Obstetric fistula: The good news!

This is my amazing friend Annalisa.  She has registered to fund raise $10,000 Australian dollars for Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia (Australia) … by November this year.  

      In my three years of blogging I have never posted about raising money for a good cause (I don't recall).  But this is something I feel strongly about so please hear me out.  Or should that be read me out. 

     This post is about raising funds to help women in Ethiopia who suffer obstetric fistula.

     If you don't know, an obstetric fistula is most commonly a hole in bladder or bowel or both leading to permanent incontinence that results from obstructed childbirth.  The United Nations has launched a campaign to end fistula and describes it as "a preventable and treatable tragedy." 

     Naturally, women in Australia either don't acquire OF because the problem is prevented (I am guessing by C-section) or, once acquired it can be treated through the excellent, free medical care we receive in Australia.  

     In fact, Australian writer, Susan Johnson's, A Better Woman is her confronting and haunting story about childbirth and developing a fistula in the 1990s. 

     I always thought tearing during childbirth and being sewn up was bad, until I read about obstetric fistulas!  

     Hamlin Fistula Australia is an Australian charity established at the request of Dr Catherine Hamlin to raise funds for assisting women suffering from obstetric fistula.

     A bit of background.

     Dr Hamlin and her husband Reg went to Ethiopia in 1959 to train midwives.  They ended up dedicating their lives to helping women suffering from obstetric fistula.  Dr Hamlin is now 91, she only ceased conducting surgery last year!  Read about Dr Hamlin and her life's work in The Hospital by the River.  

     Annalisa already gives monthly to Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia, but she has upped the ante for a worthy cause.  She is going to visit the organisation she supports. 

      In November she will be travelling to Ethiopia with other fundraisers for a 16 day visit to Hamlin Fistula hospitals and clinics and training schools in Addis Ababa and regional Ethiopia, along with visits to natural and cultural sites.  This trip is wholly funded by her.

      And, being super fit, she will also participate in the Great Ethiopian Run, 10km at altitude in Addis Ababa (2,400 m or so) against some 35 - 40,000 altitude-conditioned Ethiopians!  

      You can support Annalisa's goal of raising $10,000 for Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia (Australia).

      The link below provides more information including what motivated her to take on this challenge.  If you are moved by this cause, please donate as Tony and I have.  

https://greatethiopianadventure.everydayhero.com/au/annalisa-koeman

     Please share this post or link with friends and family.

     Donations $2 and over are tax deductible in Australia.  Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia (Australia) Limited is a DFAT-approved organisation with Deductible Gift Recipient Item 1 status (DGR1).

     Please note that Annalisa's trip is separately funded through her personal income!

My Brilliant Career

Remember this?

What hurt most about Pippa Jane consuming My Brilliant Career was the fact I had no job and really didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up.  I'd almost finished a novel written in more of a literary fashion, but I'd lost interest in writing.  Pippa Jane could have eaten Alex Miller's Journey to the Stone Country, Karen Foxlee's, The Anatomy of Wings or Romeo and Juliet.  

     Hell, the best choice of meal was TK's purchase; Dan Brown's, The Da Vinci Code.  But no, Pippa had to eat the book that hurt me most, reminding me I was jobless, directionless and hopeless.

     Then my dear friend, Nicola sent me this.

     And the most unhappenable has happened.  I have a job working with awesome high school students, amazing colleagues and doing work I couldn't have dreamed about in a short ice-age; inspiring disenchanted readers to want to read.  
     I am no longer a teacher, but an inspirer of reading (I might also be a creator of words because I have never heard of 'inspirer' before and can't think of a synonym).
     What is more unbelievable is my discovery that writing for 12 to 15 years old students is so much more rewarding than writing for publication which now seems such a fickle ambition.  
     I am writing age-appropriate stories and anecdotes for my wonderful students and I think I've got the better deal.  I spend hours of my spare time writing and planning lessons to engage and entertain them and I love it.  And I'm learning as well.  
      I knew nothing about football until a student asked me to write something about the subject.  Have you heard of Greg Inglis?  He is not your typical footballer and is exceptionally generous with a strong sense of social justice!
     Next the crew are about to have a lesson on Author Purpose (a comprehension strategy) using a song I wrote called Read it, based on Michael Jackson's, Beat it.  
     While I was fine-tuning my creation, singing like a psychotic curlew, to get the word-to-beat ratio perfect, Seffy kept calling out to me.
     "Mum, you're supposed to be studying, not singing!"  
     Yes, I had a study deadline and I am usually very disciplined with deadlines ... except when I am writing something for my students.
     About a month ago, one previously very reluctant reader said, "Miss, you write good stories" and I almost shed a tear.
     I love my career.  Pippa Jane is not getting her teeth anywhere near my new My Brilliant Career!

