was my thing!  They left that evening, and I went home by bus to spend a week on my neglected Lahash duties.  (I'm doing an assessment of all the major projects that Lahash has been a part of in the last ten years.  It's sometimes tedious and sometimes fascinating.  I'll post more about it next week.)

 Fred picked up Innocent from school and took him to Nairobi for an appearance in Children's Court.  The Court wanted to be assured that he had not been trafficked abroad.  Inno really impressed the magistrate who interviewed him, and the magistrate recommended that we go forward with adoption soon.  On Friday, as Fred and Inno returned from Nairobi, the rest of us drove up to meet them for Parents Day at his new school, Our Lady of Orore.  (It's Catholic, in case you couldn't tell.)  Wesley and Gretchen were soooo happy to see Inno, who is the top boy in his class, even after starting school a month late!  He got a special award from the school, gave us a tour around, and we met his teacher.  She recommended that we sign him up for tutorial on the weekends, so that "he wouldn't have too much time to play and could improve in things like English."  After that meeting I asked Fred if she was really talking about Innocent; actually she's just trying to sell tutoring to any and all students, because that's ten bucks a term in her pocket.  Didn't score any points with us, though, since Inno's English is better than hers and he was only four points (out of 500 possible) behind the top girl in his class.  Thank you to the kind friends who sponsored Innocent's entire year of school!

After that visit to the school, we went to Fred's home village for the weekend for a long overdue visit with his grandmother .  She made sure that we went over to look at the land she had given us (below), which is being farmed until the day we decide to build there.  Isn't it beautiful? It has a reasonable view of Lake Victoria from the opposite angle.  The first step is to build a fence around it, then we'll start building bit by bit.

The day we left America we spoke at C3 Church in Newberg, and they took a love offering for us that was an incredible blessing to us.  One of the things it has allowed us to do was replace Fred's grandmother's twenty-five-year-old living room furniture.  She was always embarrassed to have guests over because her furniture was falling apart.  We drove to a nearby town and picked out this sofa, loveseat and two armchair set for her, all funded by C3 Newberg.  She was so touched, as were her daughter and granddaughter, who are sitting with her on the couch.

While we were in Sindo, Wesley turned three years old!  We didn't celebrate, since birthdays aren't really celebrated in the villages, but when we got home I made him a yellow cake with coconut fudge icing and marshmallows.  He also got to open the birthday present that Great Grandma Adams had sent with us.  It was a quiet evening after so much travel, but we really enjoyed celebrating our social, emotional, creative little guy!

Whew!  What a long update!  That's what I get for leaving it so long, but thank you all for the way you continue to be present in our lives!

More Mama Maisha stories + photos

For the past week, my co-founder and dear friend, Dr. Reta Graham has been in Shirati with two other colleagues.  We've been going out to the villages where Mama Maisha is getting established, and it has been an extremely poignant time for us.

First we went for a meeting of women's group members in Roche Village.  Over 90 women came!  We've only been working with the village women for 3-1/2 months, and on one week's notice, our Maternal Health Advocates had mobilized over 90 women of child-bearing age to come hear a seminar on Healthy Pregnancy, Safe Delivery and Family Planning.  There were so many beautiful women with pregnant bellies and tiny babies, and it did our hearts so much good to sit with them and answer questions and hear stories.  The lady in the orange and black and white striped dress told me she's going to name her baby girl after me!  We'll see if it really happens, but it would be an incredible honor.

After several hours with those ladies, we went for a "short" walk (about 30-40 minutes each way in the blazing hot sun) to the home of a Traditional Birth Attendant and saw the dark, windowless room and the straw mat where she delivers babies.
The next day we went to Burere Village for another meeting with clients (below).  The program hasn't been so dramatically successful as quickly as in Roche, but we still had a great time with the ladies who came.

