When I first arrived in Aurahua, my new hometown for the
next two years, my entrance wasn’t exactly glorious. I came in the middle of
the night, burdened with suitcases, furniture, and mattresses to furnish my
room. We had already dropped off and moved in Nathan and Jeannie and, when it
was finally my turn, it was past 9:00 at night. People get up really early in
my town, so naturally they go to bed early as well. When we pulled up to my
house, everyone was asleep. Not exactly the dramatic entrance I had in mind,
but at least I had survived our gigantic shopping spree in Chincha and made it
across the swerving, bumpy dirt road to my new home in one piece.
The next day I greeted my rather surprised homestay family
and enjoyed breakfast with them. Because I had originally told them that I
would arrive in the afternoon, they thought something had gone wrong and I
wasn’t arriving. Nope! As you’ll learn very quickly in the Peace Corps, plans
never go the way you want them to. When 8:00 rolled around, I quickly headed to
our local health center, which is located about two blocks away from my house.
A week or so earlier, when I first visited my site, I had made a schedule with
some of my new socios (vocab lesson: socio = a work counterpart). We had made a
day-by-day plan where they would gradually show me around town and introduce me
to anyone important. I was eager to start, since, according to the calendar we
had made, today I was supposed to go to the municipality and meet the mayor.
When I walked into the health center for the first time, I
could tell immediately that my socios had forgotten about me. Again, because I
didn’t arrive exactly when I was supposed to, I think they thought I had
chickened out and wasn’t actually coming. Fishing for something to have me do, they
instead sent me in a pickup truck to visit the caserios (caserio = a small
satellite town). It wasn’t exactly what was on the schedule, but I wasn’t going
to complain. My site has around 15 caserios, and most of them are about 1-2
hours walking distance away. Most of the health needs are concentrated in these
caserios, so it’s very likely I’ll be doing lots of work in these towns. A
visit, especially one in a car (a rare commodity where I live), would be very
practical.
Things started off well. We visited about three caserios,
and the third one in particular, Antacancha, had a lot of promise. I was able
to meet with some of the community leaders, and they explained how they were
currently trying to a community biogarden. When they learned that I had been
trained in how to cultivate and plan these gardens, everyone got really
excited. My first day and I’m already finding projects to do! Everything
started to look great until we got to Chocoro, a caserio about 1 hour away from
Aurahua, As we started to get back into the car to head to the next caserio, we
were flagged down by a technician from the Cochamarca health post. She informed
us that there was a woman giving birth to twins and the second baby was
breached and not moving. The local ambulance had broken down, and they had to
use our truck to get the woman to the Aurahua health center. I was quickly
escorted to the woman’s house, where we found her laid on top of a wool
blanket. We used it as a mock-stretcher and helped carry her into the backseat
of the car as she screamed and cried. Thankfully there was a local obstetrician
there too. I felt lost. Even though I was wearing scrubs, I had no idea how to
handle the situation and felt completely useless. So, I cautiously approached
the obstetritan and asked how else I could help. No sooner had the words left
my mouth, she turned and shouted, “TAKE THIS!” and handed me a damp bundle. Rather
dumbfounded, I looked inside and was greeted by a freshly born, still goopy
baby girl.
Jesus Christ.
I am not a baby person. I don’t know how to interact with
them. I don’t know to talk to them. Hell, I don’t even know how to HOLD them
properly, and now here I am in a crisis situation in the middle of nowhere in
Peru with a very, VERY recently born baby girl. I tried to remember everything
I had every heard about proper baby-holding. Ok, I thought, just support
the head. I know they can’t hold up their head, so just keep the neck stable.
Keep the neck stable. Keep the neck stable. Keep…
Well, let me tell you, that was harder said than done. We
drove to Aurahua as fast as we could, which was not exactly a smooth, gentle
ride. We’re in the middle of the mountains, so the roads were extremely curvy.
Also, there are no paved roads. Imagine the bumpiest, rockiest, most pothole
ridden rode you’ve ever driven on and you’ll start to get a picture of what the
roads are like here. As we were jostled around the car, I did my best to keep
the baby safe without dashing its brains out on the window shield or smother it
in its own blanket. However, my discomfort was nothing compared to the woman in
the backseat. She was tossed all over the place, even thought the technician
and the obstetrician were doing their best to keep her stable. I couldn’t
exactly blame her for crying and moaning in pain the whole way.
We were about 3/4ths of the way there when the obstetrician
shouted that we had run out of time and we had to stop the car immediately. As
I watched in horror, she reached up inside the woman and turned the baby. The
woman than gave birth to baby #2 in the backseat of the pickup truck.
Let me just reiterate that again. She gave birth. Right
behind me. In a truck.
A TRUCK.
When the baby was finally held up, my heart sank to my
stomach. The little girl was cyanotic and blue as ice. I wanted to be sick, to
be anywhere else but that car, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away. I watched as
they tried to resuscitate the baby ON TOP OF THE MOTHER, pushing on her little
chest and trying to pull fluid out of her nose with a plunger. I watched as the
mother stared at the roof of the car, knowing that her newborn daughter was
lying on top of her and not breathing. I looked at the other baby on my arms,
knowing that one of the first things she was seeing was her dead sister in the
backseat. It took every fiber of my willpower to not throw-up or break out in
sobs.
Realizing that there was nothing else we could do, we
restarted the car and drove as fast as we could to Aurahua. As we sped trough
the mountain passes, all I could think about was my own life and birth. Why was
I lucky enough to be born in a hospital, under the dedicated care of my parents
and a full-fledged medical staff, while this little girl didn’t? Why was she
never given a chance? Why life so unfair? And why was God showing me this? What
was I possibly supposed to learn from witnessing something so tragic and
horrible? What was the point of it all? I wasn’t ready for this. This isn’t
what I signed up for.
After what seemed like ages, we finally made it to the Aurahua
health center. We were very lucky that our own obstetrician was working that
day and was in the office. As we skidded to a stop, we all piled out of the car
and carried both babies and the mother inside to the birthing room. Aurahua is
equipped with infant oxygen tanks, so the staff began re-administering CPR to
the cyanotic girl. Then a miracle occurred – the baby actually started
breathing and crying. Both little girls, and the mother too, lived.
Needless to say, I was quite freaked out.
Doing my best not to pass out and lose all self-control, I
quietly excused myself and crawled back to my room. After staring at a wall for
about 10 minutes in a semi-comatose state, I picked up my cell phone and called
one of my program directors. After sobbing over the phone and explaining
everything that happened, I made him promise – no, SWEAR upon everything that
he held dear and holy – that what I had just gone through was not a typical day
and would never happen again.
When I had significantly calmed down, I started to think
back on what I had just seen. Again, I kept wondering why, exactly, God had put
me in that car and made we witness something so traumatic on my first day. One
of the Peace Corps goals within the health program is to focus on mothers with
children under 3 years-old and teen mothers. Due to my insecurity with mothers
and my own personal discomfort around small kids, I had sort of tried to
sidestep this goal and figure out ways to avoid working with this at-risk
group.
Not anymore.
If anything is to be learned from this experience, it’s the dire
need for mothers to be the center of attention. I feel as if I’ve been shown a
very clear picture as to why I’m here and what I need to focus on.
Now it’s time to get to work.
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