Rose's ecological footprint

I listen to reports from Paris about climate change.

Young girls walk to get water for their family each morning.   The water pump is also a place for friends to meet and visit with each other before heading back home.  

I think about Cabestore and Haiti and Rose's small hamlet.

Rose consumed very little in her short life.  She walked almost everywhere she went and used no electricity.   Her clothes were  second hand from the United States.  She ate whatever they could grow; the exception being the rice they were forced to buy from the Dominican Republic, when their rice fields were lost to them.

Her global footprint was very, very small.   She had almost no possessions;  her furniture was home made and she would be lucky to have a pot for cooking rice and beans.

But her life was not bad.  It was beautiful.   She woke up to beautiful mountains and clean, sweet, meandering streams and rivers.   The noises of dawn; of children and animals and friends were reassuring and happy.   She had sisters and cousins and friends; a good husband and beautiful children.

She believed in God and she believed that God dwelled in all things.

On the radio they say, "Are Americans willing to eat less meat, use less electricity, consume less?"   They say, "What if the developing world, used as much as Americans?"

Do we need to keep a certain part of the world, without, so we can have so much?

I add the factors leading to global warming to the reasons Rose died; the reasons why Oliver does not have a mother.  Poverty is a big business and Rose was one small casualty of the pursuit of wealth that has no bounds.

Yes, Rose, a bad spirit killed you, but perhaps not the one you thought.  It was not one that a Leaf Doctor could have rid you off.  It was he bad spirit of greed that surrounded you and enveloped you, even in that quiet, peaceful hamlet you called home.

They say that it was once an island of tropical birds and that whales and dolphins were always off shore.   They say there were giant hardwood trees and the rivers were full of fish.

I see you walking there, your baby indoor arms; a great woman with a very small, ecological footprint.   In a world full of environmental heroes, this morning I nominate the women of the world who walk so gently on this earth.

When one mother dies.

Every Mother Counts


This is the name of a maternal health organization and indeed the one that is helping to make the new birth center possible.   It helps pay for the education of the midwives and the remodel of the building.  There are t-shirts and water bottles and other things with their logo floating around us as we set up.

It is based on the idea that if a mother dies, there is a terrible ripple effect in the community.   The baby has no milk, the children can't go to school, there is increased risk of sexual exploitation, there is starvation and of course the life time of grief and loneliness people feel when their mother dies so young.  Women work hard in Haiti.  They tend gardens, cook, wash clothes by hand, go to the market and bathe children.  All the work that they do must be done by someone else, if they die.  The oldest daughter loses her childhood.

There is some debate about how far this statement reaches.   Rose had prenatal care at the mobile clinic and delivered her baby safely at home with the help of a local matron.   The matron attended a matron training program.  But here we are four months away from the birth and the community is faced with life without this one important mother, her dazed husband and her children.   The newly installed midwives, are not so sure the nutrition of this four month old baby is their concern.  He was not born at the birth center and there is no formula.  What can be done?

In the USA, the father would get formula from WIC and food stamps.  He could go to a local food pantry or get an emergency box of food.  His children would get a free breakfast and lunch at a school that required no fees or uniform or books.   They would simply walk out of the house, dressed the best they could and go eat breakfast before school.  If they needed clothes, there would be a clothes closet for them to pick out new and gently used clothing.  If the baby or any of the children, needed temporary foster care, it would be provided.

In the USA, we have safety nets.  We all pay a portion of our income to assure some basic services for children who, for many reasons, are in danger.  Most of us, most of the time are thankful for this.

In Haiti, Oliver's Dad is trying to decide what to do with him.  He clearly loves and enjoys his children and does not want to give this baby away.   It has only been a few days, since his wife died.
He asks if he can get him back later or visit him or know how he is doing.  These would all be reasonable requests in the United States.   The translator shakes her head.  

A volunteer offers to help support the baby by sending money each month to the translator. The  baby would have food, clean clothes and above all a good education.   More than that; he would stand a chance at living.