In Flanders Fields by John McCrae

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved:
and now we lie in Flanders fields!

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

I really don't like reading poetry, but when I have to such as helping Sutchy with his English task or preparing a lesson for my students relating to ANZAC Day, I find poetry is the most beautiful literary medium.  Somehow, I find poetic enjoyment is related to the time it takes to unpack the poem and find out about the poet's circumstances and writing motivation.

     Here's a bit about John McCrae; 

     John McCrae (1872-1918) was born in Ontario, Canada.  He was a surgeon during in World War 1.  He was also a soldier poet, author and artist.  He served in the Boer War from 1899-1901 and was disgusted by the treatment of sick and injured soldiers.

     In Flanders Fields is the best known and most revered war memorial poem.  McCrae wrote In Flanders Fields quickly on May 3, 1915 in the back of an ambulance after the funeral of his former student and friend, Lieutenant Alex Helmer who was killed in the Second Battle of Ypres. 

     The theme of the poem is we, as citizens, have responsibility to protect our country and our freedom and we should be ready to fight for what we love.  Another them is to remember those people who died fighting or they will never rest.

     The central feature of the poem is poppies that thrived in the in the spoiled earth of the battlefields and cemeteries of Flanders.
     McCrae had always suffered from asthma and by late 1917 his health had deteriorated.  In January, 1918 he developed pneumonia and meningitis and died.  It is likely he would have survived had antibiotics been discovered, but that was two decades away.

On my phone again (A song for Sutchy)

On my phone again
I can't wait to be on my phone again
The life I love is talkin' with my girlfriend
So I can't wait to be on my phone again!

I got no phone again
Cos my report came and my mum she then
Went off her nut and screamed and in the end
She said, That's it, Sutch, I'll have your phone again!

Was on my phone when
I shoulda been studying Maths and Biol and Chem
But I couldn't help talkin' to my girlfriend
That's why I lost my phone again!

Won't see my phone again
It's the fourth time Mum has taken it away
My life has come to an end
And the world has now stopped turning my way

And my way

Is on my phone again
I just wish I had my phone again
Cos I'm sick of so much studyin'
I wish I could be on my phone again!

The Cemetery Incident; waking the dead

When packing for our camping trip to Chillagoe, eleven of my last forty-three reminders to Sutchy, Seffy and Kibby were, “Bring a book to read.”

     “Why?” each one asked more than once, sometimes together.

     “Because there will be quiet moments and you’ll be able to sit under a tree and read.”

     Not one child packed a book.  I found books and I packed them.  I was determined the kids would read during quiet moments.

     To be honest, there weren’t quiet moments.  When the kids weren’t swimming in the creek, spearing, fishing, eating, yarning, playing cards or practising shooting arrows into targets of plastic water bottles, they were sightseeing.  They explored a landscape of hidden treasures like Aboriginal cave paintings, dingoes and snakes.  They walked through four million year-old caves, mining settlements now ghost towns, the Chillagoe Smelters that operated in the early 19th century and the cemetery.

Exploring Mungana settlement, abandoned for almost a century (Kibby wearing one shoe, one thong).

Cousin Bridget and Kibby in the Archways Caves.

Sutchy and Sammy take in the Aboriginal cave paintings.

Swimming in the Walsh River.

Sutchy helps a snake to safety (despite my pleas to stay away!).

Sutchy returning after a failed feral dog hunt (despite my pleas for him not to go). 

Last minute fish before total darkness.

     I have a fascination with cemeteries and the histories they hold.  I strolled between the graves, gazing at the head stones and imagining the lives of the deceased and their families.  The kids lost interest early on and retreated to the cars parked in the patchy shade of trees with failing leaves.  Jen and I continued exploring the graves and then she wandered back to the cars.  The sun was overhead, the temperatures in the mid-thirties and not a leaf or blade of grass moved.  I was lost to another world, a century ago.

Vincent Bennet Nash, passed away suddenly 19th Sept 1940 aged 2 years and 9 months.  Erected by his mother, father and brothers.

