Ma sends her team out

"won't you go with efreeyeh instead of sit here with me?" Ma was asking, in what sounded like an annoyed manner. her face was wrinkled and her lips were pouty.

all 3 of us had been sitting peacefully in Ma's office, i was reading, they were chatting. efreeyeh bounced out of her chair, and walked outside. was i supposed to know what was going on?

"what is she doing?" i asked.

"oh! why should you ask? i've told her to go and bring the pregnant women. won't you go with her?"

"uh, okay. ya. i'll go and bring the pregnant women. now?"

"yes, now."

"okay." i packed up my purse and said good bye, then efreeyeh and i began to walk in the direction of town.

"what exactly are we doing?" i asked.

"Ma Aggie wants us to go and visit the pregnant women and tell them to come to the clinic."

efreeyeh had just started calling Ma, Ma Aggie. i liked the long version when efreeyeh said it because it sounded like "Moggy", but Ma would always and forever remain a two lettered woman to me.

at the beginning of that week we had a lady in town, pregnant with twins, attempt to deliver at home with a traditional birth attendant (TBA). it was a bad story with an unhappy ending, depending on how you look at it. Maame Vic thought it was a good thing one of the babies didn't make it. "you see?" she said "she is a poor poor woman, she can't afford twins. so now she has just one, she will feel free. her baby will be strong. but that TBA is a wicked wicked woman."

her perspective on the neonate's death was a good way to look at it, i suppose. and the TBA is actually a very kind woman who was put into a difficult situation. turns out the girl showed up on her doorstep with the first child already making it's way into the world. what was she to do?

she came in after her children were delivered, with a retained placenta. Maame Vic had to manually remove it, and during the process a lot of blood was lost. She stayed in the clinic longer than any patient i had ever seen. she was weak and anemic and too poor to go to the hospital for a blood transfusion.

"i'll pay for it." i said.

"let's wait and see if rest and her modified diet will work." sofie said.

her baby girl was premature, and i learned that day about how to correctly wrap a baby into a kangaroo hold. the mother learned also. it is a method that has saved premature babies who don't have access to incubators, babies born in the bush. wrap the child skin to skin against the mother's (or anyone's) chest. keep the baby there, the mother's body heat is perfect for "incubation". the positioning looked quite comfortable, and the baby seemed happier.

things were looking on the bright side the day she was discharged.

it obviously affected Ma, to get her motivated in sending us out into the community.

efreeyeh loves leaving the clinic on missions, whether it's riding the bike to fetch Ma her lunch, going to the market to buy the clinic something, or doing what we were about to do. whatever the case may be, there is always an extra skip in her step.

"so how many women are we going to visit?" i asked.

"just wait and see." she said, smirking at me.

she looked more official in her green uniform. she looked like a health professional. she looked like the community might trust her.

we walked up a hill, alongside some decrepit buildings, past women wringing out their children's just washed clothes. we walked past the baby ducks, i love those baby ducks. i noticed how much they walked like efreeyeh, a slight waddle. i told her this and she slapped me. "i only share these things with you because you share your thoughts with me." i said.

"what do you mean?" she asked.

i pointed to my arm, the arm she has been making fun of for months, the arm she says looks like i broke. "why do you walk like you've broken your arm?" she always asks.

"why do you waddle like a duck?" i now say.

we kept going and i was interested to see whose house we would stop at, when my path was intercepted by the local crazy man. it took me a while to figure out he was crazy, because he says many of the same things the locals say to me, except he repeats them and rocks back and forth while he does it, like he's slightly autistic, but he's not.

"he's a drunk." efreeyeh says. "and he's lost his mind."

now he was standing in front of me, telling me everything i already knew.

"My name is Mike Warrington! Shake me!"

he grabbed for my hand. he didn't need to grab though, i was going to offer it up willingly. i've set my rule with him. i will give him 3 handshakes, then it's over. with my dislike for handshaking i consider myself generous.

"My name is Mike Warrington. are you a british? Shake me!"

i gave him his second.

efreeyeh watched, very pleased with the situation.

"are you a british? my name is mike warrington. i am listening attentively. shake me!"

shake number three and over.

i walked away from him up the dirt hill. "c'mon efreeyeh, hurry up."

she ran up to my side and laughed. "he's lost his mind i hope you know that."

"i know, i'm just trying to get away from his handshaking. i hate it. he does this to me every morning before work, but usually i can see him and dodge him before it happens. shake me efreeyeh shake me!" then i grabbed her hand and started jostling it all around. she laughed.

"go in here akua." she said.

i walked through a metal gate painted blue, into a courtyard. there was a very pregnant woman sitting on a bench eating.

"how are you?" i asked.

"fine." she said.

"hungry?" i said.

"very." she said.

lots of laughter and then some small talk. there was a small child, of whom i had a special interest in since my first week here, hanging out close by. i asked "is this your son?", she said yes.

