It was the fourth e-mail I had sent and still their the reply was “no.”
They didn't want me to come. “You aren't a medical professional,” they said. In fact, professionally speaking, I wasn't really anything. But my vision was clear. I wanted to learn about birth in West Africa. More specifically, I wanted to train in a rural health clinic with a 74-year-old midwife named Ma.
It wasn't difficult to find the opportunity. I used Google, and typed in my interests: West Africa, midwifery. The Web site for the nonprofit Foundation Human Nature, or FHN, popped up. When I read about the the health clinic, about how perfect it all seemed, I committed myself to pestering the folks at FHN until they caved. I had to prove, because I had no qualifications, that I was serious about my dream.
“Typically our organization only accepts volunteers with a medical background and a good amount of experience,” Ed Gold, president of FHN, finally wrote. “But it has been over a year now of this and you are quite persistent. You can come.”
I booked my flight. A handful of close friends understood, but what I most commonly heard was, “You can learn about birth here, Kacie, in the U.S. You don't have to go to the jungle to do it.” And also: “Maybe you should witness one first before you head halfway across the world, just to, you know, see if you can handle it. There is a lot of blood. It's scary.”
These comments only solidified why I wanted to be a part of the birth world somewhere else. Deep inside I knew not every culture's consensus is that birth is frightening, that a woman lies on her back screaming in agony while doctors prod and yank below. I was sure that not everybody agreed with the belief that it is a freakish experience needing a lot of manipulation and intervention. Many of these people lived outside of America. Many of them, I guessed, lived in – The Jungle.
My apprenticeship began in November 2006. The village was quaint, and hot, and simple. Just the way one might imagine – a lot of goats, no running water, no electricity and very small children doing adult-sized chores.
I had little access to familiar simple pleasures: dessert, cell phone coverage, showers. It was, indeed, very un-American, not being able to have the things I wished for.
In the maternity ward I attempted to soften Ma the Midwife into believing having me around wasn't going to be so horrible. I cracked cross-cultural jokes, proved my usefulness by mopping the floors ferociously and listened intently to the little advice she gave. When women came to deliver, I read their bodies like a textbook. I analyzed each breath, each wince, every cry. I observed Ma and her tactics the way children watch ants – closely, fully absorbed, and without reservation. In May 2007, when I left to return to America, she cried.
I stopped in to her house, to say a final goodbye. She was wearing a thin polyester nightie. Ma rolled off her bed and walked over to me, throwing her thick tree stump arms around my frame and squeezing so tightly all I could do was exhale into her embrace.
“Akua,” she said, using the Ghanaian name that had been given to me, “I will miss you. I want you to come again.”
I was uncertain if I'd be able to return, so I held back promising anything. Instead, I suggested we write letters, often, and I told her I'd never forget all that she had given me. She said I must pray for her, because she is old.
“And I will pray for you,” she said, “because you are single.” We laughed.
Eleven months later I was contacted by Dr. Sophie Kuhn, a volunteer who had come to our Ghanaian village during my time as a midwife's apprentice. She explained Foundation Human Nature was preparing for an intensive, six-week family planning outreach. Its goal was to flood the local villages with information and access to birth control, something semi-revolutionary in the bush.
“We want you to be a part of this. Can you come?” “When?” I asked. “We start in two weeks.”
The day of my flight I rifled through my closet, anxiously looking for the perfect plane outfit. My restlessness made small decisions seem impossible, and I didn't have much time. A neighbor friend intervened by bringing over a loose-fitting dress. I put it on. It was exactly what I wanted to wear. “But,” I said, “I can't promise it'll come back the same. It might get Africanized.”
She chuckled, gave one last longing look at it, and said, “Go.” I traveled nonstop, from plane to bus to bush taxi, to get to the village as quickly as possible. It was a 36-hour journey, at least, but worth the effort because the moment I got to the health clinic, late in the afternoon, with the glowing sun sinking low, a woman in heavy labor came in. That night, after the baby came, I took a bucket bath and hung my neighbor's dress on the line. It was the first time I'd taken it off since San Diego.
Vernix, a cheesy layer that sometimes coats a newborn's body, was smeared over the breast and stomach sections, as if I had rolled in paste. It was official. Trip No. 2 had begun. The next few weeks I co-taught health lessons, dribbled mango juice and danced late night under the moon at a funeral, in the same blue outfit. It witnessed more than just one birth, and sat close to death. It stood by when more and more women trickled in to the health center, tired of being tired, and asked for birth control. It faded three shades from standing in the noon-day equatorial sun while I bounced countless babies on my hips. And it got peed on. Washed and dripping wet, the dress draped over the community clothesline next to other more experienced fabrics, local fabrics. These brightly colored prints surely took years to show any wear, to cave in to their weak spots. Like the bodies they clothed, they were impressive in that sense, beautiful with resilience.
The trip was incredible. Filled with humor, sadness, peace. “As for you, Akua,” the head nurse said to me one day, “you are an African. Your skin is white, but you, you are more like us. This place suits you. The food, the weather, the dancing. You speak our language. You don't fear the mosquito. It seems you have even become stronger since you've arrived.”
I laughed.
“It's true,” she said. “If people see how you are here, how you can just feel free, they, too, will love Africa. They will know, it is good here.”
Mutscheller, 27, a San Diego native, traveled to Ghana in 2006 to work as a midwife apprentice. She returned in April for a six-week stay. She can be contacted at
newkacie@gmail.com.
Online: For more on her most recent trip, go to uniontrib.com/more/kacie
