Mini Me

It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to get to the internets, so my apologies for the datedness of these posts, but about five weeks ago, I got to spend a week in Namon, which will by my home for the next two years. I feels like I met just about everyone in the village. Of course, I can’t really remember any names. I hope that will come. Actually, remembering names became a bit of an issue as one of Togolaise people’s favorite things to do is give you a new name in their local language, and despite being told several times, I could never quite call my new name to mind when meeting people. I can’t tell you how embarrassing it is to have to lean over to the person beside you and whisper furtively, “What’s my name again?” I feel like an amnesiac soap opera character. The name is Opicha, which roughly translates to “newest wife in the family.” Given the delicacy of cross cultural attitudes surrounding marriage, it was difficult for me to express my distaste at this christening, but I was less than thrilled. My hope is that everyone else will have as much trouble remembering it as I did, and they’ll just give me a new one when I get back. Until then, I think I’ll just pretend not to know people are talking to me. That should work.

Aside from eating several meals a day at various people’s houses, which, in addition to drinking a lot of tchouk, took up a large part of each day, I did begin to do some actual work. My homologue is a midwife, so I went with her to the dispensaire (sort of like a clinic) to help with the baby weighing they do every Monday. This was interesting not only for purposes of understanding the system I will be a part of but also in gaining insight into the expectations of my homologue, who kept saying things like, “On Thursdays, we do vaccinations. You can start administering those right away, but it will be a few weeks before you are ready to deliver a baby.” Despite having been told by Peace Corps (and, repeatedly, me) that I have absolutely no medical training, she seems to believe that I am a kind of apprentice for her and should therefore leave with a comfortable knowledge of how to perform minor surgeries. This should be no problem what with my BA in English and Gender Studies.

The first day went smoothly enough. I helped weigh and measure all of the babies and give out enriched flour to the ones who were malnourished. Despite the fact that they do this once a week, the process is far from efficient, so there is a lot of standing around listening to crying babies, but I think it really went as well as could be expected. The second day, however, we were doing prenatal visits. This mostly involves weighing each woman, measuring her stomach, and listening for the baby’s heartbeat. I knew we had twenty visits scheduled for that day, so when I got to there, I was surprised to find no one waiting. I sat looking at the clinic’s records for nearly an hour, and no one showed up. I asked my homologue why no one was coming, and she looked at me like I was an idiot and said, “It’s raining.” Ah, yes. I mean, it wasn’t really raining, but it was certainly cloudy, and there was a drizzle from time to time. Clearly, one shouldn’t venture out of doors. I think Namon is the anti-London.

Shortly after that, a young woman did arrive, and my homologue came to get me. She said, “Come quickly. She’s going to give birth, and you can watch.” I felt a little bit of uneasiness for the woman’s privacy, but I went and kind of stood in the corner. This would not do for my homologue. She made me come stand right next to her, saying, “How will you know how to do a birth if you don’t watch properly?” I said, “I am not a doctor. I will not be birthing babies..” She said, “Put your hand inside, and you can feel the head.” I told her that under no circumstances would I be putting my hand in another woman’s vagina against her will. She sighed resignedly. And then it happened. After about ten minutes of labor, the woman gave birth. Apparently, there is a local belief that if you scream during labor, it will alert the evil spirits that there is a vulnerable baby, but if you can keep quiet, they won’t know what’s going on, and the baby will be safe. The woman never made a sound. When the baby was born, my homologue handed her to me while she cut the umbilical cord, and I wrapped her up in a cloth. Then they named the baby Emily. It was unreal.