"oh! really? ebeneezer is my little friend. he's a good boy." i said.

he got very shy and hid.

Mike Warrington came around the corner and made his way into the courtyard over to ebeneezer. the boy tried to escape Mike Warrington but got cornered, so he just stood there while Mike Warrington told me his name over and over again, stressing the k in miKe and the rr's and t in waRRingTon.

the thing about Mike Warrington is, he can pass as sane for quite a long while, until you look closer at his glassy eyes.

"are you a british?" he kept asking.

"no i'm american." i said, wondering why i was even answering, then wondering why i wouldn't. crazy. what is crazy? crazy is still human.

the mother laughed when miKe waRRingTon said he was listening attentively. she spoke only a small bit of english, and his use of proper words had her laughing. he sounded like he had memorized a few lines from the a radio program he might have listened to. it would have been easy, since like nanakwame, he always was cradeling a small cheap radio in the crook of his armpit, listening "attentively".

when i started to ignore him, by turning my head and speaking to the pregant woman, he grabbed ebeneezers arm and squeezed until ebeneezer winced and we all turned to look. "are you a british?"

"please let go of the little boy's arm." i said.

he squeezed tighter "no, i am going to beat this child. my name is miKe waRRingTon."

he had a sick grin on his face.

"LET GO." i said.

ebeneezer looked like he was going to cry, but he wasn't moving. it was a disturbing moment.

"LET HIM GO." i said, again.

he let go, and laughed, treating me as if i were insane. then he came over and said "shake me." putting his grimy hand in my face.

"NO! i won't shake you. everyday you come to me and you say shake me shake me shake me. i'm tired of shaking you mike warrington. really tired of it. don't ask me again."

he kept laughing.

"let's go." i said to efreeyeh.

we reminded the woman to come to the clinic, she thanked us for visiting her and kept eating.

i ran up the hill and hid from miKe waRRington. i watched him walk back down the hill.

"we are going to this woman's house, by the market. have you seen her akua? she's too big, like this." then efreeyeh put her hands out past her toes. "like that. she's big, big."

"is she having twins you think?"

"yes."

"how do you know?"

"she went for a scan."

we turned the corner and were at the place.

"but all the women have gone to farm." efreeyeh said. "it's thursday. they will prepare for tommorow, market day."

"even the women who are about to deliver."

"every body has to prepare." she said.

"eh! efreeyeh. let's see if you are still saying that when you are 9 months pregnant, ya?"

she laughed. "i will akua."

we yelled into the one room structure "kokokoko" which is a phrase in twi, which is supposed to imitate the sound of knocking, but is voiced because most people don't have anything to knock a knuckle up against. no door, no window, nothing. just a vacant doorway. the response is "memememe", and we heard it. the woman hadn't gone to farm. when i saw her, i was suprised she was even moving! she was huge.

we spent some time touching her belly, talking to her, sitting around.

this was another form of community outreach. our own personal form.

this woman was afraid to come to the clinic.

i asked efreeyeh later, "why?".

she said because she hasn't been yet, mostly because she started her antenatal after she got her scan, so she just continued going to Konongo hospital. now that she was at term, Ma would yell at her for not having visited her sooner.

"but she should still come!" i said. "is she going to?"

"she said she would. tommorrow."

"do you think she will?"

"yes. if she says she will then i believe her. but it's true, Ma will yell at her."

"are the women in the village scared of Ma?"

"no." she said.

the next day she did come to the clinic, and Ma did yell at her. then i yelled at Ma, kind of.

"Ma?" i said. "you told us to go into the village and tell the women to come. now when they come, you yell at them. they won't want to deliver here if you make them feel guilty for not having come sooner, and then they'll just deliver at home. exactly what we don't want. so we should be kinder, don't you agree?"

"HMPF. these people." she began "they don't come for antenatal. i don't see them until this point, when they are coming to deliver. you see? HMPF."

"did you ask her why?"

"YES! but she won't speak."

it was true. the woman giggled uncomfortably everytime Ma asked her a question. she never answered one of them.

efreeyeh told me later she had warned her to keep her mouth shut, until she was about to leave, then she could explain her reason for not coming sooner and Ma wouldn't yell as much.

that is exactly what she did. she told Ma, she had to go to Konongo for the scan and if she didn't do antenatal there but got sent there due to complications during delivery, the midwives at the hospital wouldn't care about her. they would treat her poorly because they didn't recognize her.

i wondered if she had spoke with sister Yaa.

it was a smart move, i thought.

our delivery room was kind, whether you had been there before or not. we didn't slap hard, and we didn't yell. we also didn't perform fundal pressure. there were windows which let in the breeze and a view of nature. and although Ma could be moody, she was an excellent midwife.

my initial skepticism of her qualifications, i now see, was due to my own ignorance. i would trust Ma to deliver my child, but i would make sure i went to my antenatals with her first. just to get on her good side.