2:20pm Friday July 9, 2009
I'm having a hard day today. I'm injured and I'm feeling frustrated with the clinic and wondering if I should just cash in my chips and call it a day, change my flight and head home.
All over Ubud, there are small portions of the sidewalk where it has caved in, leaving a 2 to 3 foot deep hole in the ground, and nothing protecting it. So it is wise advice to the traveler to keep your eyes to the ground here. Two nights ago, Tessa (the Australian doctor) and I were on our way to dinner when we were stopped outside the monkey forest and asked for directions. We helped them and then started to continue our walk. I was still turned, saying goodbye to the people we had helped, as I took steps forward and I missed the hole in the ground in front of me completely. Or rather, I didn't miss it at all, and I fell in.
I climbed out of the hole, laughing. People had pulled over to see if I was okay, and the people we'd given directions to stopped as well, looking on horrified as I cackled and blood and dirt and gutter water ran down my leg. I realized I'd lost my flip flops in the fall and had to go in again, head first, to pull them out. Tessa poured some drinking water over my wound, and luckily I had a handkerchief to try to stop the bleeding. We continued on our way with me reassuring everyone that I was fine, and I limped on to dinner, stopping every now and again to dab away more blood. We had a mediocre dinner and I had trouble concentrating on the conversation because I was in a lot of pain. I figured I'd get home and take some ibuprofen and I'd be fine.
I got home okay and went straight to bed but slept terribly. My leg ached and kept bleeding, and no position was comfortable. The next morning, the leg was swollen and tender and difficult to put weight on. I cleaned it the best I could with cold water and body wash and limped down to the clinic. All along the way, Balinese people kept stopping to ask what happened, if I was alright, if I needed a ride. I can't get over how sweet people are here. At the clinic, I took some arnica and cleaned the wound with some iodine and slathered it with neosporin. The woman who runs the clinic had arranged a girls' spa day and took a group of us to get massages ($10 for an hour!). My leg gets stiff and painful any time I sit down for too long and getting out of the car was really difficult and I saw I was still bleeding and oozing some. The ladies at the spa were very concerned with my leg and cleaned it up for me again before my massage. The massage, despite my leg pain, was lovely. They placed a bowl of hot water with nutmeg roots and vetiver and something else nice under the table, and the massage treatment room was open air, looking out to rice paddies and had a nice breeze. Naked on a table, covered with a light sarong, I almost forgot about the pain, except for when she massaged my right foot and thigh.
We went out for lunch after our massages, which had already taken quite a while, and I felt irritable that we'd spent an entire day away from the clinic, that my leg hurt so much, and that I was spending my time in Bali lunching and being massaged when I felt like I should be working and learning (I know. Where are my priorities?!). When we finally got back to the clinic, things were pretty quiet and I rested and studied until late. When no one came in in labor by about 10pm, I decided it was better to go home and rest than wait up all night. There were no births last night, so I made the right choice.
I woke up this morning and my leg hurt even more. Its increasingly difficult to put weight on it, but once I am upright and start moving, the tension and swelling seems to ease until I can walk on it again. I'm sure its not broken, but fractured maybe? I don't know if I'd be able to walk on a frature either. My leg is hot and swollen tight --it actually feels like I have an ace bandage on it. The wound is on the shin, which I know is a strong part of the leg, and I'm confident that, even if the bone is a little damaged, there's nothing to be done about it. Just have to listen to my body, rest, and try to keep walking on it, not let the muscles atrophy. But it hurts like hell. People continue to stop me to ask why I'm limping, if I'm alright. They can't fix their sidewalks, but otherwise they sure are concerned with the well-being of others.
I've got the deck stacked against me a bit because I'm less mobile, my food options are more limited. I'm having difficulty getting adequate protein as it is right now because the local diet is pretty crappy and its a long walk up hill to the restaurants where I could get a decent tuna steak or a nice portion of chicken. So I'm feeling the effects of crappy blood sugar, feeling hopeless and weak. And being hurt far away from home doesn't feel awesome, either. So I'm homesick again today. Like, really, really homesick.
What am I doing here?
I've been here 8 days and attended 3 births. Only one of those births will I count as primary for my license requirements. I'd like to do 8 at least, but was planning to attend at least 20 or 30 births in the 6 weeks I'm here. I figured that was a reasonable estimate. And while I know that can't be the whole focus of my being here, I'm frustrated. I thought I'd be busier, that I'd be included more immediately, that I wouldn't have to work so hard to get what I need. Being less mobile, dreading getting up from my chair isn't helping. How am I supposed to do births like this? What use am I all gimpy like this?
Today I'm frustrated that I'm here alone. I've been fine with it mostly, if sad that my loved ones aren't here to share it with me. But today, the practical aspect of having someone else here feels huge. It would be good to have someone I could rely on today. I've got people here, but they're new people. I don't want to lean too heavily on them for support (literally), use up their good will. I wish I could talk to one of you and cry and say the irrational, pouting, ungrateful things I want to say, just to get it out, even though I know its not helpful to be negative, resistant to what is simply so. It would be nice to hear a familiar voice, to hear something encouraging.
I miss you extra lots today.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Indonesian lessons
4:13pm Wednesday July 8th, 2009
I'm officially feeling like I've settled in. I have more work to do in terms of fully integrating, ingratiating, and insinuating myself in the clinic, but I feel like I'm making headway (so many birth puns, so little time!) there.
My landlord Made came and visited me today and asked if I still wanted to rent Danielle's little apartment, so I'm moving across the compound later today. The new room is pretty neat and has a small kitchen, which I'm really going to appreciate, and the bed has mosquito netting, which I also really appreciate. There is a shower, but no bathtub, which I'm a little sad about, but I think I'll get over it. The apartment is situated next to the family temple and the grain storage loft, so there's lots of awesome stuff happening visually around my new digs and it has a large porch with a table and chairs for sitting, so Kira and I should be pretty comfy when she comes to visit. Made's visit also helped me solve a big Balinese mystery that has been haunting me since my second day here. On my porch, *something* has been lunching, and pooping, at night. I have never seen poop quite like this poop, and thought it might be a monkey or a large bird. Turns out its a bat. There are bats everywhere here and I love them. They're amazing. And I'm both a little creeped out and totally stoked that a bat has been hanging out on my porch every night, even if he was pooping all over the nice wicker chair that was out there.
My bahasa Indonesia (the language they speak here) is getting better. If, by better, I mean I can say "thank you" and "good morning" and "walking" and "good" and "mother" and "baby." But also, I've taken my relationship with my neighbor the woodcarver to the next level. This morning, I called my usual good morning to him and he beckoned me over. I tried to ask him about the big presidential election being held here today, but he didn't understand. I'm sorry, he told me the best he could, but maybe we could practice English and Bahasa together? I happily agreed and he told me how to say in a full sentence that I was walking to eat breakfast. I've forgotten it all, of course, because I was so excited we talking at all. He asked me to write down my name, and he wrote down his (again, I've forgotten because I'm a big jerk and was too busy grinning to think to write it down for myself) and we talked about me being a midwife at the clinic and being from California. He held my hands and peered at me over his glasses, grinning from ear to ear, and explained that he sees me walking "every day!" and every day, I look so "happy!" and he likes this about me. I didn't know how to explain to him that saying good morning to him every morning was the reason for my happiness, so I told him Bali makes me happy. He understood this. He told me how to say "see you later" (yeah, I forgot that too) and we high-fived, and of I went. I walked by again this afternoon and we shook hands and he asked me if I was going to Ubud. "Yes," I told him, "I'm going to Kafe." "Always, you are going to the cafe." he told me. "Yeah," I said. "Its true. I eat a lot." And then he told me how to say "good afternoon" (salemat soire) and I practiced it the whole way to the restaurant with everyone I passed.
