In April I spent 2 weeks with the world famous Farm Midwives doing a Midwife's Assistant workshop and getting my Neonatal Resuscitation certification. During that time I was lucky enough to spend a lot of my visit with Pamela Hunt, who is an amazing woman with years of experience and laughs to share. I told her my ambitions for wanting to do work in Africa and my plans for Midwife International. Pamela comes back with, "Oh you HAVE to get in contact with Mandi! She's just the best!" That's all the information she gave me initially. What? There's a midwife named Mandi in South Africa? I mean she's already living my dream! I emailed her that night imploring her to let me visit and pick her brain. Within 12 hours I had a response and a little bit of a back story. Mandi Busson lived just outside of Knysna on an organic sustainable farm catching babies in her community. At this point I was totally in love with this woman!
Fast forward 5 months and Caz and I landed in Elandskraal on the Heartland School of Self Sufficiency. The dedication and and vision of their family for a sustainable future and planet is so integral to their daily life its palpable. Reduce, reuse, and recycle isn't just a catch-phrase over there. Thelma and Louis the pigs eat all the scrap veggies from the kitchen and garden, the chickens keep the garden pest free, and everything is planted in homemade compost where it thrives, and they source most of their building supplies from their own backyard. Mandi's daughter Mikyle, a brilliant artist and entrepreneur, built herself a masterpiece teepee with her boyfriend. With wood moon-harvested from their property and beautiful canvas, they crafted a year round structure with the most pristine view of the night sky. My jealously can't be contained. It's wonderful beyond words to find people with such dedication to sustainability and low impact as they are. I literally had to be peeled away this morning when we left at 4am. Never in my life have I felt so at ease in my surroundings or thinking that I could grow old some where with like minded people. The Busson Family is going to get so sick of me and my frequent visits!
As Caz mentioned in her previous post, we had an action packed week of community service. The interesting thing about the service work we did is that I feel I took way more than I gave. This community outside of Knysna just jumped into my heart. In the beginning I felt apprehension on how I would be received but that trepidation melted away with the abundance of smiles and welcomes. Caz covered the Redland School, and the Forget-Me-Not tea, and I'm here to talk about the Farm Visits and Knysna Provincial Hospital.
Monday afternoon Mandi and I shot down the N2 towards Knysna Provincial to meet with the Hospitals Super Intendant and the Head of the Maternity Ward. Seeing birth politics from the inside was a fascinating opportunity that I am incredibly grateful for. Mandi and I have hopes to establish a volunteer Doula program within the public provincial hospital to aid the overworked nurses in making every woman's birth a special experience. Our challenge was presenting a convincing case to wary nurses whose welcome we need in order to make an effective difference. After some excellent delegation and polite banter we were able to weasel our way into the system and were granted permission to start the paper trail for our pilot program. Essentially without us it would be incredibly difficult for the hospital to employ the international better birth initiatives for the hospital. YAY BETTER BIRTH INITIATIVES! Everybody wins! So I will be back in November to take the next step towards putting the program in place!
Thursday came fast and we rolled through Smutsvill to pick up the lovely ladies at Masithandane. Masithandane has a list of elderly and disabled patients that are essentially confined to their property and are too far out of reach for regular medical checkups or government assistance programs. If it weren't for this amazing organization checking in on their patrons, most of them would have no one to ensure their well-being or survival. Interesting side note; many many many of the families out in boonies of Farliegh, Elandskraal, Berg Valley, and Karatara have been on their plot of land for generations and generations being descendents of the original Khoisan Bushmen of the area. These people are slowly being pushed out by the old white family that settled the land. The last of the locals left on the land are sequestered to the smallest plot in the most rundown homesteads where they stave off monetary offers to move to the townships where they would have no chance at self-sufficiency, so the redneck landowners can have the land without any responsibility to the community. It's out there in the bush that Masithandane treks every month to deliver food parcels, check vitals and just bring company to the people who need it most.
For four hours we drove down dirt roads, through the woods, and areas out of reach from the main drag (thank God for Gloria the jeep and Caz for their excellent 4 wheel drive skills). Some volunteer projects I've been a part of in the past felt like we were paraded in front of suffering people to see them and know they were there, but never really engage or make a difference. I always felt ostracized from the people we aimed to help by the way we would generally overwhelm them without our sheer numbers or naivety. This was different. It was just Caz, Mandi, and me with the familiar faces of the Masithandane staff. The locals we interacted with were wholeheartedly welcoming and pleased for us to be with Masithandane. Some situations were dire, while others were downright horrifying. Collapsing walls, concave roofs, corrugated tin sheets sewn together with razor wire, some homes previously burnt to a crisp yet still occupied, and victims of violence and disability trying to survive as best they can. One woman cried endlessly as we tried to bring her comfort in her immobility, a prisoner to her bed and unable to communicate. It was truly heartbreaking. The bright side to all this was seeing how community outreach such as Masithandane can have lasting and powerful effects as they serve over 6,000 people a year in such situations. That immobilized woman is getting her wheel chair fixed and being brought into the Forget-Me-Not's tea lunches. We can't help everyone, but everyone can help someone. I think Reagan said that. It's so true. Everyone can help someone and make a world of difference.
We also went to the beach and had the greatest day ever.
September 22 was the Spring Equinox in South Africa and Mandi thought it would be appropriate to celebrate. We completely agreed. It was a beautiful day and worth celebrating. Mandi, her husband Alan, Daughters Mikyle and Indio, and neighbor Unscar (I'm sorry if I spelled your name wrong, please forgive me!), Caz, Muda, and I all walked across the dam next to the old sweat lodge and built a fire. We all wrote down the pieces of our past which we wish to leave behind. Emotions, mentalities, people, places. Things we want to burn to ashes. Then, we wrote the things we wish to grow in our future. Our hopes, dreams, aspirations, loves, and abilities. We ceremoniously threw the past into the flames together and watch it all shrivel to ash. I didn't leave the fireside until I watched my paper crumbled into the coals and the dust fly into breeze. Then all of us got up to bury our hopes for the future under a baby cherry tree to grow. I can't wait to see how much the tree grows by November :)
I had plans to bury my shoes on the property to ensure my return, but when I went back to bury them they were missing. No one could find my pink flip flops. My theory is that the forest took them to make sure I really would come back. Either that or a baboon is wandering around Elandskraal chewing on my glittery shoe! But I'd like to think it was the forest.
Caz's brilliant pictures of the ritual burning.
Making sure the past doesn't leave the fire ;)
PS.
There's a few people out there who know of my obsession with Placentas. Even fewer who understand it. The placenta is the organ that's formed to give life to your infant as it grows, and when it's job is done it leaves your body. It's special organ that deserves love and admiration. When I return to the states I plan to get my Placenta Encapsulation Certification, but that's besides the point. I was through the roof happy to hear Mandi tell me that whenever parents in her practice don't want their placenta, she takes it and plants it on her farm with an indigenous tree over it. She's amassing a small placenta forest where the placenta can continue to provide life for something and it makes me smile to know there are others out there who are also crazy about the organ that kept us all alive before our moms brought us into the world.
PPS.
A special thanks to Mandi, Alan, Indio, Mikyle, and Unscar for an awesome week! Everyone go on their facebook page and show them some love! Heartland School of Self Sufficiency!
PPPS.
Baboons are scary. Especially when there's 50 of them in the road.
<3
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