Editor's note:
Part 2 in a 2-part special feature by Amy Souza, a World Language teacher from Schurz High School in Chicago who traveled in March to the village of FounouFuni in Mali with 7 of her students as part of the Building With Books
program. The Building With Books organization helps villagers build new
schools while providing cultural and language learning opportunities
for its participants.
In her story Souza details the
existing conditions of maternal health and parent education in the town
of FounouFuni located in the Segou region of Mali. One of the poorest
countries in the world, children born in the region have an average
life expectancy of only 38 years. During her trip, she spoke
with the town's only midwife, Zubaila Tu.
-photo: Baby Fatimata and mother Fata by Amy Vitale Oxfam
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There is no birthing room or center FounouFuni. Zubaila Tu travels to the home of the woman in labor, and tries her best to set up an adequate space. But since most women live in small, two room cottages with dirt floors, no chairs and no beds, an adequate birthing room means clearing out the usual inhabitants and laying a straw mat on the floor.
In 2007, Zubaila birthed 307 babies from FounouFuni and its neighboring villages, of which 270 survived.
When I spoke with Zubaila via translator, she remained optimistic but expressed her one wish: a sanitary birthing house for the women of FounouFuni. “If only I had more sanitary conditions and better supplies…if only the women were better educated on maternal and child heath…life would take a turn for the better in our peaceful village,” she half-smiled as she held a napping baby on her lap. Zubaila’s one and only “instrument” was a pack of razor blades for cutting umbilical cords, her only education tool an illustrated book on maternal and child care by UNICEF.
She continued, “We have no methods of pain relief during difficult labors. If the labor does not progress, the only solution is to find a way to get to the nearest village with a small hospital, Marakala (20 km from FounouFuni). Usually it’s a painful ride by donkey cart. And many pregnant women do not survive the journey.”
Most girls in FounouFuni have their first child between the ages of 18 and 20. However, sometimes younger girls do become pregnant out of wedlock at earlier ages.
“We consider this an accident,” Zubaila whispers to me in her grandmotherly way.
“What if a woman doesn't want to have any more babies: what does she do?” I ask, my western innocence shining through.
“It's a woman's obligation to have many babies” sighs Zubaila. “If she doesn't, her husband will refuse or leave her.”
“And what about women who are unable to become pregnant for whatever reason?”
“Women who can't have babies pray, pray and pray,” Zubaila lifts her hands to the sky up for a moment.
During the fifteen days following childbirth, women eat special dishes such as fish from the nearby Niger River – and are encouraged to eat when ever they are slightest bit hungry. The new mother is helped out by her daughters (if they are old enough) or her female neighbors with the many chores around the house: drawing water from the wells, pounding millet (the staple grain that needs to be extensively processed with a large mortar and pestle), preparing meals, taking care of younger children.
When I asked Zubaila about her thoughts on combating malnutrition in a country where most people survive on less than $2 per day, she sighed. “Most women breastfeed children up to a maximum age of 18 years, and a minimum of 24 months. Most babies enjoy their first solids at six months of age, rice or millet porridge with fish powder called RuYi. Some children obviously aren’t receiving enough nutrition. And it's often difficult to tell a woman that she or her children may be suffering from malnutrition. It's a matter of pride. If you approach a woman the wrong way, she will usually angrily retort: 'Are you trying to tell me that I don't have the means? That I don't know how to care for my children?'…So I usually delicately suggest that perhaps the baby might have malaria. And I make food and health recommendations that I can only hope the mother will find the means to follow."
She takes time to educate new mothers on both nursing mother and child nutrition, making much use of her illustrated UNICEF guide, which featured easy-to-understand nutrition charts.
Zubaila is currently training several women from surrounding villages, and four women from FounouFuni. She looks forward to the inauguration of the schoolhouse, which will be completed by the villagers in about two months. Not only will the children finally receive a formal education, but the school will also be used as a women’s education center in the evenings, which will fit well with the African proverb: “If you educate a woman, you have educated a population.” It is likely that Zubaila herself will hold some seminars and women’s meetings at the completed school. The government of Mali has agreed to send and support a primary school teacher to every school funded and built by Building with Books. In a country where 66 percent of men and 77 percent of women have not attended school, the building of this rural schoolhouse represents a huge step in the right direction towards a healthier future for both women and children.
Recently, the First Lady of Mali, Madame Toure Lobbo Traore, herself a former midwife, has taken steps towards her goal of cutting maternal and newborn deaths in half by the year 2010. Together with the first ladies of several West African nations, she is working to increase funding in national budgets for maternal and child health programs. As a testament to her hard work, the healthcare budget has substantially, though as always, relatively, risen in Mali in the past ten years, so that the number of women and children who have access to health centers has increased from 20 percent to 65 percent.
I will always remember the one evening when on my walk home towards my simple adobe hut, I came across my neighbor, Miriama, lying on her side, on a mat under the wide expanse of stars, quietly and gently nursing her tender baby boy. She seemed so peaceful and content, her baby fat and adorable. It happened to be my son’s seventh birthday, and I missed him terribly – for two weeks we had been not only worlds away but also incommunicado (FounouFuni has no running water, no electricity, and no telephones). As I smiled at Miriama, the thought struck me: what a double-edged sword life can be. This mother of FounouFuni most likely gave birth to her baby in an adobe hut, on a mat resting on a dirt floor. Seven years prior, my son was born in a sterile white hospital room, caught by a midwife wearing a surgical mask. We each had sons and there was much joy. My son grew to age five in remarkable health – but it is a real possibility that
Miriama’s cuddly boy will not survive to his fifth birthday. And if he does die, it will be from something that could easily have been prevented, from diarrhea caused by unclean drinking water, water that could have been cleared of killer parasites through the installation of a simple purifying pump; from the prick of a mosquito – pricks that could have been avoided by sleeping under a $10 mosquito net.
But Miriama and I have more in common that we could imagine: our love for our children is great, our goals for them greater: we both dream that our children will grow up to be healthy and educated. But the chances that my goals will be reached are within reach, while Miriama will likely face much struggle, for the simple fact that I happened to be born in a city 5,000 miles away.
How can the inequities between the mothers in our world be so great? What mechanisms are in place in this world that cause our country to face problems with children being overfed and obese, while children in Mali face malnutrition on starvation?
We need to start caring about the future of children around the world as if they were our very own children.
What have you done recently to help out a mother or child in need?
Malian Baby Blessings:
Ala ka den balo.
May God watch over (a.k.a. feed) your baby
Ka na can dja.
May your child's mission be fulfilled.
Ka bu ko ah dogoni ye
May this baby not be the last one.
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Author's note:
Many thanks to my translator, Pascal Kamaté, Zubaila Tu, and the women and children of FunuFuni.
For more information on the plight of Malian women, included further information on statistics included in this article, visit http://www.savethechildren.org/countries/africa/mali.html
For more information on Building with Books, the organization that brought me and 17 Chicago public high school students to Mali to build a school, visit www.buildingwithbooks.org
If you would like to help contribute to a package of supplies that I am sending over to Zubaila, please contact me at amydelfinodesouza@gmail.com or donate via paypall at: http://malimidwifesupplies.chipin.com/mypages/view/id/199734923b719e19
