Letters from Hannah

Dear Mom and Dad,

It's starting to get hot here. In the late morning and until 4:00 people walk around with umbrellas to shade themselves. At night it rains a little, or a lot, and the cicadas chirp and the beetles fly around and ping against my flourescent light or get caught in the flower-motif mosquito net doorway hanging I bought (for just that purpose). It's cool outside and my house doesn't get as hot as Mike's, where there's no breeze, but I usually have the fan on most of the time. It's the same fan Terri told me she kept on her all the time, before I left. I find that ironic. I got a bunch of mail when Mike went to Mimongo for Halloween -- Pat's letters are passing through Bolivia, maybe because "Central Africa" looks like "Central America." I got mail from Claire and Kira, Gretchen, Kristen, and the son of Martin, our health trainer, who hung out with my host brother in Lambarene. Gabonese/African letters get really flowery and I don't know if the kid (he's 15) is hitting on me or if people just write like that to everyone.

I know I said I was gonna go to the haunted abandoned missionary village for Halloween, but Arsène, one of our facilitators came down that week to visit me and his family in Tchibanga. We even had time off from school (for All Saint's Day) so I had a nice vacation. Arsène walked up to the hospital as I came out having assisted at my first birth. I've been trying to spend more time at the hospital since the whole teaching thing has been taking me away, so I was there for the evening shift. The mom was 16, her first kid, clueless. She didn't know how to push, and so the women, who are nice, mind you, yelled at her. "You're stubborn! You wouldn't walk around to make the delivery go quicker, and now you won't push! What's your problem? Push!" They slapped her knees apart, and not having Mercryl, used soapy water to lube the baby out. The girl had to push 8 times before the head came out and by that time Jeannette was kneeling over the girl pushing the baby out with her hands. The kid was blue as a Smurf and I was worried -- had she taken too long to deliver? The women sprang into action and slapped and rubbed and spanked and he got a little more purple and then opened his mouth and wailed, weakly, and with fluid in his lungs. He'll be ok, but might get a cough or bronchitis because his mom didn't push him out well enough. They yelled at her not to push the placenta out -- "do you want to bleed to death tonight?" - but she got lucky again, and it was fine. No one congratulated her or said good job or here's your son! or It's a boy! or hey, it's all over, way to go. Marguerite's been doing this for 30 odd years and the general sense is that births have been going on a long time and it's no big deal, certainly nothing to cheer about. Babies, being abundant, are not the spectacular miracle they are in the States or the West. Anyway, I saw it all, and didn't throw up, and it was pretty cool -- I got that rush of "it's a new person!" at one point, though it was tempered quickly by the same old-same old attitude of the women. They know what they're doing even if they only have one pair of scissors and a gurney with no stirrups and no medicine and hardly any instruments. The family supplied all the clothes, towels, talc, gauze for the cord and alcohol, hat, etc.

So that all happened and then I had dinner and caught up with Arsène, and the next day Mike came back, then Kara and Kendra, then I hung out with the Malian women down the street, whose husband, Demba, is a big shot in town, and loans everyone money (so everyone owes him). We made millet couscous -- you steam it in a cloth in a strainer over a pot of boiling meat and hung out. They are Sarakole, so my Bambara is useless, but very nice. My classes right before the vacation sucked -- the 8th graders were ok, the 7th graders awful. Awful. I could not control them. I gave them a quiz, which they all failed, and then they wanted to leave, and I wouldn't let them. For the next 1/2 hour it was just chaos and I nearly ran out 5 or 6 times. I don't really know what kept me there -- stubborness, or the shame of giving in. Going back the next week was almost impossible, but I laid down the law and said if they wanted me to stay, they could be nice and cooperate, otherwise I would be more than happy to let M. Djipala take over. That got 'em. Djipala is an awful teacher who hasn't shown up for class yet and takes off every other week to travel. The threat worked like a charm, though it might make relations between me and M. Djipala a little frosty, if he ever shows up. I think it'll just give me a little time to have the class get to know me, and like me, and know I mean business but we'll have fun anyway.

So that day ruled and I felt like a hero, and now I have to do it all over again. This week has been taken up with EDDI scholarships -- girls who get a certain average and who aren't pregnant get 80 bucks to pay for books and stuff. So we went around to all the classes and in 500 girls 8 had the average (GPA) so now we're finding birth certificates and transcripts and doing pregnancy exams, all in 5 days. It seems to be working, so far.

The new sage femme is here, fresh out of school, and very nice. She told the girls who came in for pregnancy exams not to go running around with boys. The scholarship is a chance for them. I also found out the truth behind the famous lycée phantom of last year -- 18 girls came to the hospital in April-May, convulsing. They said it was phantomes. They brought in a nganga (healer) to exorcise and purify the school, but the last girl spilled it -- they'd been smoking some plant a teacher and a surveyant had given them, claiming it would make them smarter. The nganga wanted 500 bucks but fortunately the hospital staff found out the truth. I'm gonna keep on asking about this to get all the different stories.

Chikwang's getting bigger and I planted 2 frangipali trees. They produce good smelling heavy small white flowers year round. I planted them right underneath the power lines, just so the neighbors can yell at me about something else.

Love,

Hannah