I attended another birth last night -a VBAC with a very sweet second time mom. She progressed quickly and had her baby at almost exactly midnight. I sat with her through much of her labor and encouraged her as she pushed in a squat at the end of the bed. In the effort of one of her pushes, she farted loudly twice and the whole room of Indonesian midwives and the father of the baby dissolved into laughter. Seeing I wasn't laughing, the father of the baby tried to explain why they were laughing and told me "Pass wind!" which of course made me laugh and then the midwives started laughing again. One of the Indonesian midwives said a word in bahasa to me and asked "do you know?" I didn't so she told me it meant "laugh." "Laugh?" I said to her, confirming that's what she said. She shook her head vigorously "NO! 'Laugh' not 'love'!" she cried. "That's what I said." I told her. For some reason, she thought that was really funny and said something in bahasa that got the other midwives laughing and she laughed so hard she draped herself over my shoulders where I was sitting on the floor to hold her up. I didn't get the joke, but it always makes me smile to see someone laughing like that. The head was soon visible but I was surprised to learn I wasn't catching, when one of the other Indonesian midwives stepped in as the head was born. Whatever. It was fine, and the birth was lovely --slow shoulders and a deep tear but baby was quick to cry. The father wept over his wife and baby and it made me a little teary eyed too. I love it when the dads cry. I watched another masterful suturing job done by the midwife who took over the birth, feeling antsy to get some time practicing it myself. This morning, I visited the mother of that baby and the mother of the baby I caught the night before last and they were both very happy to see me and their babies looked great. Sometimes, in the deep concentration of labor and the shock of the immediate postpartum, I'm not sure if I was of any service, or I wonder if my presence had been more of an annoyance than helpful to the mothers I serve. But, when they greet me with big smiles and are eager to show me their babies, I know that I don't need to feel insecure. Its true that it is often long, frustrating, sometimes gross, and sometimes scary, but I love my job.
The full moon was last night, so I expect a slew of babies tonight or tomorrow so I'm eating a good meal (tomato soup, seared tuna, and the best drink ever: blended pineapple with coconut milk) and then heading back to the clinic after I move my things into the new place. It really is lovely here... my only complaint is that I'm not sharing it with anyone. The alone time is nice, but it gets boring and old. I'm really looking forward to Kira getting here, so I can say to her later "remember?" I've been here a week now, officially. It feels like longer. And shorter.
I'm officially feeling like I've settled in. I have more work to do in terms of fully integrating, ingratiating, and insinuating myself in the clinic, but I feel like I'm making headway (so many birth puns, so little time!) there.
My landlord Made came and visited me today and asked if I still wanted to rent Danielle's little apartment, so I'm moving across the compound later today. The new room is pretty neat and has a small kitchen, which I'm really going to appreciate, and the bed has mosquito netting, which I also really appreciate. There is a shower, but no bathtub, which I'm a little sad about, but I think I'll get over it. The apartment is situated next to the family temple and the grain storage loft, so there's lots of awesome stuff happening visually around my new digs and it has a large porch with a table and chairs for sitting, so Kira and I should be pretty comfy when she comes to visit. Made's visit also helped me solve a big Balinese mystery that has been haunting me since my second day here. On my porch, *something* has been lunching, and pooping, at night. I have never seen poop quite like this poop, and thought it might be a monkey or a large bird. Turns out its a bat. There are bats everywhere here and I love them. They're amazing. And I'm both a little creeped out and totally stoked that a bat has been hanging out on my porch every night, even if he was pooping all over the nice wicker chair that was out there.
My bahasa Indonesia (the language they speak here) is getting better. If, by better, I mean I can say "thank you" and "good morning" and "walking" and "good" and "mother" and "baby." But also, I've taken my relationship with my neighbor the woodcarver to the next level. This morning, I called my usual good morning to him and he beckoned me over. I tried to ask him about the big presidential election being held here today, but he didn't understand. I'm sorry, he told me the best he could, but maybe we could practice English and Bahasa together? I happily agreed and he told me how to say in a full sentence that I was walking to eat breakfast. I've forgotten it all, of course, because I was so excited we talking at all. He asked me to write down my name, and he wrote down his (again, I've forgotten because I'm a big jerk and was too busy grinning to think to write it down for myself) and we talked about me being a midwife at the clinic and being from California. He held my hands and peered at me over his glasses, grinning from ear to ear, and explained that he sees me walking "every day!" and every day, I look so "happy!" and he likes this about me. I didn't know how to explain to him that saying good morning to him every morning was the reason for my happiness, so I told him Bali makes me happy. He understood this. He told me how to say "see you later" (yeah, I forgot that too) and we high-fived, and of I went. I walked by again this afternoon and we shook hands and he asked me if I was going to Ubud. "Yes," I told him, "I'm going to Kafe." "Always, you are going to the cafe." he told me. "Yeah," I said. "Its true. I eat a lot." And then he told me how to say "good afternoon" (salemat soire) and I practiced it the whole way to the restaurant with everyone I passed.
I attended another birth last night -a VBAC with a very sweet second time mom. She progressed quickly and had her baby at almost exactly midnight. I sat with her through much of her labor and encouraged her as she pushed in a squat at the end of the bed. In the effort of one of her pushes, she farted loudly twice and the whole room of Indonesian midwives and the father of the baby dissolved into laughter. Seeing I wasn't laughing, the father of the baby tried to explain why they were laughing and told me "Pass wind!" which of course made me laugh and then the midwives started laughing again. One of the Indonesian midwives said a word in bahasa to me and asked "do you know?" I didn't so she told me it meant "laugh." "Laugh?" I said to her, confirming that's what she said. She shook her head vigorously "NO! 'Laugh' not 'love'!" she cried. "That's what I said." I told her. For some reason, she thought that was really funny and said something in bahasa that got the other midwives laughing and she laughed so hard she draped herself over my shoulders where I was sitting on the floor to hold her up. I didn't get the joke, but it always makes me smile to see someone laughing like that. The head was soon visible but I was surprised to learn I wasn't catching, when one of the other Indonesian midwives stepped in as the head was born. Whatever. It was fine, and the birth was lovely --slow shoulders and a deep tear but baby was quick to cry. The father wept over his wife and baby and it made me a little teary eyed too. I love it when the dads cry. I watched another masterful suturing job done by the midwife who took over the birth, feeling antsy to get some time practicing it myself. This morning, I visited the mother of that baby and the mother of the baby I caught the night before last and they were both very happy to see me and their babies looked great. Sometimes, in the deep concentration of labor and the shock of the immediate postpartum, I'm not sure if I was of any service, or I wonder if my presence had been more of an annoyance than helpful to the mothers I serve. But, when they greet me with big smiles and are eager to show me their babies, I know that I don't need to feel insecure. Its true that it is often long, frustrating, sometimes gross, and sometimes scary, but I love my job.
The full moon was last night, so I expect a slew of babies tonight or tomorrow so I'm eating a good meal (tomato soup, seared tuna, and the best drink ever: blended pineapple with coconut milk) and then heading back to the clinic after I move my things into the new place. It really is lovely here... my only complaint is that I'm not sharing it with anyone. The alone time is nice, but it gets boring and old. I'm really looking forward to Kira getting here, so I can say to her later "remember?" I've been here a week now, officially. It feels like longer. And shorter.
Monday, July 6, 2009
late night ruminations
3:33am Tuesday July 7th, 2009
My left pant leg is wet with afterbirth but I don't have any clothes to change into and I'm too tired to walk home in the dark right now. I just caught a lovely little boy for a first time mom who I saw for a prenatal on Saturday night. It was neat to see her in labor after meeting her prenatally --that didn't happen for me while I was in Senegal.
I'm slowly, forcefully, pushing my way into the clinic. Sort of like the babies I see being born here. At home, and in Senegal, I've been lucky with intact perineums, but the mothers of the two babies I've caught here so far both had tears that needed suturing. I want to believe its not my technique... I suspect it has something to do with every woman being made to push in a knees-to-chest position --it really puts a lot of strain on the vaginal tissues and doesn't give them as much time to stretch and open. Of course, I'm looking for blame because I'm feeling guilty, especially over this last one. She ripped damn near down to her anus, and I felt it happen under my hands. I am of two minds about being hands-on during the delivery of the head. On one hand, it makes sense to me that you'd want to support those tissues, give the mother something to push against with one hand, while maintaining flexion with the other hand, so the smallest diameter of the baby's head emerges. On the other hand, I like the idea of being hands off. Let mothers push in a way that feels good for them, in a position that feels good for them, let them slow it down when they feel the burn, gingerly let their baby's head emerge and stretch their tissues, let them put their own hands there if it feels better, keeping my damn hands away from the whole affair. I struggled with it in Senegal, when I had to keep my hands near or inside a woman's vagina to keep the bossy, rough hands of the impatient matrones out. But if I was left alone, I kept my hands away, only lending support if I sensed she really could use it. And even then, what did I know? I've been happy to be hands off at the last few births I've attended, and it works nicely. But here, they want you to have your hands on. They practically want you draped over the whole business. So I'm going along with it, because my soapbox has no place here. But its not always easy.