The volunteer midwife and I, standing in the rain, know his chances of living are not good.   Many babies in Haiti never reach their fifth birthday.  In many places as many as 1 in 4 die in the early years.   Their bodies are weakened by malnutrition and the constant infestation of worms that destroy what nutrition they have.   There are all the mosquito born diseases of malaria and dengue.  There are all the kid infections that are easily remedied with antibiotics that are left untreated.   There is untreated water and latrines too inconvenient to use.  

The father is still considering the bad spirits that killed his wife and is not considering the possibilities of parasites and infections and malnutrition.   He is being told his wife's death was not preventable.  It was just fate.  The idea that they can prevent the baby's death is difficult to grasp.

A woman stands with the baby in her arms and insists she should take care of him; that Rose asked her and so he has to stay there in the family Lakou.   It feels unfair, to me, that he should have to choose.

We bring him formula and baby clothes.  But it is not easy to get formula week after week, after we have all gone home.  He comes at dusk, later in the week, and says the baby is crying. He is hungry and the children have no food.   We give him evaporated milk and some protein bars.   He says that on Friday,  he will bring the baby for the translator to take home.   He is sure.   The translator says she will make sure he knows how the baby is and that sometimes there can be a visit but the baby will be legally hers.

He nods and walks out into the darkness that surrounds us.   A woman is in labor.  We turn towards the birth room as he walks away.   The mist is settling in and there is a chill in the air, even thought the days are hot and still.

Rose's Choice - "Send the children to school."

Oliver's mother and her large extended family grew up in Cabestore.  For as long as anyone could remember they had all lived and loved and given birth and died along those steep, mountain paths.

As a baby girl, Rose would have learned how to carry water, on her head, as she walked to the nearest spring to collect water.  Her cousins and sisters would join her as the mist rose from the countryside and the roosters crowed.  Perhaps her Mama would yell at her if she took too long but this was her time to meet girlfriends and share news from the other hamlets.   There were five other children and many cousins in her lakou, that sat half way up the mountain, with the corn fields forming a safe and comforting  blanket around them.

Rose was born into the dictatorship of Baby Doc Duvalier.  By the time she was five, Aristede had become the first democratically elected president.   In the years of violence and secret police; of hope and hope destroyed; they had lost land and family members.   They could not afford to loose anymore farm land and still feed their family.  Large, fruit and nut producing trees were cut and taken by the government police.  They stood by and watched; no longer knowing what a full stomach felt like.   She sat, under the tree, and braided her sister's hair and told stories.   When there was food to harvest, all the men would work together and sing and she would prepare a meal for them and bring it to the fields.   At the ned of the day, someone would come and take much of what they harvested but still it was food and she was happy.  

By the time, Rose was pregnant with Oliver, the best land had been taken and the fruit trees of her childhood were gone.  The land, like her body, were tired and over used.  You could only harvest so much without a rest; from a woman or a piece of land.  When there was more land, they could let pieces rest but no longer.  

Rose had never gone to school.  No one in their extended family could read or write.  For all the elections, dictatorships and occupations; no one had established public education.   When the Catholic Church established a school, she knew it was not for her.  She longed for a school uniform and matching ribbons for her hair but this was not for children like her.   She quickly learned to cook and care for babies and to help while her mother was working the gardens or gone to market.

Her older cousin had joined a small house church which followed the teachings of Liberian Theology.  He had returned home excited about the possibility for a new and equitable Haiti.   Soon, the government appointed clergy came and said they had no title to their land.   Her cousin argued that it had been in the family for hundreds of years; that the children would starve without it but the land was taken.  They could still farm it but a portion of every crop would go to the church.   The cousin was furious and said he would go,by boat, to the United States and earn money to buy land with a proper title.  He said all the children must go to school.  Even if it meant starving.  The children had to go to school.   He forbid everyone from the smallest pleasures; coffee and a piece of sugar cane; a little rum and betting on the roosters.  We had to send the children to school; one child at a time.   Rose knew this did not mean her as she was too old and was needed at home. She never drank coffee or drank rum or betted on roosters so none of these restrictions bothered her.  One older boy was chosen to go to school.   The older men argued that it would mean more work for them on the farm and that why was one son chosen and they all had to pay.  Her cousin argued "Someone has to know how to read."