Sacred to the memory of Charles P Allen and Michael O'Haloran who were instantaneously killed in the Gipofla mine by the falling of a pump, February 20th 1901.

     The Chillagoe cemetery was the location of Cemetery Incident. 

     A desperate cry rang out, drawing me back to the 21^st century, Chillagoe, the cemetery. It sounded uncannily like, Open the fucking door, along with banging, the sort of banging that comes with a fist on steel.

     “Kibbim, open the fucking door!”  It was none other than my princess, hammering her fists into the car door.  “Open the fuuucking dooor!”

     I realised this monologue may have continued for some time, but I had been oblivious.

     I marched over, pushing into the furnace like heat that was perhaps my fury.

     Like magic the doors flew open with my approach.

     “Mum,” said Seffy with wide-eyed innocence, “they locked me out.”

     Kibbim was holding his arm, his face soaked with tears.  “Mum, Seffy threw the hairbrush at me.”

     “Mum,” said Sutchy who was in the driver’s seat, next to the window controls, “Kibbim locked Seffy out for two minutes and I was trying to unlock the doors, but he kept locking them.”

     They prefaced their futile excuses with "Mum" as if they could appeal to my no-longer existent maternal nature.

     My chest bubbled with snakes and spiders and scoprpions, multiplying, twisting and turning over each other until the only escape they could find was through my mouth.

     “Get out.  All of you.”  My voice was no whisper and I wondered how many dead had been wakened first by Seffy and then me.  “Out.  You can sit in the sun for half an hour.  Can’t you just sit quietly while I do something?  Do I have to constantly supervise you three?  Out, out, out. For half an hour.  You can learn to sit quietly.  Burn in the sun for all I care.”  There was more, much more, but you get the gist.

     They all sat down, quietly, in the sun.

     About burning in the sun, I did care because that is the sort of thing that the Department of Child Safety can investigate.  So I amended my orders.

     “Sit in the shade for the half hour!”

     Seffy has developed a sharp tongue which is fine, but she needs to use it at appropriate moments. Complaining about her brothers and my style of discipline when she was supposed to be sitting quietly, was not an appropriate moment.

     “Listen,” I said, without knowing where I was heading, “I am sick of your sarcastic and derogatory comments.  You need to know when to stop.  From now on, from now on.”   

     And I faltered, trying to think of a threat for Seffy.  She is usually a good girl and will always apologise if she has screamed at me or refused to do something I have asked.  I can’t ever remember smacking her.  But during the Cemetery Incident I was angry and everyone knows that anger fuels only folly.  I still needed a threat to deal with Seffy’s hurtful comments and I thought of one, not well thought out, but one nonetheless. 

     “From now on, if you make sarcastic and hurtful comments I will reach across and slap your face.”

     “I don’t care," she said.  "I’ll call Child Safety.”  

     “Great and they’ll take you away.”

     “Good.  I’ll be happy and safe then.”

     “Oh, for God’s sake, shut up.  All of you.”  The boys held out their hands as if to say, What have we done?  “Half an hour.  Sit. Quietly.”

     I sat by default.  I stared at the white headstones like a mouthful of rotten teeth.  I gazed at the baby blue skies and the shrunken, brown leaves that can’t even manage the heat.  I looked at my watch.  Two minutes had elapsed.  For the first time in my life, I didn’t have a book in my bag.  How could I be so stupid? 

     “How much longer do we have?” said Kibby.

     “Twenty seven minutes.”

     I checked my watch again.  Four minutes had passed.

     “Get in the car.  You can spend your half hour reading.”

     We drove to the campsite in silence.  Without a word, each child alighted, found a book and sat and read for half an hour.  It was a beautiful sight, my darlings reading quietly. 

Spear making 101

You can take the boys off the island, but you can't take the island off of the boys!  

     In the Torres Strait, Sutchy and Kibby loved spearing all manner of sea life with their five-prong bamboo spears.  They spent hours, no days and weeks and months, diving on reefs or in shallows, searching for something they could spear, and bring home and cook for their family.

     For our impending camping trip to Chillagoe with their Aunty Jen and cousins Bridget and Jack, Sutchy and Kibby had to do some spear making.  They have been spearless for the first time in their lives because Tony left their beloved bamboo five-prongs behind on TI!  

     Here, they demonstrate Spear Making 101 with mainland materials.