The upside was, like I said, I'm pushing my way in around here and so I managed the entire delivery on my own, with a lovely Indonesian midwife and a brand spankin' new, green-as-a-lime-skittle Balinese midwifery student by my side. It was great. They do a few things here that I would like to incorporate into my own practice, even though it may border on too hippie dippy for my taste. For example, they float flowers in the bath where many women give birth. For many women here, this is the first bath they have ever had. It feels like a profound gesture of respect and reverence to the women giving birth that flowers are floated in the water in honor of the amazing feat she is performing. Further, as the head becomes visible, they begin to sing. It is my great hope that I will learn the song before I leave because it is very beautiful. They sing it softly at first, as the baby is just starting to appear, and then more clearly as the birth is more imminent. I have heard them singing it as a large group when many people are present at a difficult birth and it is stunning, but it is equally beautiful when there are only two midwives in the room. They have sweet voices and the melody is at once an encouragement, and a prayer, and a welcome. Today's baby came and his mother continued the song where the midwives left off, singing it to her newborn as we welcomed him and dried him on her chest. Gorgeous. After the placenta is born, they remove the flowers from the birth tub and place them over the placenta. Another simple, lovely touch that honors the event that has taken place, and the amazing role the placenta played in it. The Balinese are not skimpy on the pretty details, that much is certain.
It looks like I'm moving again, and maybe even a third time this week. My friend Danielle left on a surfing trip today because our next acupuncture clinic isn't until Saturday. There has been some strange political stuff happening at the clinic recently related to the Indonesian government not liking certain things about how the clinic is operated. It looked, for a time anyway, like the western volunteers might need to make themselves scarce for a while (which I wasn't thrilled about), and Danielle nearly had me convinced to take this week off with her and go surfing about 2 hours away. It sounded really nice. BUT, I was responsible, and I remain here, dutifully un-suntanned and un-beachy. Anyway, Danielle's apartment across the compound from my room is now vacant and she's not planning to move back in. Because it has a kitchen and is bigger, I'm going to take it over when its ready for me. But also, my bestie Kira is coming to visit me on the 27th and there are supposedly a few houses coming up for rent that would have an extra bed and some more space for more than one person, so I'm looking into that possibility as well. I had really had my heart set on renting a house, so that would be my preference, but I'm open to whatever is going to happen. It really doesn't matter so long as its shelter.
I had dinner this evening with two of the Aussies --the mother midwife, daughter doctor combo whom I really enjoy. They invited me over and made me a lovely curry and we talked shop for several hours. The daughter was a double footling breech born at home and her mother has gorgeous photographs of the event. She (the midwife) is a pretty well-known birth activist in Australia and she showed me one of the presentations she had given at a conference down there, followed by a video montage of her daughter's birth, feet first. I totally wept while watching it, I'm not going to lie. It was really, really beautiful. I'm a little in awe of them and fantasizing that they'll invite me to come live with them in Australia and attend births with them. Australian homebirth midwives are currently under a huge threat from the government and it looks like New Zealander homebirth midwives are next. Its shameful to see countries that I've looked to for hope and sense when homebirth midwives in the United States are being marginalized and outright persecuted, beginning to slip backward in their protection of reproductive rights. Not cool, Australia, not cool.
The lizards on the ceiling over my head are chit-chitting at each other testily, and I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open. I suppose I'll lie here in my damp pants and get eaten by mosquitoes until dawn and then stumble back to my bed. Ah, birth. The life of the midwife is so glamorous.
My left pant leg is wet with afterbirth but I don't have any clothes to change into and I'm too tired to walk home in the dark right now. I just caught a lovely little boy for a first time mom who I saw for a prenatal on Saturday night. It was neat to see her in labor after meeting her prenatally --that didn't happen for me while I was in Senegal.
I'm slowly, forcefully, pushing my way into the clinic. Sort of like the babies I see being born here. At home, and in Senegal, I've been lucky with intact perineums, but the mothers of the two babies I've caught here so far both had tears that needed suturing. I want to believe its not my technique... I suspect it has something to do with every woman being made to push in a knees-to-chest position --it really puts a lot of strain on the vaginal tissues and doesn't give them as much time to stretch and open. Of course, I'm looking for blame because I'm feeling guilty, especially over this last one. She ripped damn near down to her anus, and I felt it happen under my hands. I am of two minds about being hands-on during the delivery of the head. On one hand, it makes sense to me that you'd want to support those tissues, give the mother something to push against with one hand, while maintaining flexion with the other hand, so the smallest diameter of the baby's head emerges. On the other hand, I like the idea of being hands off. Let mothers push in a way that feels good for them, in a position that feels good for them, let them slow it down when they feel the burn, gingerly let their baby's head emerge and stretch their tissues, let them put their own hands there if it feels better, keeping my damn hands away from the whole affair. I struggled with it in Senegal, when I had to keep my hands near or inside a woman's vagina to keep the bossy, rough hands of the impatient matrones out. But if I was left alone, I kept my hands away, only lending support if I sensed she really could use it. And even then, what did I know? I've been happy to be hands off at the last few births I've attended, and it works nicely. But here, they want you to have your hands on. They practically want you draped over the whole business. So I'm going along with it, because my soapbox has no place here. But its not always easy.
The upside was, like I said, I'm pushing my way in around here and so I managed the entire delivery on my own, with a lovely Indonesian midwife and a brand spankin' new, green-as-a-lime-skittle Balinese midwifery student by my side. It was great. They do a few things here that I would like to incorporate into my own practice, even though it may border on too hippie dippy for my taste. For example, they float flowers in the bath where many women give birth. For many women here, this is the first bath they have ever had. It feels like a profound gesture of respect and reverence to the women giving birth that flowers are floated in the water in honor of the amazing feat she is performing. Further, as the head becomes visible, they begin to sing. It is my great hope that I will learn the song before I leave because it is very beautiful. They sing it softly at first, as the baby is just starting to appear, and then more clearly as the birth is more imminent. I have heard them singing it as a large group when many people are present at a difficult birth and it is stunning, but it is equally beautiful when there are only two midwives in the room. They have sweet voices and the melody is at once an encouragement, and a prayer, and a welcome. Today's baby came and his mother continued the song where the midwives left off, singing it to her newborn as we welcomed him and dried him on her chest. Gorgeous. After the placenta is born, they remove the flowers from the birth tub and place them over the placenta. Another simple, lovely touch that honors the event that has taken place, and the amazing role the placenta played in it. The Balinese are not skimpy on the pretty details, that much is certain.
It looks like I'm moving again, and maybe even a third time this week. My friend Danielle left on a surfing trip today because our next acupuncture clinic isn't until Saturday. There has been some strange political stuff happening at the clinic recently related to the Indonesian government not liking certain things about how the clinic is operated. It looked, for a time anyway, like the western volunteers might need to make themselves scarce for a while (which I wasn't thrilled about), and Danielle nearly had me convinced to take this week off with her and go surfing about 2 hours away. It sounded really nice. BUT, I was responsible, and I remain here, dutifully un-suntanned and un-beachy. Anyway, Danielle's apartment across the compound from my room is now vacant and she's not planning to move back in. Because it has a kitchen and is bigger, I'm going to take it over when its ready for me. But also, my bestie Kira is coming to visit me on the 27th and there are supposedly a few houses coming up for rent that would have an extra bed and some more space for more than one person, so I'm looking into that possibility as well. I had really had my heart set on renting a house, so that would be my preference, but I'm open to whatever is going to happen. It really doesn't matter so long as its shelter.
