At 7 months pregnant
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
WaWa Bar Mobile Clinic
A group of Nursing students from Ithaca, New York came to visit Puerto Cabezas for 10 days. Here are a couple of fotos from a medical brigade that I attended with them in WaWa Bar. It was fun having them here!
Monday, January 10, 2011
What does it take to write a radio program?
I am a midwife. I understand the physiologic impulses that make the uterus contract and release to bring a child to light. I can explain the mechanisms of action of various birth control methods. Surprisingly, I have the kinetic memory to insert a speculum, even when I haven’t performed a Pap smear in 6 months. As a midwife I had never considered myself a writer/producer of a radio soap opera!
Two years ago when the idea of creating a radio soap opera was just taking form I easily began writing for grants. The RAAN suffers one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the west, with estimates of 287/100,000 maternal deaths annually. The concept of writing a radio program seemed flawless: create a radio show in the format of a soap opera that will be interesting and informative. We will name it Mairin Karnakira (Strong Woman in Miskito). Women can listen to messages regarding how to care for themselves during pregnancy and how to identify obstetric danger signs if they arise. Easy as pie…so I thought!
So what does it take to write and produce a radio soap opera in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua? First and foremost: patience. Plans move at the speed of growing grass in Puerto Cabezas. Working on the North Atlantic Coast provides a daily lesson in living in the present. Secondly, on paper a project may appear to be a piece of cake, but once the steps are divided up into tasty slices, you realize that you may have bitten off more than you can chew! So here is where I began, and here is where we have arrived four months later.
For two months a group of Miskito Obstetric Nurses (otherwise known as midwifes!) would meet with me at the Casa Materna to discuss a pertinent maternal health topic that would make up the content for the radio show chapters. The meetings were planned for 3pm. The first attendant would usually arrive at 320, and by 345 half to three-quarters of the participants would be present. I would draw out my digital recorder, placing it haphazardly on a rocking chair in the middle of a circle formed by these knowledgeable nurses, and slip into Spanish focus group mode. After approximately an hour of discussion I would press the red stop button and thank the nurses for their time. Each week after our discussions I would begin the painstaking task of transcribing the recordings to preserve the exact language that the nurses used to describe obstetric events. Next, with my transcribed document open and a crisp blank document on the computer desktop I would begin writing the radio soap opera chapter. Now, for those who have never written a radio soap opera its much more challenging than you could ever imagine. You must create characters that are real, that are easy to relate to, and most importantly that are interesting. You must reach deep inside to find the creative spring that will flow words out onto the page, to paint the scenery and emotions with audible words, and create a thread that can be woven from one chapter to the next. Did I mention that if you were writing this radio-soap opera in Puerto Cabezas Nicaragua you would also be writing it in your second language? Did I also mention that along the way your laptop would fizzle out and die?
Well, all difficulties aside by December 18th the nine proposed chapters, totalling 125 pages, of Mairin Karnakira have been completed. My producer told me that I deserve an honorary doctorate in Spanish for my efforts! Now we are in editing stage. First the chapters will go to the Spanish professor at URRACAN, the local university, for her to edit to the point that they will sound like a native Spanish speaker from the region wrote them. Second, they go to the radio producer who will edit them for radio content, meaning that she will add in the sound details and narrations that I have surely left out. Then, the chapters will go to the Integrated Medicine students at URRACAN who will edit the chapters for their medical and traditional medical content to make sure the messages are clear.
So, four months later, for those waiting for the radio show update, we are in print edit mode. Fingers crossed, hopefully we will begin recruiting our actors and start recording in February…better make that fingers and toes crossed!
Two years ago when the idea of creating a radio soap opera was just taking form I easily began writing for grants. The RAAN suffers one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the west, with estimates of 287/100,000 maternal deaths annually. The concept of writing a radio program seemed flawless: create a radio show in the format of a soap opera that will be interesting and informative. We will name it Mairin Karnakira (Strong Woman in Miskito). Women can listen to messages regarding how to care for themselves during pregnancy and how to identify obstetric danger signs if they arise. Easy as pie…so I thought!
So what does it take to write and produce a radio soap opera in Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua? First and foremost: patience. Plans move at the speed of growing grass in Puerto Cabezas. Working on the North Atlantic Coast provides a daily lesson in living in the present. Secondly, on paper a project may appear to be a piece of cake, but once the steps are divided up into tasty slices, you realize that you may have bitten off more than you can chew! So here is where I began, and here is where we have arrived four months later.
For two months a group of Miskito Obstetric Nurses (otherwise known as midwifes!) would meet with me at the Casa Materna to discuss a pertinent maternal health topic that would make up the content for the radio show chapters. The meetings were planned for 3pm. The first attendant would usually arrive at 320, and by 345 half to three-quarters of the participants would be present. I would draw out my digital recorder, placing it haphazardly on a rocking chair in the middle of a circle formed by these knowledgeable nurses, and slip into Spanish focus group mode. After approximately an hour of discussion I would press the red stop button and thank the nurses for their time. Each week after our discussions I would begin the painstaking task of transcribing the recordings to preserve the exact language that the nurses used to describe obstetric events. Next, with my transcribed document open and a crisp blank document on the computer desktop I would begin writing the radio soap opera chapter. Now, for those who have never written a radio soap opera its much more challenging than you could ever imagine. You must create characters that are real, that are easy to relate to, and most importantly that are interesting. You must reach deep inside to find the creative spring that will flow words out onto the page, to paint the scenery and emotions with audible words, and create a thread that can be woven from one chapter to the next. Did I mention that if you were writing this radio-soap opera in Puerto Cabezas Nicaragua you would also be writing it in your second language? Did I also mention that along the way your laptop would fizzle out and die?
