Bad Things Come In Threes

If you asked me outright I would probably say that I am not a particularly superstitious person, but in reality that is not really true. There are certain superstitions, ingrained into my psyche through Maltese culture, a childhood in the theatre and a father’s compulsion from which I still cannot escape. I knock on wood, will walk round ladders and wince if I break a mirror. I won’t open umbrellas inside or name the Scottish play in a theatre and as a child I went through great pains not to step on cracks in pavements lest my mother should have an accident. It still sets my teeth on edge if someone puts new shoes on a table and my friends have often commented on the fact that I will actually move them as soon as other people leave the room. These are all subconscious reactions, small things that do not really affect my life- but there are two superstitions which I feel much more deeply than all the others.

The first is to perform the ‘sign of horns’ any time I have a bad thought or say something which, if it came to pass, would have a negative impact on soemone’s life or if I have the feeling that someone else is wishing someone ill. I also force my partner to do the same and get quite distressed if he is not so inclined. Since starting work I found myself embarrassed by this compulsion but I fight a strong sense of guilt and responsibility for negative outcomes if it is not done and so now I wear it the sign of horns on a bracelet round my wrist. The sign of horns is something I remember being a huge part of my childhood in my village in the South of Malta. I was told to do it, quite seriously, when a certain woman from the village, who apparently possessed the evil eye, walked by and if she addressed me directly the other women would actually do it while she was speaking to me so as to protect me. This feeling that I would somehow be responsible for the results should I fail to perform the ritual is surely a part of my compulsive and guilt-burdened personality, but nevertheless it has manifested itself as a need to satisfy this curious tradition.

Sign of Horns

The final belief to which I still hold strongly, and I think this one comes from my dad, is that bad things come in threes. I do not usually start worrying about it if one bad things happens, that I dismiss as happenstance, but if a second thing happens in quick succession to the first I will be almost certain that a third will follow. I will almost wait nervously for the third to raise it’s head and when/ if it does come about I feel a sense of relief knowing that the three have passed and we are ‘safe’. I am a 26 year old woman, relatively highly educated and a realist in almost every sense of the word- but some rivers run deep and whether I acknowledge the futility of these beliefs or not does not change the fact that I am compelled by them.

This week bad things came in threes. And the three came superimposed upon a backdrop of political instability, civil disorder and epidemic illness in a country which isn’t equipped to handle any of the three. I am tired. Through my bones, to my soul, I am tired. I feel like I have not been free from worry and distress since the new year rolled in and I am struggling to tread water while the realisation dawns that I may well be out of my depth.

The rainy season has brought illness to the North. In my city outbreaks of Dengue, TB, Malaria and the Plague have caused chaos in the prisons and hospitals where I work. People are sick and frightened. My children at the house have been constantly in and out of hospital for months which has put a strain on the staff and brought the morale of the house down low. I know though, how luck we are that although our babies have had to be hospitalised, they have all come home to us alive and well- for many others here that is simply not the case, if they even make it into hospital at all. Did you know that in Madagascar a woman will hide a pregnancy and birth until at least 2 weeks after a child is born and that even then until the child gets it’s first two teeth (at around 10 months) the child is not acknowledged as a human being nor assigned a sex or an identity- and it is only then that Malagasy children start wearing clothes rather than swaddling. This is because with the incredibly high rates of child mortality here such practices protect again constant disappointment and public grief.

The elections have changed nothing as far as I can see. I continue to be bribed and exploited at every official turn. The new President came to Diego in a convoy of 4x4s. They are so self-important and think themselves above the law. They hurtle through the countryside on red mud roads at 130km/h and other vehicles literally have to drive off the road to avoid a head on collision. While driving into Diego the convoy hit a 6 year old girl and she died in hospital 2 days later. I didn’t see it in any of the papers. The students are rioting because some serious security breaches on campus called into question the government’s commitment to student welfare- the resulting protests have become violent and the entrances to campus have been barricaded. Friends of mine who lived and worked there have been evacuated and have spent the last few days struggling to get their students off campus and to safety. Children have been going missing here in an eerie echo of happenings in Nosy Be and Ambanja last year and a few weeks ago one of the little girls turned up in town with her eyes gouged out, her tongue cut off and her organs missing. The police appear to do nothing and the public take it into their own hands which led to a group of vigilantes storming houses in the outskirts of the city and destroying several police cars. The gang violence stirred up by the elections at least seems to be dying down here but whispers of violence and bombing in the South reaches us over the local news and through snippets of gossip from those with family elsewhere.