I had dinner this evening with two of the Aussies --the mother midwife, daughter doctor combo whom I really enjoy. They invited me over and made me a lovely curry and we talked shop for several hours. The daughter was a double footling breech born at home and her mother has gorgeous photographs of the event. She (the midwife) is a pretty well-known birth activist in Australia and she showed me one of the presentations she had given at a conference down there, followed by a video montage of her daughter's birth, feet first. I totally wept while watching it, I'm not going to lie. It was really, really beautiful. I'm a little in awe of them and fantasizing that they'll invite me to come live with them in Australia and attend births with them. Australian homebirth midwives are currently under a huge threat from the government and it looks like New Zealander homebirth midwives are next. Its shameful to see countries that I've looked to for hope and sense when homebirth midwives in the United States are being marginalized and outright persecuted, beginning to slip backward in their protection of reproductive rights. Not cool, Australia, not cool.
The lizards on the ceiling over my head are chit-chitting at each other testily, and I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open. I suppose I'll lie here in my damp pants and get eaten by mosquitoes until dawn and then stumble back to my bed. Ah, birth. The life of the midwife is so glamorous.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
yes please
9:34am July 6, 2009
I’ve got a little ritual down here for my mornings. I wake up, like clockwork, at about 7am. I lie in bed for a few minutes, absorbing that I’m in Bali, thinking about my dreams, listening to the sounds outside. I get up, bathe, dress, and walk up the road toward the monkey forest to get breakfast. I pass the woodcarver a few doors up from my house and he smiles and gives me the thumbs up. I smile and give him the thumbs up and say “Selamat pagi!” (good morning) and he says “jalan jalan?” (where are you walking?) and I mime coffee and he nods and smiles and gives me a thumbs up. I grin, fully from ear to ear, for the next half mile. This routine mostly continues, verbatim, with everyone I meet along the road. Everyone wants to know where I’m going, everyone wants to say hello, everyone wants to smile. I love this about Bali.
I usually walk into Ubud for breakfast, which entails walking through the monkey forest, along the road that doubles as the motorbike road. It’s a little stressful sometimes navigating the motorbikes coming in both directions and keeping a respectful distance from the monkeys that, I won’t lie, scare me a little bit. The walking is nice, since I drive almost everywhere at home, and because its so warm and lovely here. Breakfast is usually fresh blended fruit juice of some kind (it is official as of yesterday that I’m totally DONE with watermelon juice. I beat my love for that into the ground) and a bowl of fruit with yogurt, or an omelet.
I’ve officially given up milk and coffee, which is a huge bummer for me, but I figure will be easier to do here, so I can adjust more easily when I get home. I recognize that milk and I (as Austin would say) do not get along. My acupuncturists at home keep telling me that I suffer from “damp heat” and have told me repeatedly that it’s largely due to the amount of milk (half and half, actually) I drink and the amount of cheese I eat that I feel so crappy. But I haven’t been willing to give it up because I drink so much tea and so much coffee, and I cannot drink either without copious amounts of half and half in it. But, according to my new acupuncturist friend Danielle, coffee contributes huge amounts of heat into my body. So, the fact that I’m suffering from damp heat, means that every time I’m drinking a cup of coffee drenched with half and half, I’m introducing more of exactly what keeps me sick into my body. Mostly I only drink milk with my coffee or tea, so to eliminate coffee and tea means that 90% of my milk consumption will be taken care of. And, no, I’m not willing to try drinking my tea black. What’s the point? I live for half and half. I drink tea as an excuse to guzzle half and half. I told Danielle, I’d happily lie on a beach with a cold pint of half and half and a straw and be perfectly content. So I’ve given it up. Love and light to you, cream and coffee. I love you. I miss you. I’m sorry we can’t be together anymore.
I had a pretty magical day yesterday, which did not involve me setting foot in the clinic even once. I had my morning breakfast date with myself and then planned to head to the clinic but ended up kidnapped by Danielle on a crazy adventure to an organic restaurant hidden in a field of rice paddies, and then running into friends and listening to their stories about visiting the psychic who lives across from the clinic and Javanese medicine men, and then, of course, I needed a nap. And then, because we’d been doing nothing but sleeping and eating all day, Danielle and I felt we deserved a nice dinner so we went to a really great restaurant where we ordered $5 seared Ahi steaks (heck of delicious) and a huge piece of chocolate mousse cake and fried bananas. Our waiter kept setting dishes down in front of us saying, “yes please” which kills me. I’m basically not starving in Bali. On the way back, Danielle and I stopped outside a bar where a Balinese reggae band was playing --once again adorable beyond words, and spent the walk giggling at how many times we heard “Need transport? Taxi lady? Nice tattoo!” We started telling stories about bummer bugs, lizard, snakes, etc. and ended up scaring ourselves silly on our walk through the dark monkey forest when a dog ran up behind us. We think we scared the dog too, because when we both screamed, he stopped dead in his tracks and didn't move until we started walking again, doubled over from hysterical embarrassed laughter and how silly we were being. The dog ended up trotting along side us all the way home and tried to follow us into the family compound and we had to shut the wooden doors and latch them to prevent him from getting in. I went to bed feeling guilty that I had done nothing that day that related at all to my purpose here, but decided to let myself off the hook. I need to recount the story of my time in the acupuncture and prenatal clinics the other night still but I think I’ll wait. For now, I’ll say it was amazing and I worked really hard and I learned a lot. And yesterday was only day 4 and everyone takes Sunday off in Bali, and I’m still settling in and today is going to be a non stop clinic slog, so I declare that my day of eating and sleeping was okay. I’ve just got to be careful to not turn my trip into nothing but doing that. I fell asleep to a Balinese sing along of Hotel California being sung next door, the dog scratching on the wooden doors of the compound, and the sound of it beginning to rain.
Miss you guys. Wish you were here.
I’ve got a little ritual down here for my mornings. I wake up, like clockwork, at about 7am. I lie in bed for a few minutes, absorbing that I’m in Bali, thinking about my dreams, listening to the sounds outside. I get up, bathe, dress, and walk up the road toward the monkey forest to get breakfast. I pass the woodcarver a few doors up from my house and he smiles and gives me the thumbs up. I smile and give him the thumbs up and say “Selamat pagi!” (good morning) and he says “jalan jalan?” (where are you walking?) and I mime coffee and he nods and smiles and gives me a thumbs up. I grin, fully from ear to ear, for the next half mile. This routine mostly continues, verbatim, with everyone I meet along the road. Everyone wants to know where I’m going, everyone wants to say hello, everyone wants to smile. I love this about Bali.
I usually walk into Ubud for breakfast, which entails walking through the monkey forest, along the road that doubles as the motorbike road. It’s a little stressful sometimes navigating the motorbikes coming in both directions and keeping a respectful distance from the monkeys that, I won’t lie, scare me a little bit. The walking is nice, since I drive almost everywhere at home, and because its so warm and lovely here. Breakfast is usually fresh blended fruit juice of some kind (it is official as of yesterday that I’m totally DONE with watermelon juice. I beat my love for that into the ground) and a bowl of fruit with yogurt, or an omelet.
I’ve officially given up milk and coffee, which is a huge bummer for me, but I figure will be easier to do here, so I can adjust more easily when I get home. I recognize that milk and I (as Austin would say) do not get along. My acupuncturists at home keep telling me that I suffer from “damp heat” and have told me repeatedly that it’s largely due to the amount of milk (half and half, actually) I drink and the amount of cheese I eat that I feel so crappy. But I haven’t been willing to give it up because I drink so much tea and so much coffee, and I cannot drink either without copious amounts of half and half in it. But, according to my new acupuncturist friend Danielle, coffee contributes huge amounts of heat into my body. So, the fact that I’m suffering from damp heat, means that every time I’m drinking a cup of coffee drenched with half and half, I’m introducing more of exactly what keeps me sick into my body. Mostly I only drink milk with my coffee or tea, so to eliminate coffee and tea means that 90% of my milk consumption will be taken care of. And, no, I’m not willing to try drinking my tea black. What’s the point? I live for half and half. I drink tea as an excuse to guzzle half and half. I told Danielle, I’d happily lie on a beach with a cold pint of half and half and a straw and be perfectly content. So I’ve given it up. Love and light to you, cream and coffee. I love you. I miss you. I’m sorry we can’t be together anymore.