 On Friday we went to Nyambogo Village to do a facilitated discussion with a group of TBAs.  This village has no health services at all, so the women really rely on the TBAs.  They were so interesting and interested in anything we could share with them, and they looked lovely in their colorful dresses.
As we sat and drank sodas with them, we asked how they got started in this work, and several of them shared stories about how they had dreamed that Jesus called them to deliver babies.  I loved hearing how they see this health care service as a kind of spiritual service and ministry.  I'm sure the women they serve are grateful for the gentleness and maturity that the TBAs bring to the bedside.

After a fun, restful weekend showing my new friends around Shirati, we headed back to Roche this morning for a great meeting with the Maternal Health Advocates.  We heard a lot of their struggles and the obstacles that women in their village are facing; sometimes stories sad enough to nearly overwhelm.  One MHA shared about how a woman showed up at her door in the middle of the night, nearly ready to push, and the MHA scrambled to get her on a motorbike taxi, and they set out in the cold, dark night together.  Along the way, the baby started to come.  In the dirt and the dark on the side of the road, far from any house, one woman with no medical experience or birthing training delivered the baby of another woman.  Sadly, the baby was born not breathing, and they were not able to revive him.  Our friend was suffering so much guilt, feeling that she had done something wrong, because she'd never been on that end of the delivery process before.

In order to give the MHAs confidence of knowing what to do if they are ever faced with a similar situation again, Dr. Reta and Dr. Bre simulated the best practices for a less-than-ideal birth environment.  Reta may not have felt particularly dignified laying on the floor "delivering" a camera, with its strap representing the umbilical cord, but the MHAs and I (who have never been on the "catching" end of a birth either) learned a lot from their practical lesson.

After this simulation, a couple of clients came to join us and share their stories.  One was the woman whose story I shared here back in December.  Her baby is now nearly two months, and is fat and healthy and beautiful.  The other client was an 8-month pregnant woman with a lovely, pacific smile who never spoke a single word.  I pieced together her story: she is simple-minded (honestly the best label I can put on it, not knowing any more specifics than that) and mostly mute.  She is unmarried and lives with her parents, but her disadvantages have made her a target for some absolutely disgusting men.  This is her second pregnancy; her first child is only 18 months old.  Her parents have decided to get her a tubal ligation after this baby is born to prevent future pregnancies, but preventing future pregnancies is not the same as preventing future sexual assaults.  

As we drove home this afternoon, that girl's story weighed heavily on me, and I asked Reta to pray the Serenity Prayer with me.  "Lord, give me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."  I was also reminded of a verse from Isaiah 30: "Your ears will hear a word behind you, 'This is the way, walk in it,' whenever you turn to the right or to the left."  I prayed that over her, that as she walks through an environment fraught with peril, she will hear the Holy Spirit guiding her to the right or to the left, away from men who may harm her.  I asked the MHAs to call me when this girl comes to the hospital for her delivery and tubal ligation; I hope I will have the chance to pray with her and advocate for her in yet another environment that could prove frightening for her.

Like I said at the beginning, it has been a poignant week, with a lot of highs and a few lows, but overall Reta and I feel reassured once again that this is the work God has called us to do here, and that God is the one guiding our steps.  Please pray with us as we finish two more days of meetings and planning before the team leaves.  Their fellowship and like-spirited-ness has been incredibly refreshing to me, and I will really miss them when they go, but I am the blessed one who gets to keep on collecting the stories and navigating politics and personal agendas and inefficient and/or corrupt systems to provide the best services possible for my sisters who are pregnant and delivering.  It's a wonderful life!

2 Mama Maisha Stories + Gretchen's 1st Birthday

Now that we've been back home for a week, we've had the chance to catch up with our co-workers, including the staff of Mama Maisha.  Ellen, our Adviser, has been so active advocating for the women who come from the villages to deliver at the hospital, many of them in emergency circumstances.  She told me about one visit to the hospital which showed vividly the impact that Ellen, a retired maternity nurse, is having on behalf of our clients.