Always source quality spear making products from your local dump shop. Do not try and use Mum's brooms or rakes.  She'll notice!

Using a saw, remove the head from the shaft.  

After hacksawing into the fridge shelf, sharpen the prongs on paving stones in a traditional manner.  Kibby worked out if he rubbed the tip on the paver at high speed, pressed the white hot point into my arm and ran like hell, he got a hilarious reaction!

Sutchy worked out modern electrical methods of sharpening the prongs were faster and more effective.

Inner tubing may be used, but electrical tape provides an ideal medium with which to fix the prongs to the stick.  

Kibby and camera-shy Sutchy with their four-prongs.

     I followed Aunty Jen to our Chillagoe campsite.  I still don't know where we camped but it was near a creek in the middle of a sea of scrub and bull dust.  

     We hadn't even unpacked when Sutchy and Kibby donned their masks and snorkels, grabbed their spears and went diving in a creek. A creek, for God's sake! 

It wasn't long before Sutchy speared a red claw crayfish.

     Kibby and Sutchy spent two hours diving and netted two red claw, not quite enough to feed eight hungry campers.  Nonetheless I was one proud mamma as my boys dived and surfaced over and over, determined to catch something they could bring home, cook up and eat. 

     Fortunately, I have studied the bible and am familiar with the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes 101.  This miracle has a step-by-step account of how to feed many when you don't have much (such as filling up on muesli for breakfast first then having a mouthful of flame-grilled red claw). 
     There was the next day and hours of day light during which they could dive for crayfish. My boys were back on the island ... one composed of bull dust, covered in dry scrub and surrounded by fresh water!

'What's this?'

I spent Easter Friday and Saturday helping Bubu pack up her house.  Actually, I spent Saturday helping Bubu pack up because one minute after starting work on Friday, I questioned her logic.  She wanted to empty the contents of a room - furniture, boxes, blankets and fabric - into the hallway to enable the Persian carpet to be vacuumed and rolled up.  Surely, it would make sense to pack up the things then attack the carpet.

     ‘Catherine, stop.’  She turned to Kibby and Sutchy.  ‘Keep going boys.’

     I pleaded with her a minute longer, maybe three mintues.  

     ‘Catherine, go and see Jenny Cory.’

     I imagined having a crystal ball (there was probably one buried somewhere) and I gazed into the watery orb.  The day before me involved more of these situations and my slow decline into irreversible insanity. Or I could spend the day with Jenny, a bestie of two-plus decades. I left in a cloud of dust and dust mites.

     By five, my jaw muscles were aching from excessive talking and I headed back to Bubu’s.

     Saturday was more productive.  However I was continually picking up an object and asking Bubu, ‘What’s this?’ and ‘Can I chuck it out?’ with increasing exasperation.  I naturally assumed many of her ‘collections’ were better placed in landfill or the op shop.

     It went like this, all day.

     ‘Bubu, what’s this?’ of a visor type contraption.
     ‘It belongs to the bird cage.’
     ‘So I’ll chuck it out?’ I was eternally hopeful.
     ‘No, keep it.’

     ‘Bubu, what’s this?’ of a ceramic lid.  I hoped its base was crushed into a thousand pieces so I could chuck the lid.
     ‘It belongs to my water dispenser.’
     ‘Can I chuck it?’
     ‘No, the bottom is somewhere. In there.’  “In there” was the laundry piled a metre high with towels and sheets. 

     ‘Bubu, what’s this?’ of a small, synthetic bag containing little pieces of wood.
     ‘I don’t know.  Let me see.’  Pause.  ‘It’s guitar stuff.’
     ‘Chuck it out?’  There wasn’t a guitar in sight.
     ‘No, I want to keep it.’ 

     

     Sigh.

     We survived the day together.

     The following morning, Bubu got revenge.  I was leaning back in a chair at the dining table, my feet on a chair so my torso and thighs made a wide V.  Bubu stopped as she was walking past.

     ‘Catherine, what’s this?’  She was pointing to my torso.

     I looked down to the fabric of my singlet.  ‘Nothing.’

     ‘No, look, this.’  She was closer, pointing.

     ‘There’s nothing.’  I smoothed the fabric several times as if there might be a prickle.

     ‘It’s a little roll of fat.  Very womanly.’  And she walked off.  

     Very good, Bubu.  I’ll pay that one.  

     As I tucked the errant flesh back under the waistband of my  shorts, I lamented that I could not simply chuck it out.