I had a pretty magical day yesterday, which did not involve me setting foot in the clinic even once. I had my morning breakfast date with myself and then planned to head to the clinic but ended up kidnapped by Danielle on a crazy adventure to an organic restaurant hidden in a field of rice paddies, and then running into friends and listening to their stories about visiting the psychic who lives across from the clinic and Javanese medicine men, and then, of course, I needed a nap. And then, because we’d been doing nothing but sleeping and eating all day, Danielle and I felt we deserved a nice dinner so we went to a really great restaurant where we ordered $5 seared Ahi steaks (heck of delicious) and a huge piece of chocolate mousse cake and fried bananas. Our waiter kept setting dishes down in front of us saying, “yes please” which kills me. I’m basically not starving in Bali. On the way back, Danielle and I stopped outside a bar where a Balinese reggae band was playing --once again adorable beyond words, and spent the walk giggling at how many times we heard “Need transport? Taxi lady? Nice tattoo!” We started telling stories about bummer bugs, lizard, snakes, etc. and ended up scaring ourselves silly on our walk through the dark monkey forest when a dog ran up behind us. We think we scared the dog too, because when we both screamed, he stopped dead in his tracks and didn't move until we started walking again, doubled over from hysterical embarrassed laughter and how silly we were being. The dog ended up trotting along side us all the way home and tried to follow us into the family compound and we had to shut the wooden doors and latch them to prevent him from getting in. I went to bed feeling guilty that I had done nothing that day that related at all to my purpose here, but decided to let myself off the hook. I need to recount the story of my time in the acupuncture and prenatal clinics the other night still but I think I’ll wait. For now, I’ll say it was amazing and I worked really hard and I learned a lot. And yesterday was only day 4 and everyone takes Sunday off in Bali, and I’m still settling in and today is going to be a non stop clinic slog, so I declare that my day of eating and sleeping was okay. I’ve just got to be careful to not turn my trip into nothing but doing that. I fell asleep to a Balinese sing along of Hotel California being sung next door, the dog scratching on the wooden doors of the compound, and the sound of it beginning to rain.
Miss you guys. Wish you were here.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Watermelon juice will cure all that ails me.
9:23am July 4, 2009
I just walked for 2 hours. Normally, if I'd been planning to walk for 2 hours, I wouldn't have any issue with this. However, I was NOT planning to walk for 2 hours. I was just taking an early morning walk to the ATM, then headed to breakfast/email/writing time, but I guess I overestimated my ability to navigate around here, and I ended up walking for 2 hours before finally giving up, acknowledging that I was lost, and getting a taxi to take me where I had been trying to go originally. It was a lovely walk. I stopped and got a bottle of water. I took some pictures. But I was wearing cheap Old Navy flip flops, and the space between my big toe and its neighbor is killing me. In my defense, I sensed I was going the wrong way about an hour into the walk, which is, it turns out, about exactly when I WAS going the wrong way, and I asked for directions. TWICE. I had been told by several people that the soccer fields are often the landmarks by which people give directions around here. In the village where I live, just outside the main town, I can say I live at so-and-so's house, near the soccer field. In the big town, the restaurant where I was going for breakfast is right on the soccer field, near the library. I figured that was plenty to go on in terms of asking for directions (I couldn't remember the name of the restaurant). I don't know what soccer field/library combo I was being directed towards, but it took me another hour and increasingly sore feet before I cried uncle, called one of the other volunteers here, confirmed I was lost, turned around and found a taxi.
Its a joke around here that you are constantly being asked if you need transport by taxi drivers looking for a fare. Often they hold signs that say "Do you need transport?" When, almost invariably, you say no thanks, they say "maybe tomorrow?" Supposedly there are t-shirts around here someplace that say "Do you need transport?" on the front, and on the back "Maybe tomorrow?" which I think is pretty charming. Anyway, I was asked if I needed transport maybe 15 times on my walk. I didn't think I needed transport. I'm not exactly flush with cash, and my legs work fine thankyouverymuch and it can't be THAT much further because the last two people I asked both told me to go this way and I've been walking FOREVER... Anyway, I finally turned around and went back to the nearest taxi place I'd seen. One guy was sitting there, outside of a black car with decals on the driver and passenger side doors that said "Sheriff" in official looking letters. I asked the guy if there was a taxi around. He gestured in sort of a "duh" way to the sheriff car and asked me where I wanted to go. I described the restaurant and the soccer field and the library and he said he knew where it was. I asked him how much it would be. 20,000 rpa, he told me. $2.00. (REALLY? What was I waiting for? Oh, brother) We got into the sheriff's car, with me still not totally sure if this was the sheriff ("Should I get in the front? Is that police social faux pas?" I wondered to myself as I opened the door) or if the western taboo of not impersonating officers of the law doesn't apply here. At any rate, the would-be sheriff got me to the restaurant in about 10 minutes, driving back along much of the way I came. It was TOTALLY worth $2.00. I'd have gladly paid much more.
And now, of course, I'm totally thinking I'm getting a motorbike. Because walking is nice and all but (excuse my language) FUCK THAT SHIT.
In other news, I'm homesick. Not in a crippling way, but in a, "gee, I have another 5 weeks here... this might get old soon" kind of way. I really wish I was able to share the culture and beauty here with some -ANY- of you in real time. It feels very isolating to me to be so far from home, having such a profound experience of another part of the world and feel like words fail me so completely. I hadn't planned to do this trip alone and, while its totally fine that I'm doing it alone, it is lonely. I woke up this morning and realized I was in Bali. And as beautiful a place as it is to wake up, I must have been dreaming about being home, because it was disconcerting to not be at home.
The work I came here to do is not going to be as easy to get to do as it was in Senegal. The midwives in Senegal were happy to step back and let us get in and do the "dirty work." They'd call us when someone was about to have a baby, especially if something "fancy" like breech or twins was happening. That is less true here. There are many Indonesian midwives who are paid to do the dirty work and are good at doing it, and not eager to let some young fresh-faced wanna be from the States jump in and take over. And while I completely respect and understand that, its not what I was expecting. Also, I was grossly misled in what was promised to me as a student coming here by the woman I interviewed with when I applied for this program. I was told I would be the ONLY student here, and therefore I wouldn't have to compete for births. Instead, there are FOUR students and three foreign midwives. All of them wanting births. So its frustrating. I'm not here to learn how to do blood pressures, or to be "allowed" to catch the baby as it is delivered and passed up to its mother. I don't think I need the training wheels anymore.
Some of you know that the hardest part of my educational path has been what should be the easiest part: doing my school work. I loved apprenticing, I love going to births. But I have this stack of school work that I have barely touched. All it is is lists and lists of questions that require me to open my text books and write in the answers. I won't get into how totally and completely I detest these questions and how absolutely inadequate I find them to prepare a young midwife for the very REAL and IMPORTANT practice she's going to undertake after doing all this silly work, but suffice to say, I hate it and I'm so resistant to doing it that, three years into my formal education, I still have most of it to do. In fact, it is the only thing preventing me from sitting for my license exam sooner rather than later. I'm not proud of that, but it's true.
So I've decided that, starting today, I'm camping out in the clinic. I'd had a vision of being able to hang out by the pool, work on my suntan, and get called for births. That's totally not happening. So I'll install myself. I'll be there for as many births as I can be. And when there are no births happening, I'm going to be in the office working on my stupid lists of stupid questions. I cannot use my disappointment with how this is going so far as an excuse to check out and just be on a 6 week vacation in Bali. And I'm hoping that by hanging around the clinic like a bad smell, learning some Indonesian, maybe I'll start to build some relationships with the Indonesian midwives and being included a little more in what's happening. Basically, I'm going to the mats.
After just one more watermelon juice.
I just walked for 2 hours. Normally, if I'd been planning to walk for 2 hours, I wouldn't have any issue with this. However, I was NOT planning to walk for 2 hours. I was just taking an early morning walk to the ATM, then headed to breakfast/email/writing time, but I guess I overestimated my ability to navigate around here, and I ended up walking for 2 hours before finally giving up, acknowledging that I was lost, and getting a taxi to take me where I had been trying to go originally. It was a lovely walk. I stopped and got a bottle of water. I took some pictures. But I was wearing cheap Old Navy flip flops, and the space between my big toe and its neighbor is killing me. In my defense, I sensed I was going the wrong way about an hour into the walk, which is, it turns out, about exactly when I WAS going the wrong way, and I asked for directions. TWICE. I had been told by several people that the soccer fields are often the landmarks by which people give directions around here. In the village where I live, just outside the main town, I can say I live at so-and-so's house, near the soccer field. In the big town, the restaurant where I was going for breakfast is right on the soccer field, near the library. I figured that was plenty to go on in terms of asking for directions (I couldn't remember the name of the restaurant). I don't know what soccer field/library combo I was being directed towards, but it took me another hour and increasingly sore feet before I cried uncle, called one of the other volunteers here, confirmed I was lost, turned around and found a taxi.