One of our Maternal Health Advocates notified Ellen that she was bringing a client to the hospital because her labor did not seem to be progressing well.  It was late on a Friday evening, so Ellen met the client at the hospital, paid the motorcycle taxi, and helped her get admitted to maternity.  Leaving her in professional hands, Ellen went home for the night.  She checked in again on Saturday, carrying food and tea for the expectant mother, to find her still in labor.  On Sunday, Ellen returned again, thinking to find a newborn baby, but instead found the mother still in labor.  Ellen sought out the nurse on duty and demanded to know what the plan was for this woman who had been in labor for more than 48 hours.  The nurse dismissed Ellen's inquiries, saying that she didn't know what was happening with this patient.  Ellen demanded a consult with a doctor, and when a visiting Dutch doctor arrived, he sent the patient for a Cesarean section right away.  The baby was delivered safely and the mother returned home to recover.  

Across the ward in another bed was a young woman with her mother.  Ellen began to inquire what was happening with that patient, sensing something was wrong.  A nurse explained that the woman had had a stillbirth.  After additional probing, Ellen got the story, delivered somewhat defensively.  The young woman had not told the nurses that she was ready to push (second stage of labor, when the birth of the baby is imminent), and instead was squatting over a bedpan, trying to deliver alone.  The cord was wrapped around the baby's neck, and it seemed that the long period of pushing may have caused the baby distress and eventually claimed the baby's life.  Hearing this story from the nurse, Ellen spoke to the mother of the young patient.  "My daughter is mute, she doesn't speak," the mother explained.  "We told the nurses two times that she cannot speak, but they still are blaming her that she didn't tell them when she was ready to push.  They were sitting there chatting while my daughter was trying to deliver her baby alone."  The family ended up filing a complaint with hospital administration over the treatment of their daughter, but even in the unlikely case that there are repercussions for the nurses on duty at the time, a baby has lost its life and a young mother is bereaved.

For me, this story drives home the importance of the advocacy Mama Maisha is doing in the formal health sector.  On the one hand we're trying to tell women in the villages that the hospital is the best, safest place for them to deliver, but on the other hand, we see systemic neglect and disrespect in the way delivering women are treated by the hospital staff.  I'm so grateful that Ellen was there to speak for our client, and I pray that we will have wisdom in how to try to change the negative culture surrounding childbirth.

Speaking of babies we are grateful for, today was Gretchen's first birthday!  Many friends stopped by throughout the afternoon to wish her a happy birthday and get a slice of her birthday cake.  She is growing so fast, and we're so happy to have this joyful, friendly, adventurous little girl as part of our family!

I knew I was back in Africa when these five things happened...

...I got unsolicited parenting advice.
On the flight from Dubai to Nairobi (honestly right around the time we flew into African airspace) a Kenyan woman coming from the bathroom stopped to advise me to adjust sleeping Gretchen because her head was at an awkward angle.  I cannot tell you how often I get advice on how to hold, feed, comfort and/or clothe my kids from complete strangers, and after 2.5 months away, all I could do was mildly protest that she was okay as the woman adjusted Gretchen's head herself.  It's all kindly meant, but feels a little condescending.  (My pride rebels!)

...immigration took longer for the Kenyans than for the Americans.
Logically, it should certainly be easier to allow Kenyans back into their own country than to process hand-written visas for foreigners.  In the past we've all gone through the Kenyan line because Fred and Wesley have Kenyan passports and I have a residence permit, so don't need a visa.  This time, because we don't have Gretchen's Kenyan passport yet, she and I went through the visa line, and were done a full ten minutes sooner than the guys were.  Why?  I honestly have no idea.  There were far more foreigners than nationals on our flight, and there are always a handful utterly unprepared to pay a visa fee, which takes time as they argue why they shouldn't have to or can't pay.  All I can think is that the Kenyan government puts such a high premium on tourism that they expedite the foreign visitors as much as possible.