The hope of Arrested died when he was overthrown.  Even out in her little hamlet, the news reached them.  Aristide had been overthrown and there was the return of military rule.   Her cousin sat under the last big tree and wept.   The next day, he left for the farms but never returned.   Some said he made his way to America and would return one day with money to buy land, with a title. Others said he was killed and his body thrown to the dogs.

Rose married a sweet man with enough land to feed a family.   Rose made him promise the children would go to school, even the girls.  He climbed a mango tree and threw down mangoes for each of them.  They sat there and talked about their life; how it would be different for them.   They would work hard and send the children to school.   They would be careful.   They would sacrifice everything for their children's education.

And so perhaps, when Rose had to choose the books for her children's school or the fees or the uniform or going to a doctor in town; she chose education.  

They say it was "Bad Spirits."   They say bad spirits have plagued that family for many years; starting with the cousin who joined the Liberation Theology Movement and down through the generations.  

The oldest daughter stares at me and wonders will become of her.  How can she ever finish school without a mother.

I wonder how it is that the United States occupied this country three times to assure democracy and never once in all that time, established a free education for everyone.

Let me explain, if a child goes to school without the proper clothes or books or fees; they risk public humiliation.  They can be shamed in front of classmates and neighbors as a poor child.   They are chased away and called names.

What would you have done if you were Rose?  As you sit there breastfeeding baby Oliver and the children say they must buy books or be turned out.  What would you do?   You know you have diarrhea and have vomited.  The clinic said you need to go to the hospital but you think- these things pass. Do you go or do you buy food for your children and pay the school fees?  

Later they call someone in to remove your bad spirits but all Rose is thinking is - take care of my children.  Make sure they go to school.  She hands her baby to an older woman and shuts her eyes.   His cry gets weaker and weaker as she sees her cousin waiting for her, there in the branches of the tree where she last saw him.

She calls his name.  She whispers, "I sent the children to school. "  

(  These things all happened in Haiti but perhaps not to this one woman or her family.  It is based on historical times but all can not be assigned  to this family or place. )

Where is Rose's Grave?

I wake up and offer my morning prayers to the day as it emerges over the Cascade Mountains.
In this quiet, my heart flies over the mountains and the sea to Cabestore and its trails of small hamlets and family farms.

And then, I write.  I am superstitious.  I think that if I tell this one mother's story, she will not have died in vain.  I believe that if I tell her story, her baby boy will miraculously live until the day I return. I believe that maybe the collective knowledge of her life will wrap her tiny house in goodness and light.

A traditional house surrounded by a family garden in which crops are interplanted - corn, millet, beans and squashes as well as fruit and nut trees.  When the lands are stolen for mon agriculture the results are often tragic.  

I close my eyes and pray hard - "Take care of that fragile family."

"For all the fragile families."

When I flew into Haiti, I looked out the plane window and I saw these tiny lights shining like diamonds in all of the mountains.  I looked again. They were everywhere; a land of diamonds just sitting there in the afternoon sun.  

Soon the plane, dipped down and I could see the rusty tin roofs of the many houses and they were no longer diamonds but rusted, leaking tin roofs.   But I knew that we can choose to see them as diamonds or we can choose to see the rust.   The diamonds, sparkling in the sun,stayed with me on my journey.  I began to look for them in everything I did.  I looked for those moments and places of blinding light amidst equally blinding poverty.

Rose, the mother in my sotry, died of poverty.  

She like all of us, comes form a long line of human beings who traveled and lived in small equalitarian bands of friends and family.   They followed the shoreline all over the world, fishing and gathering food amongst the rocks and meadows of the coast.   Archaeologists believe that these early bands of humans were free of class and were largely democratic.  They think this because of the graves.   Later, in the human story, graves would tell a different story but for thousands of years the final resting places of human beings were remarkably equal.   The other thing they noticed, was that there are virtually no skeletons with baby skeletons inside them. This leading them to consider that not many mothers died in childbirth.