Its a joke around here that you are constantly being asked if you need transport by taxi drivers looking for a fare. Often they hold signs that say "Do you need transport?" When, almost invariably, you say no thanks, they say "maybe tomorrow?" Supposedly there are t-shirts around here someplace that say "Do you need transport?" on the front, and on the back "Maybe tomorrow?" which I think is pretty charming. Anyway, I was asked if I needed transport maybe 15 times on my walk. I didn't think I needed transport. I'm not exactly flush with cash, and my legs work fine thankyouverymuch and it can't be THAT much further because the last two people I asked both told me to go this way and I've been walking FOREVER... Anyway, I finally turned around and went back to the nearest taxi place I'd seen. One guy was sitting there, outside of a black car with decals on the driver and passenger side doors that said "Sheriff" in official looking letters. I asked the guy if there was a taxi around. He gestured in sort of a "duh" way to the sheriff car and asked me where I wanted to go. I described the restaurant and the soccer field and the library and he said he knew where it was. I asked him how much it would be. 20,000 rpa, he told me. $2.00. (REALLY? What was I waiting for? Oh, brother) We got into the sheriff's car, with me still not totally sure if this was the sheriff ("Should I get in the front? Is that police social faux pas?" I wondered to myself as I opened the door) or if the western taboo of not impersonating officers of the law doesn't apply here. At any rate, the would-be sheriff got me to the restaurant in about 10 minutes, driving back along much of the way I came. It was TOTALLY worth $2.00. I'd have gladly paid much more.
And now, of course, I'm totally thinking I'm getting a motorbike. Because walking is nice and all but (excuse my language) FUCK THAT SHIT.
In other news, I'm homesick. Not in a crippling way, but in a, "gee, I have another 5 weeks here... this might get old soon" kind of way. I really wish I was able to share the culture and beauty here with some -ANY- of you in real time. It feels very isolating to me to be so far from home, having such a profound experience of another part of the world and feel like words fail me so completely. I hadn't planned to do this trip alone and, while its totally fine that I'm doing it alone, it is lonely. I woke up this morning and realized I was in Bali. And as beautiful a place as it is to wake up, I must have been dreaming about being home, because it was disconcerting to not be at home.
The work I came here to do is not going to be as easy to get to do as it was in Senegal. The midwives in Senegal were happy to step back and let us get in and do the "dirty work." They'd call us when someone was about to have a baby, especially if something "fancy" like breech or twins was happening. That is less true here. There are many Indonesian midwives who are paid to do the dirty work and are good at doing it, and not eager to let some young fresh-faced wanna be from the States jump in and take over. And while I completely respect and understand that, its not what I was expecting. Also, I was grossly misled in what was promised to me as a student coming here by the woman I interviewed with when I applied for this program. I was told I would be the ONLY student here, and therefore I wouldn't have to compete for births. Instead, there are FOUR students and three foreign midwives. All of them wanting births. So its frustrating. I'm not here to learn how to do blood pressures, or to be "allowed" to catch the baby as it is delivered and passed up to its mother. I don't think I need the training wheels anymore.
Some of you know that the hardest part of my educational path has been what should be the easiest part: doing my school work. I loved apprenticing, I love going to births. But I have this stack of school work that I have barely touched. All it is is lists and lists of questions that require me to open my text books and write in the answers. I won't get into how totally and completely I detest these questions and how absolutely inadequate I find them to prepare a young midwife for the very REAL and IMPORTANT practice she's going to undertake after doing all this silly work, but suffice to say, I hate it and I'm so resistant to doing it that, three years into my formal education, I still have most of it to do. In fact, it is the only thing preventing me from sitting for my license exam sooner rather than later. I'm not proud of that, but it's true.
So I've decided that, starting today, I'm camping out in the clinic. I'd had a vision of being able to hang out by the pool, work on my suntan, and get called for births. That's totally not happening. So I'll install myself. I'll be there for as many births as I can be. And when there are no births happening, I'm going to be in the office working on my stupid lists of stupid questions. I cannot use my disappointment with how this is going so far as an excuse to check out and just be on a 6 week vacation in Bali. And I'm hoping that by hanging around the clinic like a bad smell, learning some Indonesian, maybe I'll start to build some relationships with the Indonesian midwives and being included a little more in what's happening. Basically, I'm going to the mats.
After just one more watermelon juice.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Today's rain has NOT been cancelled
4:44am July 3, 2009
I’m sitting on the covered porch of my new room, listening to it rain. I’m awake, again, at an ungodly hour, and I heard the rain coming from a distance. It was so beautiful to listen to starting to build. Even from my sleepy place in bed, I knew what it was immediately. The sound continued to grow until it reached the house where I live, and I got up and came out here. It is perfectly warm, and it smells sweet like flowers around me. And it is raining really, REALLY hard. It is, as I keep saying about Bali, pretty magical.
Someone told me yesterday that Bali is like the liver of the world; People come here to detox from emotional things, whether or not they know it. And I’m going to have to say, after only one full day here, that I think that might be true. How can you not, sitting on a covered porch, overlooking a compound comprised of temples and water fountains and stone pots filled with flower petals and statues of gods (and I LIVE here!) in a rainstorm that smells like tropical flowers, let go just a little bit? It feels impossible, in this moment, surrounded by this kind of beauty, despite being so far from home and the attendant insecurities of distance, to hold on to any kind of suffering. It is 5 in the morning, I’m awake and alone. Shouldn’t I be homesick? Shouldn’t I be aching for my own bed, for the arms of my lover, for the familiar faces of my loved ones and food and time zones? I’m not. I’m just going to sit here and listen to it rain. A total cliché, like loving walks on the beach, but I do love the sound of rain probably more than almost any other sound.
I’m sitting on the covered porch of my new room, listening to it rain. I’m awake, again, at an ungodly hour, and I heard the rain coming from a distance. It was so beautiful to listen to starting to build. Even from my sleepy place in bed, I knew what it was immediately. The sound continued to grow until it reached the house where I live, and I got up and came out here. It is perfectly warm, and it smells sweet like flowers around me. And it is raining really, REALLY hard. It is, as I keep saying about Bali, pretty magical.
Someone told me yesterday that Bali is like the liver of the world; People come here to detox from emotional things, whether or not they know it. And I’m going to have to say, after only one full day here, that I think that might be true. How can you not, sitting on a covered porch, overlooking a compound comprised of temples and water fountains and stone pots filled with flower petals and statues of gods (and I LIVE here!) in a rainstorm that smells like tropical flowers, let go just a little bit? It feels impossible, in this moment, surrounded by this kind of beauty, despite being so far from home and the attendant insecurities of distance, to hold on to any kind of suffering. It is 5 in the morning, I’m awake and alone. Shouldn’t I be homesick? Shouldn’t I be aching for my own bed, for the arms of my lover, for the familiar faces of my loved ones and food and time zones? I’m not. I’m just going to sit here and listen to it rain. A total cliché, like loving walks on the beach, but I do love the sound of rain probably more than almost any other sound.
day one here
7:10am July 2, 2009 Ubud, Indonesia
Earplugs are my best friend. I never wore them when I went to shows as a kid, but someone suggested I take some to Africa and they were so right. Bali, like Senegal, is full of life all the time. That means that, at night, there are frogs and dogs, and other unknown noises, and at dawn there are roosters and geese and donkeys and sheep. It is really loud. I remember waking up with the mussein (the call to prayer) at dawn in Senegal one morning and, half asleep, thinking that the cacophony of animals from miles around was the sound of a stadium full of people cheering. That’s how loud it is. And, so far, Bali is no different. I wore earplugs to bed last night to quiet the sound of the frogs and sheep and people next door, and I woke up this morning to maybe 200 geese chuckling to themselves in the open field behind the room where I am sleeping. Its beautiful, and it makes me think how dead our land is at home that we don’t hear the sounds of life outside all the time, and also, it can be kind of annoying. So, I reiterate, earplugs are my best friend.