Election campaigning in Madagascar

We work against this backdrop. These things are by no means all that Madagascar is. It is also beautiful and majestic with a generous people and awe-inspiring potential. I love this country. Its redeeming features by far outweigh its sharper edges. This fact, however, does not make the other aspects of life here any less real, or make them bite any less hard.

My Melodie has been sick. She went into hospital twice in the last couple of weeks. She hates it and it makes her miserable. I feel for her but I am also acutely aware that she, unlike many of the other babies she shares the ward with, will receive all the help she can get and will come home when she is better. While visiting her the other day I approached the ward and saw her miserable face peeking over the patio. When she saw me her eyes lit up and she opened her mouth wide in a surprised smile, then she reached out her tiny hand, waiting for me to give her my car keys- such an easy pacifier. I was chatting to the nanny and waiting for the nurse to update me on her status when the paediatrician arrived and motioned me to one side- he had a mother with a baby whom he said was always visiting the hospital for help because she was poor and could not feed the child. I agreed to visit the child and talk to the mother, but I admit I was sceptical as poverty here is high and I constantly have people asking me to take their children because raising them is a struggle- something we simply do not do unless there are additional circumstances which make is appropriate.

I wasn’t prepared to see this woman, so thin she looked sunken and wasted- in her arms she held a baby and words cannot describe the condition he was in. Eyes unfocussed and skin sallow this 9-month-old child must have weighed less than 4kg. The mother is too malnourished to produce milk for the child and so she has nothing to feed him. I am familiar with malnutrition and all the pitfalls and complications of re-feeding with a child as far along as this one- it will never be an easy road to undo the damage that has already been done. I spoke to the woman, she wants to keep her boy, and I offered to design a feeding program for them both and provide the formula on a weekly basis. I discussed with my boss having them live with us for a few days to teach her about feedings and how to care for her baby. We agreed they should come to us last Friday to organise a program and start re-feeding. I waited all morning and she never came. I thought maybe it had all been too little, too late. However since then I found out that the baby had been admitted to a different local hospital as his condition had worsened. I hope she will come and see us if he recovers enough to be released. I have heard no news since, but her presence upset me deeply. In a world of excess this woman couldn’t find anyone to help her feed her child.

A few days went by and the shadow of this baby was passing as I was kept busy by my own brood- broken bones, school exams and an endless stream of antibiotics joined the chorus of audits, annual reports and funding applications in my exhausted mind. Then I got a phone call from a friend. A new intern midwife at a local clinic, she had been attending and assisting at births for a few weeks and everything had been going well. That morning, however, the mother was a little older, 42, and had already had 11 births before. The labour became complicated and the clinic passed her on to the local hospital where one of my children was at that time admitted. I passed by to see her on my way to visit my Kimi. By the time I arrived she had given birth and begun to haemorrhage. The family had nothing, no means by which to help this mother of 11 children. She continued to bleed and the drugs wouldn’t stop it. I waited with her daughters as the staff tried to get control of the situation. In the end the only option was for her to have a radical hysterectomy to try and stop the bleeding. She barely came through the operation and was still in the reanimation room when I left. I hoped the worst was over. At 2:30am I received a phone-call to say she had passed away in recovery. Despite our best efforts she left 11 children motherless because of inadequate prenatal care and insufficient social support.

And so began the wait for number three. I could feel it coming. I knew these two incidents, sent to test my mettle and put my life into stark perspective, would soon be joined by a third. I thought it may have come when one of the 2 week old babies born in the prison, for whom we were involved in prenatal care and the birth and who is now waiting to be a little bigger and stronger before coming to live with us until her mum is released, began to get sick. The prison is full of TB and HIV and there are even reports of the plague and as she got sicker, even with several doctors visits and medication, I got worried. But then my stepdad and boss, a paediatrician and all round genius, suggested I have her tested for syphilis- and there we had it- maternally transmitted syphilis, easily cleared by a course of penicillin and a good dose for mum too. A potentially lethal crisis averted. So I went back to waiting for number 3.