Rose was buried in a poorly kept cemetery in Cabestore.  It sits on a bluff on the way to the "poor kids" school; on the way to the market.   Most people are buried in family graves; cement above ground, multi-layered places of rest similar to New Orleans.  They sit right beside them in their front yards.   I read that this was important because during slave times, there were no graves and so people wanted to keep their loved ones close by.  They can lovingly put things on them and walk by them every day.

The land of Rose's Lakou; her family yard, was lost and so she traveled down the trail to the community grave yard.   By the time, we arrived the burying was over and people were gathered, tied from an all too familiar journey.

The grave in the yard, was a sign of independence. self sufficiency and respect.

This was interwoven into a view of self sufficiency in which each family grew their own food and cared for one another on their own land.   The world could do as it would, but they would keep their land and their traditions.   This might have worked for some time, but in time people would come ( my country included ) and the rich and powerful of Haiti and they would want to consolidate the farms and turn to mono crops.  It was the same in the US farms.   'We can do better. Grow more. Make more money." The problem was that the families depended on the food grown on that land to live.    I watched huge trucks drive by piled high with plantains while the children's cooking pot sat empty.  

Despite a well crafted, ancient system of cooperation and taking care of each other; the land of Rose's family was sold or taken or coaxed away from her and she starved.   I believe her family grave is somewhere on the lost land.   Perhaps the men will  be hired to work the lost farm land and take home a few gouds to try to feed and educate their children.   Each day they will make hard decsions about the few resources they have.
     
The  baby is passed from arm to arm; from lap to lap no knowing where his mother has gone.

This Little Light of Mine

The mornings in Cabestore are veiled in mist; a cool mist that clings to the mountains. I sit on the porch of the birth center with my circle of solar lights.   I breathe in the morning and ask that I have the strength to be good and true and stay calm and kind.

I think about the many aspects of my own inner self.   They tumble out of me all day long and stay with me in my dreams.   I consider the power of these aspects and think that all the spirits of the Hatien Saints are all the many parts of us.   They do not have to enter us, as they say in Voodoo.  They are alway there.  The kindness and love and strength as well as the fear and sorrow.  They are all there; always.

I think they believe that these spirits come and go at will.  I think they think someone can enter your body and take over your sweet disposition with a rage that causes death and destruction.   I think it is all in there always.  We can choose what we nurture and what we try to calm.   We can use these many aspects and when we use them to hurt others, it can indeed feel like a bad spirit has attacked us.  

Sunrise in Cabestore 

This is a my Quaker interpretation of "spirits."   We were taught that each person has an inner light or spirit and that our only task in life was to walk cheerfully across the earth, looking for that light in other people.  Recognizing it and helping it to grow.  We sang "This Little Light of Mine" a lot.

"Ain't gonna let them blow it out !"

Can a whole country become convinced that the spirits blowing their light out are metaphysical and the work of friends and neighbors?

I was a religion major.  I consider how religion can be used to comfort and build community or how it can be used to control and grow fear and discrimination.

When Rose lay dying with her baby sucking the last bit of milk from her breasts; she believed that an evil spirit had entered her body.   She believed that this evil spirit was far greater than the good that was also in her and that no western medicine could take it away.

If the Agent Sante from PIH came to see her, he later agreed that it was "bad spirits" and would consider no other possibilities.

The priest did not walk up that muddy trail to see her or offer last rites.  I doubt they would have bothered to send for him.   They did not ask for a ride in his fancy SUV.  They did not have a mass in the church.   These things cost money and after all they did not have the money to go to the hospital or send their children to school.

The mountains are filled with the bones of mothers.