And, um, p.s., I might never come home. This place is crazy beautiful. A driver from the clinic picked me up at the airport. I embarrassed myself by trying to climb into the passenger side of the front seat, to discover its right hand drive here. The embarrassment didn’t last long, however, as I was quickly absorbed into watching the fascinating dance of car versus scooter on the road. There are SO MANY scooters here. Women ride them in high heels, people carry their groceries in their laps on their scooters. People ride with their baby wedged, helmetless, between them, or riding on the lap of the driver of the scooter. I saw one family, with their 2 or 3 year old daughter riding on her father’s lap, with both her feet and her hands extended straight in front of her all pressed against the steering column, face scrunched into hard determination like she was daring the scooter to go faster. I was grinning from ear to ear at that sight. Her mom saw me see her daughter and she laughed and waved and all three of them smiled and gave me a thumbs up as they zoomed by. Everywhere here, there is beauty. Along the road, I passed so many shops selling ornate carved doors and benches, I saw statues of all sizes, one place that made these amazing shelves out of the hulls of long boats, hanging basket swings… seriously, so much beautiful stuff that I’ll never be able to bring home with me. We could all fill a shipping container and have the most beautifully decorated houses imaginable. Who’s in?
Even the streetlights here are beautiful. The fronts of people’s houses are unbelievable. Everywhere is holy, a shrine, a place to leave offerings. We were doing 90 miles an hour on the two lane highway, bobbing and weaving between scooters, otherwise I’d have taken pictures. But oh, there will be pictures.
We arrived at the clinic about an hour after we left the airport. Ubud is in the center of Bali and, if you consider that I landed on the southern coast, that gives you a sense of how small this island is. The clinic was quiet, a western woman was laboring with her husband, still talking and laughing at 6cm. I met the midwife who runs the clinic, some of the people who help her, and was taken in by the volunteer coordinator and his wife, a couple from Ohio who are here for 6 months to a year to help out. Their house is across from the clinic, down a long driveway that I suppose probably isn’t a driveway, and part of a compound of three or four houses all surrounding a courtyard with trees and statuary and grass and a fountain. Once again, this is just “typical” Balinese architecture, and its like a dream to me. There were kittens in the yard chasing mice and it began to rain, which was pretty magical in the humid heat. The coordinator and his wife are young, late twenties, and sweet. They put my bags in their extra bedroom, sat me down on pillows around a low coffee table and gave me water and handed me delivery menus. WHAT? Yeah, delivery menus. From a Mexican restaurant, an Italian restaurant, or a hippy groovy health food store. I opted for the latter, ordered minestrone soup and a passion fruit, coconut, date smoothie (grand total $3.90), and we sat around the table and talked while we waited for my order. I have good news. First, food is going to be better and easier than it was in Senegal. Second, there are flushing European style toilets (at least, so far). Third, there was running hot water for me to take a shower. The running hot water is less common here, but it is so warm here that a cold shower isn’t the end of the world. The point is I didn’t have to take a bucket shower in a dank, dark cement room; I luxuriated in a bathtub.
The coordinator and his wife went to go out with the clinic’s acupuncturist and left me to get settled in. I was pretty stoked: I’d eaten and bathed, and was going to spend the night in an actual bed, in a room with screens on the windows, and electricity. This was so much better than I was prepared for. I climbed into bed, put in my earplugs, and fell quickly to sleep. I’d been up for nearly 48 hours.
I woke up sometime in the middle of the night, of course. I hate that feeling. I had lost an earplug and a couple mosquitoes were making lunch out of me, but I was too tired to do much about it. I finally got back to sleep and woke up again with the geese at about 5:45am (which I think is 2:45pm at home the day before?). I’m glad to be getting on a (sort of) normal sleep/wake schedule from the start. I crept out of my room to pee (my room is through the coordinator and his wife’s room) and out onto the patio to go to the kitchen for more water. One of the Balinese who tend to the compound was there in ceremonial dress, waving incense over a shrine, and scattering fresh flowers over the sidewalk. “Morning, Bob” I thought to myself and I smiled and waved to him. Now, back in bed, waiting for the house to stir, I’m considering the weeks ahead of me and finding that I don’t really want to absorb how long I’ll be here. It’s beautiful, for sure, but lets acknowledge that I’m a homebody and traveling alone is tough. So I’ve decided I’m taking it in two-week increments. Just get through the next two weeks. I think I can do that.
Today, the plan is to get me more settled in. I’m going to buy a sim card for my cell phone, try to find a house to rent, and hopefully I’ll decide on my form of transportation. It’s a toss up between a scooter and a bicycle. I’m voting bicycle for now, but the scooters were so fast and looked fun (and certainly more dangerous), so I’m undecided at the moment. Of course.
4:42pm July 2, 2009
We walked into Ubud this morning and got breakfast (omelet, toast, fruit, watermelon juice, macchiato for $6.75 –and that’s expensive). I saw my first monkeys: two adults with a baby. I tried taking a photograph of them, and while I was distracted doing it, another one in a tree above me started to pee on me. I’m taking it as a good omen. The walk was long and along the way we stopped to get a sim card for my iphone (thank god my phone is hacked and therefore unlocked because the old Razr I brought wasn’t unlocked and didn’t work), so I now have an Indonesian phone number (if anyone wants to rack up minutes and make international calls or send me text messages of pure love). We also stopped and met up with the two Australian women who also arrived yesterday. One is an old timey homebirth midwife, and her daughter is a doctor who was specializing in Obstetrics, but has decided she can’t hang with hospital birth anymore. I liked them immediately. We all enjoyed breakfast together and were joined by another Aussie midwife and we spent about an hour just talking birth. That’s something that I don’t realize I love so much until I’m doing it and then I can’t stop. After breakfast, we looked for a house for me. There wasn’t much to rent, unfortunately, so I’ve decided on a room in a wing of the family compound of a woman who works at the clinic. It’s $10 a night and it feels like a good choice. I’m informed that her family is from the high caste, and living with her is akin to living with royalty. Okay then. I had my heart set on a house of my own, but I don’t have to stay in this room if I find something else. And even if I don’t, I’ll move into a guesthouse on the same compound in 10 days that is more removed from the main house and also has a kitchen, so it’ll be almost like a house. One thing I love about the city here so far is that it appears to all be along a couple main roads. But if you turn down a driveway or an alley, it’s actually this huge labyrinth of compounds, temples and fields. Its so totally what a nerdy little girl like I was (okay, like I AM) used to dream about when inventing magical places for myself. And the beauty! I know I’ve said it already but, unless you’ve been here, you don’t know what I mean. Its not pretty or quaint and old like Napa Valley or Italy or something. It is STUNNING, and the place where I am moving into is no exception.
We stopped by the clinic while we were looking for houses. I was planning to go back to the coordinator’s house where my things are to take care of some stuff, but one of the women in labor at the clinic was at 9cm and I got pulled into the birth room. She had her baby about an hour and a half later, I caught the gorgeous little girl in water, with the woman who runs the clinic at my shoulder. The placenta didn’t come, however, and I saw my first manual extraction, which I will spare you the details of, suffice to say it is rare, and entails reaching all the way up into the uterus to get the darn placenta when it refuses to come. Its dangerous, very painful for the mother, pretty fancy, and I was glad to see it, even if I’m not glad that it had to happen. I may practice for the next 25 years and never see another one. Fingers crossed. Anyway, that’s the news... I’m surprisingly un-jetlagged, and happy here so far. I miss home and I miss my loved ones (you know who you are) like crazy and I keep thinking how much I wish ANY of you were here to see this with me. It’s amazing. Photos soon. I’ve got to go move out of the coordinator’s house now, though. ☺
Earplugs are my best friend. I never wore them when I went to shows as a kid, but someone suggested I take some to Africa and they were so right. Bali, like Senegal, is full of life all the time. That means that, at night, there are frogs and dogs, and other unknown noises, and at dawn there are roosters and geese and donkeys and sheep. It is really loud. I remember waking up with the mussein (the call to prayer) at dawn in Senegal one morning and, half asleep, thinking that the cacophony of animals from miles around was the sound of a stadium full of people cheering. That’s how loud it is. And, so far, Bali is no different. I wore earplugs to bed last night to quiet the sound of the frogs and sheep and people next door, and I woke up this morning to maybe 200 geese chuckling to themselves in the open field behind the room where I am sleeping. Its beautiful, and it makes me think how dead our land is at home that we don’t hear the sounds of life outside all the time, and also, it can be kind of annoying. So, I reiterate, earplugs are my best friend.