Eugenie, getting better on her meds.

And then it came. The phone call during the night. The getting dressed in the dark and running out into the blackness. One of my prison women had gone into labour and been taken to hospital, and what should have been a delightful piece of news fell with a dull thud as they said it was Lilly- Lilly who has been ill, Lilly who is taking medication for a nasty infection, Lilly who is barely at 22 weeks pregnant. I arrived at the hospital and the situation was clear. Her waters had broken due to the discharge caused by an infection for which the inept medical system here had been mistreating her. She had already dilated 3cm and they could not stop the labour. We will have to wait for the baby to be born, knowing that even if it is born, by some miracle, alive, the local hospital would be able to do little to sustain its fragile life.

I left Lilly in the hospital last night with the prison guard standing over her. She asked me questions that were difficult to answer- if I can keep it in longer, will it have a chance? If it is dying, why can I feel it moving so much? Why can’t you do something that will give the baby a chance?

It has been almost 24 hours since her waters broke and she is still only 5cm dilated with no contractions and no idea what is going on. We have spoken to every available physician and midwife and the response is always the same. The situation is now ‘inevitable’ and the birth must go ahead naturally. All we can do is wait. But the baby will not be ‘viable’ so she must prepare herself to either give birth to a stillborn or to give birth only to watch the baby die over the next few days.

It always comes in threes and the third one is always the kicker.

There has been no change all day today and so still she waits. I sit by my phone in the office unable to concentrate and wishing there was something I could do to provide comfort to this woman. All I can say is that in this house she is at the forefront of our minds and the intensely religious staff will be sending fervent prayers into the ether as I sit here and wait to be called back in.

My life is so charmed. I see things here that are beyond our concept of living. May these experiences in my life make me a more grateful, gentle, generous person, may I learn these lessons well and may I never forget those who have touched me so deeply, no matter how far I find myself from this life.

Thoughts From An Envious Soul

I recently had a conversation with a friend about which of the 7 
deadly sins I would be if I had to be really honest about it (the sins are lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride by the way). My immediate reaction was to choose pride- I think I dilute my pride with a dose of perspective every now and then but ironically isn’t it prideful to think that of myself? The more we spoke of it though I realised I was lying to myself. Dante’s definition of pride is “love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for one's neighbor" and that just doesn’t really sound like me. I am proud of myself when I work hard and things turn out well but I am also the first to berate myself for my failings and my pride doesn’t negatively impact on my attitude toward others or make me value other’s efforts less. But envy- ahhhh now there is a different story.

Envy is described as a discontent toward the traits, status or abilities of another as well as the desire to covet such qualities. It is said to be an ‘insatiable desire’ which gives you personal sorrow for witnessing the good of another. Horrid as it may seem that sin I can really get behind. But there is another, more shameful, truth behind that confession. My envy is increasingly specific. I do not covet other people’s opportunities, money, success, careers, personalities, families or anything else I can think of- but man oh man does standing next to a beautiful woman make me feel like shit sometimes. Surely it doesn’t get more shallow and pathetic than that- but it does. I rarely feel bad because someone I meet has a prettier face than mine, but when I am faced (as I so regularly am due to my intense hatred for sports and my love of pizza and chocolate) with a toned, svelte body- I can honestly say that it can make me hate myself a little despite everything else I have to offer. How anti-feminist is that!

Why do I feel this way? I absolutely acknowledge that my value to society and to those who love me is in no way based on my chubby size 14 frame. I also acknowledge that changing that frame is utterly within my power should I choose to do so. I actually pity Brian sometimes for having me lying on the beach next to him rather than a petit size 8-10.  But that isn’t the point really: I am a normal, healthy size but I feel like a whale. Why??? What’s really fucked up is that I, like many others I am sure, am totally aware of the ridiculousness of my feeling and we all know there is nothing LESS attractive than a woman in constant need of reassurance, which only makes it worse.