It is easy to doubt the presence of an inner light in all people.   When I emerge from the isolation of Cabestore, Paris has been attacked and hundreds of mothers will die as bombs are dropped and miss their target.   It is a battle, it seems between evil and good; righteous and evil.   People fighting over the right to God's teachings.

A volunteer asks. "What is the difference between Protestants and Catholics?"

I say well it was the Reformation.  The protestants believed that the common person could understand and have a personal relationship with God.  They believed they could read the Bible for themselves.  The Catholic Church at the time, believed kings and rulers were chosen by God and people needed to go through them to get to God.   They died for the right to pray directly to God.  They died for the separation of church and state.

I believe that good mother died of a bacteria or virus or amoebe and not the curse of a single neighbor. But I also believe that she was weakened by the spirit of greed that has infected her country for hundreds of years.

Diagnosis - Bad Spirits

 I am standing toe to toe with the family and friends of a mother who had just died as the rain beats down on the tin roof and the yard begins to flood  There are two rooms in the house with only one window in each room.  One room contains the male domino players while most of the women and children and older men are squeezed together in the other empty room.   Small children peer down from an upstairs loft.

Children of the Lakou- always ready to greet us and offer a chair after a walk up the trail to do home visits Their mother is expecting a baby in January a the new birth center

The translator is busy negotiating the adoption of the baby.

I am wondering what type of diarrhea  she had and if it could spread to all these people living so closely together.  I try to remember what her husband had said.

No fever.
No blood.
Vomiting.
Her mother had the same thing and died too
She had it for one week

"Does anyone think it might be cholera?" I try to say.

"Bad spirits.  She had bad spirits and they could not get rid of them."

Cholera or dysentary or something else?   They are both caused by crowded conditions and poor sanitation.   Our own country had many serious outbreaks with both diseases.  Cholera was the main cause of death on the Oregon Trail and dystentary killed more soldiers in the US Civil War, than battle.  It killed thousands of babies who were given cow's milk so their mothers could work in the sweat shops of New York City.

We all  remembered the cholera outbreak in Haiti; the one that was traced back to the United Nations Security Forces.  For many years, there were piles of rehydration salts with directions on how to mix it everywhere.   Soap and rehydration salts.

I gave her soap and rehydration fluids.  If we had beds that morning perhaps I might have let her lie down and given her an IV.  But we had just opened and we had no beds.  Later we would blow up an air mattress but that morning we had not yet gotten that far.   We did not yet have IV fluids.  
These things would come but not that day.

I ask the translator to take me to the supervisor for PIH's agent sane program and say again, Maybe cholera?" and he says no, "She had bad spirits."   I figure they should know what cholera looks like as so many people died from it but I am still unsettled and there is the issue of the baby and what he will eat.  I am also there to set up a new birth center.

But I worry that the "spirits" that killed this Mom would impact maternal and infant health.  I began to see those "spirits " as all those things that lead to death and disability hat are not necessarily see under a microscope or can be tested for.   I began to see the "spirits" that killed her while keeping my eyes open for outbreaks or other people with similar symptoms.

As I walked back to the birth center, after my visit, with the agent sante, I began to notice the large number of children not in school.  I  began to see the "spirits" as those things in any society that
any society that deny a mother the ability to feed or educate or get health care for her children.

They had called the "Leaf Doctor" after the woman had come to see me.  He could not save her either.  Dis he turn to him because she could not afford the moto ride to the hospital or because she believed it was spirits he could cast out.

I could have kept her lying in the grass and watched her ads I unpacked.  I could have given her an antibiotic or gently held her head and gave her fluids.  I tell myself I did not know then she would not go to the hospital and that she was going home to die.

The baby is given a container of formula and it is agreed that the baby will go which translator on the week-end.  There are conversations about potential visits and the birth certificate.   Its pins around me and I beignet think that at least the baby will be cared for and live but the spirits were at wow

The road back home - Rose's Journey Into Death

I am not in Cabestore writing this.    I barely had any electricity in Cabestore and no internet.   I kept a journal and made cartoon sketches of the things going around me at four or five in the morning.   I would turn on solar lights and drink luke warm tea from a thermos.    The dogs often woke me up; the dogs and the roosters.