And, um, p.s., I might never come home. This place is crazy beautiful. A driver from the clinic picked me up at the airport. I embarrassed myself by trying to climb into the passenger side of the front seat, to discover its right hand drive here. The embarrassment didn’t last long, however, as I was quickly absorbed into watching the fascinating dance of car versus scooter on the road. There are SO MANY scooters here. Women ride them in high heels, people carry their groceries in their laps on their scooters. People ride with their baby wedged, helmetless, between them, or riding on the lap of the driver of the scooter. I saw one family, with their 2 or 3 year old daughter riding on her father’s lap, with both her feet and her hands extended straight in front of her all pressed against the steering column, face scrunched into hard determination like she was daring the scooter to go faster. I was grinning from ear to ear at that sight. Her mom saw me see her daughter and she laughed and waved and all three of them smiled and gave me a thumbs up as they zoomed by. Everywhere here, there is beauty. Along the road, I passed so many shops selling ornate carved doors and benches, I saw statues of all sizes, one place that made these amazing shelves out of the hulls of long boats, hanging basket swings… seriously, so much beautiful stuff that I’ll never be able to bring home with me. We could all fill a shipping container and have the most beautifully decorated houses imaginable. Who’s in?
Even the streetlights here are beautiful. The fronts of people’s houses are unbelievable. Everywhere is holy, a shrine, a place to leave offerings. We were doing 90 miles an hour on the two lane highway, bobbing and weaving between scooters, otherwise I’d have taken pictures. But oh, there will be pictures.
We arrived at the clinic about an hour after we left the airport. Ubud is in the center of Bali and, if you consider that I landed on the southern coast, that gives you a sense of how small this island is. The clinic was quiet, a western woman was laboring with her husband, still talking and laughing at 6cm. I met the midwife who runs the clinic, some of the people who help her, and was taken in by the volunteer coordinator and his wife, a couple from Ohio who are here for 6 months to a year to help out. Their house is across from the clinic, down a long driveway that I suppose probably isn’t a driveway, and part of a compound of three or four houses all surrounding a courtyard with trees and statuary and grass and a fountain. Once again, this is just “typical” Balinese architecture, and its like a dream to me. There were kittens in the yard chasing mice and it began to rain, which was pretty magical in the humid heat. The coordinator and his wife are young, late twenties, and sweet. They put my bags in their extra bedroom, sat me down on pillows around a low coffee table and gave me water and handed me delivery menus. WHAT? Yeah, delivery menus. From a Mexican restaurant, an Italian restaurant, or a hippy groovy health food store. I opted for the latter, ordered minestrone soup and a passion fruit, coconut, date smoothie (grand total $3.90), and we sat around the table and talked while we waited for my order. I have good news. First, food is going to be better and easier than it was in Senegal. Second, there are flushing European style toilets (at least, so far). Third, there was running hot water for me to take a shower. The running hot water is less common here, but it is so warm here that a cold shower isn’t the end of the world. The point is I didn’t have to take a bucket shower in a dank, dark cement room; I luxuriated in a bathtub.
The coordinator and his wife went to go out with the clinic’s acupuncturist and left me to get settled in. I was pretty stoked: I’d eaten and bathed, and was going to spend the night in an actual bed, in a room with screens on the windows, and electricity. This was so much better than I was prepared for. I climbed into bed, put in my earplugs, and fell quickly to sleep. I’d been up for nearly 48 hours.
I woke up sometime in the middle of the night, of course. I hate that feeling. I had lost an earplug and a couple mosquitoes were making lunch out of me, but I was too tired to do much about it. I finally got back to sleep and woke up again with the geese at about 5:45am (which I think is 2:45pm at home the day before?). I’m glad to be getting on a (sort of) normal sleep/wake schedule from the start. I crept out of my room to pee (my room is through the coordinator and his wife’s room) and out onto the patio to go to the kitchen for more water. One of the Balinese who tend to the compound was there in ceremonial dress, waving incense over a shrine, and scattering fresh flowers over the sidewalk. “Morning, Bob” I thought to myself and I smiled and waved to him. Now, back in bed, waiting for the house to stir, I’m considering the weeks ahead of me and finding that I don’t really want to absorb how long I’ll be here. It’s beautiful, for sure, but lets acknowledge that I’m a homebody and traveling alone is tough. So I’ve decided I’m taking it in two-week increments. Just get through the next two weeks. I think I can do that.
Today, the plan is to get me more settled in. I’m going to buy a sim card for my cell phone, try to find a house to rent, and hopefully I’ll decide on my form of transportation. It’s a toss up between a scooter and a bicycle. I’m voting bicycle for now, but the scooters were so fast and looked fun (and certainly more dangerous), so I’m undecided at the moment. Of course.
4:42pm July 2, 2009
We walked into Ubud this morning and got breakfast (omelet, toast, fruit, watermelon juice, macchiato for $6.75 –and that’s expensive). I saw my first monkeys: two adults with a baby. I tried taking a photograph of them, and while I was distracted doing it, another one in a tree above me started to pee on me. I’m taking it as a good omen. The walk was long and along the way we stopped to get a sim card for my iphone (thank god my phone is hacked and therefore unlocked because the old Razr I brought wasn’t unlocked and didn’t work), so I now have an Indonesian phone number (if anyone wants to rack up minutes and make international calls or send me text messages of pure love). We also stopped and met up with the two Australian women who also arrived yesterday. One is an old timey homebirth midwife, and her daughter is a doctor who was specializing in Obstetrics, but has decided she can’t hang with hospital birth anymore. I liked them immediately. We all enjoyed breakfast together and were joined by another Aussie midwife and we spent about an hour just talking birth. That’s something that I don’t realize I love so much until I’m doing it and then I can’t stop. After breakfast, we looked for a house for me. There wasn’t much to rent, unfortunately, so I’ve decided on a room in a wing of the family compound of a woman who works at the clinic. It’s $10 a night and it feels like a good choice. I’m informed that her family is from the high caste, and living with her is akin to living with royalty. Okay then. I had my heart set on a house of my own, but I don’t have to stay in this room if I find something else. And even if I don’t, I’ll move into a guesthouse on the same compound in 10 days that is more removed from the main house and also has a kitchen, so it’ll be almost like a house. One thing I love about the city here so far is that it appears to all be along a couple main roads. But if you turn down a driveway or an alley, it’s actually this huge labyrinth of compounds, temples and fields. Its so totally what a nerdy little girl like I was (okay, like I AM) used to dream about when inventing magical places for myself. And the beauty! I know I’ve said it already but, unless you’ve been here, you don’t know what I mean. Its not pretty or quaint and old like Napa Valley or Italy or something. It is STUNNING, and the place where I am moving into is no exception.
We stopped by the clinic while we were looking for houses. I was planning to go back to the coordinator’s house where my things are to take care of some stuff, but one of the women in labor at the clinic was at 9cm and I got pulled into the birth room. She had her baby about an hour and a half later, I caught the gorgeous little girl in water, with the woman who runs the clinic at my shoulder. The placenta didn’t come, however, and I saw my first manual extraction, which I will spare you the details of, suffice to say it is rare, and entails reaching all the way up into the uterus to get the darn placenta when it refuses to come. Its dangerous, very painful for the mother, pretty fancy, and I was glad to see it, even if I’m not glad that it had to happen. I may practice for the next 25 years and never see another one. Fingers crossed. Anyway, that’s the news... I’m surprisingly un-jetlagged, and happy here so far. I miss home and I miss my loved ones (you know who you are) like crazy and I keep thinking how much I wish ANY of you were here to see this with me. It’s amazing. Photos soon. I’ve got to go move out of the coordinator’s house now, though. ☺
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