My boyfriend Brian- who loves me just the way I am, and was, and will be!

And yet this feeling is so ingrained in me that I have NEVER been able to shake it and I have beautiful, lean, magnificent friends who I know feel exactly the same way. What’s really sad is that it started really bloody young. (LOVE YOU MUM- THE FOLLOWING IS ABSOLUTELY NOT AN ATTACK ON YOU). My mother doesn’t look anything like me. She is 5’11 and a size 8 and has always struggled with putting on weight (despite the fact that she has never met a Magnum or Danish she didn’t like). She is also very active and has always had a slight frame. Needless to say, I look NOTHING like her, which was always a joke among friends and family- one meant, I am sure, to point out that she is so tall while I am a below average 5 foot 3 and a half, that her hair is straight while mine is stubbornly frizzy, that she is tanned while my dad's Scottish blood means that I am a lot paler… However, because people are constantly telling her what a beautiful woman she is, even now if you put us toe to toe she would come out on top every time. People never meant it that way, but every time I heard someone say “wow, you really don’t look like your mum” what I heard was “Your mum is so tall and slim and beautiful and you… are not”. I remember when she used to take me out shopping as a girly treat. I would be so excited to spend time with her and be out like friends (which we always were) until she approached me and said “hunny, why don’t you try this on”. I knew it wouldn’t sit right- stretched over my adolescent bust and hips while baggy at the waist and swamping my short body while she emerged looking like the smiling women on the posters in the store. Clothes are not made for women shaped like me and now I know in my mind it is because the clothes are the wrong shape but somehow I still feel as though it is I who is the wrong shape.

Me in one of my only posh dresses- chosen specifically to 'suit' (i.e. disguise) my figure. 

This insecurity has stayed with me to adulthood and being an educated, powerful and successful young woman (ok, maybe pride too a little bit then) I feel like this preoccupation over my wobbly tummy and lack of a ‘thigh gap’ (whatever the hell that is) is not only ridiculous and unfounded but also diminishes me as a woman just by having it.

And then this morning I saw this:

 

'Plus size' model Robyn Lawley in a recent photo-shoot for Cosmo.

THIS WOMAN IS A PLUS SIZE MODEL FOR COSMO MAGAZINE! And, as a witty twitter user put it, if she is plus size that I am supersize and there are other women out there who are mammoth size.

I am not blaming my insecurities on the media, that’s not what this is about. But how many times as a child did someone pinch my cheeks or pat my hips and tell me I was getting fat like it was a bad/funny thing. How many times have I come home on my holidays and heard from family that I need to “be careful” because I’ve put on a few kilos. The reverse is also true- IBS, dengue fever and yoyo dieting have seen me plummet from my regular 65-70kg weight (10-11 stone) to as low as 52kg (8 stone) when I was really ill. People’s response- wow you look great!

My envy, my deep sorrow at other women’s bodies, my yearning for what they have- that is all me. But that shit comes from somewhere. I am size 14 at my biggest. THAT IS NOT FAT. OR UGLY. OR ANYTHING. It is fine. Normal. I am not a model, or a fitness instructor or a jockey- my life does not demand I be a size 6- so why does it seem so disappointing that I am not? And it is so frustrating because it goes beyond noticing another woman’s value- it affects my life. I find seriously attractive women intimidating, harder to communicate with. Because I feel inferior I come into the situation hostile- and that is just not very sisterly at all! This discomfort I feel for my own body makes me a worse person than I could be. It is a weakness in my character too shameful to ignore.

This is a photo of my and my dad at a party. This photo brings back great memories but I have never posted it anywhere before (not without cropping or photoshop anyway). Why? I am embarrassed by the way I look.

It is so unattractive a quality to feel so uncomfortable in one’s skin. It shows vanity and superficiality and insecurity and I hate it. How do we get over this- my strategy is a ‘fake it till you make it’ type situation. I used to cover up my body, avoiding group swimming situations, draping myself in baggy clothes and trying to be invisible. That didn’t really work for me and just made me feel all the more obvious for trying to blend in so then, at around 14 years old, I went in totally the opposite direction. I created a style that can only be described as Tim Burton meets Spearmint Rhino- they might have been looking at me and talking about me but they certainly weren’t discussing that extra kilo or two.