The place where I stayed was guarded by the priest's guard dogs.  The dogs were kept in crates all day.  People would poke them with sticks to make sure they stayed good and mean. The dogs  got in fights all  night long with the local dogs who were always having babies and in  a state of extreme starvation.  

When I first arrived, Frankie warned me that if I went downstairs to the birth rooms at night, the dogs would attack me and eat me.  

"What about the mothers in labor?  Will they eat the mother's in labor?"

I thought I would simply say we cannot have mother eating dogs at a birth center and they would be moved but they were not.   The priest said if I just used the secret code word, they would not eat me.   It was hard to remember and besides he said,  "Do not let any mothers know the secret dog code."

"How will they keep the dogs from eating them if they don't know the code?"   I am persistent.

Fortunately the mother eating dogs only tried to eat one volunteer whose aunt had died and had tried to go down the stairs before they were put in crates for the day.  I yelled the code world as loud as I could and the cooks called them in.   I considered that my accent was spoiling the use of the code word.   It is actually a sound.  Something like "Ta-tee-ta" but I never got it right.

Most nights, the dogs would start ripping a smaller dog apart and a great deal of crying and screaming of dogs would ensue and then the roosters got up and I could no longer sleep and got up too.

It was cold and damp.   The mist hung all around the mountains and  our clothes were wet.  I thought about the babies; the ones who would show up at the clinic with "Night fevers and grip."  

Was it malaria or simply the effects of sleeping on dirt floors on banana leaf mats.  It was so hot during the day but there by my little solar campfire on the upper porch, it was cold and my cartoons were drawn in the half dark.  

The four hour walk to healthcare 

After the roosters came the first people on the road.   The road was once a trail, like the one we take to Oliver's hamlet but now it was the market road and goes to LasCahobas and on to Merbela and Port-Au-Prince.  

The moto could take you out to the world beyond those small hamlets nestled in the side of mountains.  It could take you to healthcare beyond our capabilities.   It was possible.

 I had told Oliver's mother to go to the hospital; to follow that road but we all have been so sick we could barely manage to get to the bathroom and I was asking her to go all the way, on a moto, to town.   It was a forty-five minute ride to the closest small hospital and another hour to the larger one.  She would cross many streams and it was rocky and she had bad diarrhea and was throwing up.  Someone would have to go with her and who would watch all those kids.  

She nodded at me.  She was bent in half and throwing up the rehydration salts.  

Instead she made her way across the field and up the trail that turned into a creek when it rained and laid down in her small, dirt floor house, with all the children, and died.   I remember that her name was a form of Rose.  It was not exactly Rose but the word Rose was in it.  

Rose would have walked that trail.  Neighbors would have come out to say hello and a leaf doctor would be called.

There is a slight incline to get into her yard.  It is not so steep but if you were sick and walked all the way to the birth center and back sick, it would be one more hard hill to cross.  Her house was in a cleared yard.  There was a porch and all around fields of corn and millet with squash and beans tangled in between.   Her children would be naked, as they always were.   What did she see as she forced herself to climb the incline to her house and find a place to die.  

She would not make her way through the yard and down the incline or down the path that turned into a creek with rain or onto the moto or even back to us.  She could not nurse he baby or even hold him. She did not leave that yard on her own two feet again.  Back then I did not know the way to this hamlet or that she was laying there dying.  

I sat by my solar campfire and worried about the dogs attacking mothers and volunteers and how we would manage until the supplies came.  I made lists of things to do to get a birth center up and going. I made signs in Creole, looking up each word and making drawings to illustrate the danger signs of pregnancy.   I know these signs well, by now.

But I know I am also a placed- based midwife; a midwife who considers the geography of the roads, the condition of the soil, schools and the amount land one has to farm.  While I worried about the dogs and the lack of a bed to give birth on, Rose was dying.

Next - What did you say her diahreaa looked like?   Conversations at a funeral.