...our lost luggage forms took about an hour.
Our flight from New York to Dubai had been delayed an hour, so we just barely made it to our Dubai to Nairobi flight in time for boarding and we had a feeling our bags might not have made it.  Sure enough, only two out of eight pieces made it on our plane, so we had to report our luggage as lost.  What we should have done is just find our when the next Dubai to Nairobi flight was (six hours behind ours) and come back then.  Instead we got sucked into the African bureaucracy, where the forms for our luggage had to be filled out by hand, complete with coded letter/number combinations to describe each bag.  It seemed to take forever, especially to our three very sleepy kids.

...the lost luggage people seemed a little disappointed to see Fred.
This being Kenya, and this not being our first rodeo, so to speak, Fred made sure he was there in plenty of time to get our bags off the carousel when the later flight came in.  He ran into the lost luggage guy who was also searching for our bags.  This should have been reassuring, except that our instincts (and our taxi driver) warned us that we should not leave our bags in the custody of the luggage people for any amount of time, because they're notorious for rifling through and taking stuff.

...our plans changed immediately upon arrival.
Since we had to wait around for our luggage, we couldn't make it to the overnight bus we were intending to take to the border.  Instead we rented a hotel room for the night. (Thanks to the friends and family who handed us cash on the last day so that this unplanned-for expense was not stressful!)  The kids revived enough to bounce off the walls until they crashed like dominoes, and Fred and I realized that this change of plans was really God's best plan for us.  We got a pretty good night's sleep after about 34 hours of travel and a really nice, hearty breakfast before setting out for our final 10-hours home.

REWIND! Our America Trip in Photo Review

We bought a new fabulous camera as soon as we arrived to help
us document all the exciting and mundane events in our 10-week visit.

Our kids met a lot of great new friends at a ton of brunches, lunches, dinners and playdates.

We did a December road trip down the Oregon and California coast.

2,500 miles in 10 days, but our kids continued to be super travelers!

We stopped every few hours to stretch legs at various beautiful spots.

Fred and I loved driving through the redwoods (literally and figuratively)

Outside of Oakland looking back at San Francisco while we waited
to meet up with one of the dozen or so people we met up with on the trip

Innocent go to dip his feet in his first ocean in sunny San Diego

And Gretchen played in sand for the first time

We went ice skating with some friends, which Innocent loved,
but this was the happiest Wesley was during the whole experience.

When we got back home, we went with cousins to cut a Christmas tree.
We ended up with a slightly taller tree than this one. 

We were blessed to be in Oregon for the warmest, sunniest winter I can remember,
so the boys got to spend a lot of time at the Newberg playground.

Christmas was a really special time for the kids.
They didn't get out of the sled for the better part of the morning.

Wesley (our future engineer) got a toolbox for Christmas.
He's still carrying it around a month later.

After Christmas we went to Eagle Crest for a week of actual non-working vacation with my parents.
It was really helpful for us to have that break in the middle of our visit.

Innocent and my dad did some swimming lessons while we were on vacation.

The boys got to play in snow and use their Christmas sled.

Most of our extended family members came up to Eagle Crest on the last day.

We got to have a small celebration of my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary.

Some wonderful friends paid for the boys to go to the dentist, which they actually enjoyed!

We did a lot of presentations on this visit, including at a few
 new church contacts, like Chehalem Baptist.

A presentation in Astoria to a group of my grandmother's friends and neighbors
 at which Wesley made himself a center of attention...as usual

Our whole family climbed the Astoria Column!

Gretchen saw and was seen by many friends and family, and accomplished crawling, walking,
first four teeth and some first words, like "uh-oh" and "daddy".

Many friends contributed to meet several one-time financial needs, like a new laptop for me!

Thanks to all the friends who had us over, prayed with us, gave money, spent time with our kids, offered skills and space and time to make our visit wonderful!  See you next time!

Wrapping Up! 10 Days Until Liftoff!

We're nearly on our back to Tanzania, to work and life and home.  This trip has been incredible, but were feeling that the time is right to return to "normality."