Well, all difficulties aside by December 18th the nine proposed chapters, totalling 125 pages, of Mairin Karnakira have been completed. My producer told me that I deserve an honorary doctorate in Spanish for my efforts! Now we are in editing stage. First the chapters will go to the Spanish professor at URRACAN, the local university, for her to edit to the point that they will sound like a native Spanish speaker from the region wrote them. Second, they go to the radio producer who will edit them for radio content, meaning that she will add in the sound details and narrations that I have surely left out. Then, the chapters will go to the Integrated Medicine students at URRACAN who will edit the chapters for their medical and traditional medical content to make sure the messages are clear.
So, four months later, for those waiting for the radio show update, we are in print edit mode. Fingers crossed, hopefully we will begin recruiting our actors and start recording in February…better make that fingers and toes crossed!
Bullets
To understand a culture there must be some knowledge of the history of its place. The events that occur throughout a culture’s and country’s gestation are woven into the fabric of its existence, its threads made up of varied lengths and colors. Civil war weaves its ways through the rich fabric of Nicaraguan history: south versus north, pacific versus costeño, Spanish versus Miskito, Sandinista versus Contra. The war ended in the late 1980s but its effects are present everyday. For example, the population demographics of Nicaragua have been molded into a demographic donut: the young and old form the spongy outer ring with a large void in the center where the 20+ to middle age would have existed if not for being leveled during the war. Within this demographic donut you will also find many more women (not so many female soldiers) than men living in current day Nicaragua.
At dinner the other night a friend of mine from the hospital casually slipped a war story into our conversation. As I listened to her words I considered how I don’t have any war stories to drop at a cocktail party or off-handedly mention to a passenger sitting by my side in a taxi. It’s just not part of my history.
She was telling me an anecdote from a previous conversation with a colegue of hers. Both women of the same age, early thirties, both specialist physicians in a far away corner of Nicaragua. One grew up in Managua the capital and the other grew up in Rosita, a mining area of the RAAN.
“Remember the Babamama doll?” asks the physician from Managua.
“No.” says the physician from Rosita, shaking her head, wrinkling her brow as she tries to remember if the doll’s name is familiar.
“How about the Candy doll? Or that one cartoon?”
“No, not that one either.”
“Really?!”
“Look, we didn’t have television, and we didn’t have those dolls. All we had were bullets. We played with bullets,” she says while she laughs and spoons another bite of seafood cocktail into her mouth.
She then went on to tell me how the only toys available at that time were a little black doll for girls and a toy gun for boys. Oh, the irony (or strategy) of sensitizing young boys to guns in a war zone. And to further make her point she says, what mother wants to buy her son a toy gun during a war, but then again what mother won’t buy her son the only toy in town.
She also related stories of air raids. She explained that every home had dug an L-shaped “safe haven” in the back patio in case the town was under attack. Her father cared for their L-shaped trench, flattening its black dirt, ensuring its safety. She went on to tell me about the night that ¨the war came¨in 1988. They were ordered to hole up into their safe haven. As they made their way toward their L-shaped home, they discovered, to their surprise, that the earthen trench was filled with water; there would be no entering! She relays these stories with bright eyes, a laugh at the corners of her mouth. Then she says, “It’s terrible to live through war. It’s terrible,” then quickly goes back to nibbling on her fish cocktail stained red with tomatoes.
Just a little taste of one woman’s history in Nicaragua.
At dinner the other night a friend of mine from the hospital casually slipped a war story into our conversation. As I listened to her words I considered how I don’t have any war stories to drop at a cocktail party or off-handedly mention to a passenger sitting by my side in a taxi. It’s just not part of my history.
She was telling me an anecdote from a previous conversation with a colegue of hers. Both women of the same age, early thirties, both specialist physicians in a far away corner of Nicaragua. One grew up in Managua the capital and the other grew up in Rosita, a mining area of the RAAN.
“Remember the Babamama doll?” asks the physician from Managua.
“No.” says the physician from Rosita, shaking her head, wrinkling her brow as she tries to remember if the doll’s name is familiar.
“How about the Candy doll? Or that one cartoon?”
“No, not that one either.”
“Really?!”
“Look, we didn’t have television, and we didn’t have those dolls. All we had were bullets. We played with bullets,” she says while she laughs and spoons another bite of seafood cocktail into her mouth.
She then went on to tell me how the only toys available at that time were a little black doll for girls and a toy gun for boys. Oh, the irony (or strategy) of sensitizing young boys to guns in a war zone. And to further make her point she says, what mother wants to buy her son a toy gun during a war, but then again what mother won’t buy her son the only toy in town.
She also related stories of air raids. She explained that every home had dug an L-shaped “safe haven” in the back patio in case the town was under attack. Her father cared for their L-shaped trench, flattening its black dirt, ensuring its safety. She went on to tell me about the night that ¨the war came¨in 1988. They were ordered to hole up into their safe haven. As they made their way toward their L-shaped home, they discovered, to their surprise, that the earthen trench was filled with water; there would be no entering! She relays these stories with bright eyes, a laugh at the corners of her mouth. Then she says, “It’s terrible to live through war. It’s terrible,” then quickly goes back to nibbling on her fish cocktail stained red with tomatoes.
Just a little taste of one woman’s history in Nicaragua.
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