And now, as a woman- I don’t know. I try to find styles that suit the body I have and I think I succeed in that, but it doesn’t mean I don’t look longingly at that skimpy bikini or those skinny jeans on that mannequin or the short shorts on the girl at the ice-cream stand and feel my stomach tighten as I turn away. The feeling lessens with age and whereas before it would take me the better part of half an hour to take my dress off on the beach I now do it as soon as my toes hit the sand, but it isn’t without an inner sigh as I trudge past tanned amazons playing volleyball in the surf.

Me and my 'beach body'. Why is it that instead of seeing my smily face, by step-nephew, or that BITCHIN' sandcastle all I see is my fat tummy? Another one I purposely left off Facebook at the time. 

Maybe one day society will change so that we are never subjected to a value system based on attractiveness or body image. Somehow though I don’t see that happening any time soon and so it is my duty then, to work on myself so acknowledge and work through those feeling so that I can arm myself to protect the next generation. When I look at my babies in this house I don’t see a thin one, a chubby one, a cute one, an ugly one- I see a variety of wonderful individuals who fill my life with value and joy. I know that’s what everyone else sees too- so now it’s just a question of transferring that to them so that that’s all they will ever see when they look at themselves.

Let me make myself abundantly clear- this blog is not a cry for affirmation of how beautiful I am, nor is it worthy of sympathy or pity. It is simply a reflection on what I have come to realise this week is my worst quality and what is it they say “acknowledging the problem is the first step to overcoming it.”- well for me, that’s all this is. 

This could be a truly beautiful photo but is RUINED by the fact that I am trying to suck in my gut and therefore pulling a stupid face. It is also one of the ONLY photos of my trip to Mauritius that I consciously did not upload to Facebook. 

Thoughts From Faux-Motherhood

This blog is an odd one- I wasn't even going to upload except that my parents though it wouldn't be a bad idea, in amongst all the travel writing, to remind everyone what I am actually doing here. The blogs I write about my adventures are one day out of a hundred, the vast majority of my time has been spent building and maintaining a home for vulnerable and as-risk children. This is not only where I work, it is also where I live, and in a country where I arrived knowing no-one it is not too much of a stretch to suggest that this house has become my family home. Anyway I am sure most of my blogs are more for me than others but this one is certainly no crowd pleaser. It is just a person reflecting on some other smaller people who wiggled their way into her heart...

I am by no means a mother- I am not an aunt, I am not even a big sister. As a young child I was never really surrounded by other children and as a teen I never babysat. Yet now I find myself surrounded by children and coming to some realisations that perhaps others have been born to. I would not be so presumptuous as to suggest that I raise the children in my care- I spend most of my time in the office and I have a great team of nannies who look after the children on a day-to-day basis. And yet I don’t think any one nanny would suggest it was she who was raising the children either- perhaps then, it seems something more like a collective nurturing than a one-on-one formation. So I hope to that end, I play my part in the raising of the 6 babies and 2 older boys I live with who are teaching me more about life, myself and the world than I ever thought possible. All that while I struggle to teach them how to stand, wee in a toilet or read.

Creating a family...

I never imagined all the love you could feel for a child when they turn their face to yours and look into your eyes. Their gaze is unadulterated by mistrust, bitterness or selfishness and is just an open request for love in return. They demand endless patience, but in such a way that there is no other option available to you and so, without effort, your patience stretches and grows in a way you would never allow it to do for other adults, or even yourself. The babies trust you implicitly- throwing themselves into your arms or at your feet and never questioning whether or not you will be there to catch them. It makes me wonder at what age we learn to doubt one-another and retreat into ourselves.

My domain is on the ground floor. Here lies my room and bathroom, the volunteer dorm, the kitchen, stock rooms and the office. But upstairs- up there is a magical kingdom where pure, unadulterated emotion and the rapid progress of the young reigns supreme. At the top of the stairs is a wooden slatted gate and as you ascend the babies seem to sense your presence. I have never in all my life felt so loved and valued as when I reach that gate. Six tiny pairs of legs canter toward me and six faces, upturned and giggling in delight, press themselves against the gate. When they see you, depending on who it is, they always try to please you. Some point at you, a trick my mother taught them, some sing “salu” and some are just so overcome by joy at your arrival that they cannot contain the bubbling giggle that can only come from someone so innocent and full of happiness.