If you're hoping to see us before we go, here are a few last chances:

January 24th, 3pm, Lahash House (4850 N Vancouver Ave, Portland)
We will be showing photos and telling stories about our work in Tanzania.

January 26th, 6pm, Lahash House (same as above)
We are joining the Lahash community at their regular Monday night potluck.  Anyone is very welcome to join us.  The theme is Burrito Bowls!  mmm...

January 29th, Last day in Portland
I'm coming into the office for some meetings on Thursday, so it's literally the last chance to lay eyes on me for you Portland-ers!

February 1st, 9am, C3 Church in Lake Oswego
We're possibly going to be doing a short presentation, but at least popping in to be with them in worship.  We have to run out right after, though, so if you want to see us there, make sure we know you'll be there!

February 1st, 10:30am, C3 Church in Newberg
Our last event before leaving, we'll be sharing for about 20 minutes at their service, and are free for lunch after.

Then we're off!  I guess if we have any friends in NYC who want to come have coffee during our layover, we'll be hanging out at the airport from about 5:30am until 8am!

2 Things I Love About America & 1 Thing I Love/Hate

What I Love

Driving through the redwoods

1. Driving
I must love driving if I've put my family through over 3,500 miles of road trips in the past two months: 2,500 miles down the California coast to San Diego and back up the freeway, then later to Central Oregon and up to Eastern Washington.  The well-maintained roads, cheap gas prices, drive thru food and coffee and free audio books from the library have made nearly every day of our road trips a pleasure.  Our kids are fantastic travelers, even in their car seats, so there’s been very little crying.  We have two more small overnight trips: one to Astoria and one to Hood River.

2.  Collaboration

Acting casual during a Lahash staff meeting

I haven’t spent a lot of time in the Lahash office, but those days are full of meetings.  I totally understand that many people find meetings dull and counterproductive, but as one who works from a home which is more than 10,000 miles away from my coworkers, I so appreciate the opportunity to exchange ideas and brainstorm with my Lahash colleagues.  Also super valuable are the phone conferences with our Mama Maisha co-founders, the Grahams.  Being able to talk freely on a good connection without signals dropping or awkward pauses makes it so easy to compare ideas and make decisions.

What I Love/Hate

Convenience food

First, a confession: I am eating and feeding my family convenience food.  My boys have probably eaten their weight in chicken nuggets in the past two months.  It’s a little bit of a chicken-and-egg thing; convenience food enables me to GoGoGo! all day long and feed my kids within minutes of arriving back at my parents’ house.  (God knows how many days I’ve reached home in Shirati after a whole day on a bus willing to pay dearly for a bag of frozen chicken nuggets.)  On the other hand, if I know that it will take at least 90 minutes to make dinner for myself and my family, I am far more likely to wrap up a meeting or a project to get home in plenty of time.  If I only used a drive-thru or a bag of frozen processed something on those rare occasions that really required it, I could have a love-love relationship with convenience food.  Unfortunately I allow those conveniences to override my best judgment of what my family and I should eat.  Ironically, most of the time I’m in Africa I am dreaming about the amazing food I will cook when I reach America...ugh….  Another example of not giving my best intentions the energy and resources they need to succeed.

Eating garbage (not the diaper)

Let me close with an epiphany I had a few days ago.  I've often felt sorry for myself because *sob*I don’t have many good friends in Shirati.  I've often asked people to pray for me in this respect, but I just realized that many of the women who are praying for me to find a good community of friends never really get time to hang out with their own community of friends!  Everyone is so busy, especially moms of little kids, and super especially moms of little kids who also work or home school.  If you have a mom of little kids in your life (or in your home!), push her out of the house to go get coffee or happy hour with a friend.  Ladies, let yourself be pushed out of your house, sans kids, to get a little community, a little time to just be you in an honest, healthy way.  Laugh a lot, cry a little and be blessed!