Baby bath time...

That is not to say our house doesn’t have it’s ups and downs and it is their total trust and adoration that makes it so hard to be the bad guy, which I am afraid is exactly my role. As the director and head of the house it is all of the nasty jobs that land at my feet. Recently the children were all ill, as is the way when young children live together, and it was me who had to give them their medicines. All my hopes for happy faces sucking on the medication pipette disappeared that first afternoon and for over a week I had to force feed medication to children who were so confused, so hurt, so utterly miserable at my betrayal that I actually began to feel ashamed of myself as I mounted the stairs each morning with the medicine bag. I knew I was doing them good, and that I had to play my part but that feeling of their eyes upon me as they cried and struggled- knowing they blamed me for their discomfort and sadness, it broke my heart- and then it broke my heart all over again when it was me they wanted a cuddle from after the ordeal that I inflicted to comfort them.

Loving a child can seem so selfless but I have come to the realisation that in reality it is more than a little selfish too. If I have had a hard day, say visited a family in distress, had a tough visit at the prison, been frustrated by bureaucracy- all I have to do is go upstairs and lie on the terrace staring at the sky and within 30 seconds one of the babies will realise I am there and throw themselves on me giggling and laughing and wanting a hug- closely followed by the other 5. How can you be sad in such a circumstance? How can you not suddenly find your whole existence put into perspective when you see how utterly reliant these children are on those around them- those that we have chosen to have around them, and how much they need you, not just to feed and bathe them, but to love them and allow them to love you back.

Hakima making me smile. 

Babies skyping me when I was sick...

I find the older boys more challenging. More in need of formation as well as love. They have had hard lives, experienced things no one should ever have to, and they rely on us to love them, yes, but also to guide them, to rework the habits of the years, to give them boundaries and create opportunities for them. They need us to prove ourselves to them, prove that we are trustworthy and solid, their love is not unconditional and their trust must be earned. They challenge me every day to live up to the standards I set for them. In order to fulfil my role as their guide, disciplinarian and entertainer- reliable and consistent- I must be more than comes easily to me. I must keep my word, even on things that seem silly to me, I must hold my tongue in the face of their folly and remember the context from which is was born. Their trust is hard earned and easily lost and too harsh a tone can set you back weeks. And yet they love me, and I love them too- they trust my judgement, they seek my approval and suddenly I am looking at two young men and wondering when I became old enough, woman enough, to have taken on this role.

A trip to the beach with the boys...

Teaching the boys to swim- or at least not to drown...

Christmas with the boys...

I do love the children. I am not ashamed or afraid to say it. My heart is full with thoughts of their futures, their potential, their boundless opportunities. And yet I know I must leave them. I worry for them and I worry for me. What will they think when I say goodbye? Will they be angry? Disappointed? Betrayed? Will they even notice? And what about me? Can you take, so wholly into your heart, a family whose wellbeing has been your every thought and action, and then just walk away in tact and without consequence. I know these things are far away yet but if I feel like this already what will another year do.

In the time I have had them I have seen children take first steps, say first words, meet first friends. We have shared birthdays and Christmas and vacations together and they have been my whole world. How much more will we share before my time is up? How can anyone, if they really considered my position, ask me whether I am excited about coming home? No. The answer is that I am terrified. I am scared of what will happen to my soul when life forces me to walk away from those who have become the very centre of my world. My work is this family and here this family is all I have.  They have become my life and my heart and I am so grateful for them every single day- even when they won’t stop screaming or fighting or misbehaving. No one told me this would happen and it isn’t just with a person or two, it is with a whole houseful.

To learn more about La Maison d'Arnaud and to keep up to date with the children's antics please like our Facebook page at 'The Arnaud Guesry Foundation' or read the weekly blog on our website at www.arnaudguesryfoundation.org

Watching the monsoon...