Travels with Ali: Researching childbirth in coastal Kenya
By Jessica Novak
My journey to understanding the network of women in coastal Kenya began on a bicycle. A big, black and lumbering machine, it belonged to Ali, my translator and my first link to another world. He pedaled straight-backed and effortlessly down long dirt roads and narrow paths, while I sat sidesaddle on the metal grate over the back tire. Gathering my skirt around my knees so that it wouldn’t catch in the spokes of the wheel, I balanced somewhat precariously, cringing when the occasional matatu roared past, churning up great clouds of dust.
I was in coastal Kenya to study the complexities of childbirth. I didn’t know it then, but Ali would lead me to discover the unique bonds between women, created by the experience of childbirth.
Traveling with Ali always proved to be an adventure. On the day of our second meeting, we traveled to Madungunei, where the second of Ali’s wives lived. In the heat of midday , we walked from my guesthouse near the ocean to the matatu station, where we boarded an overcrowded matatu headed for Madungunei. I sat toward the back, squeezed into a seat that wasn’t actually a seat at all. Held in place by the bodies of the two men on either side of me, I felt as if I were a passenger on the hottest and smelliest matatu in the history of public transportation. The frail, older man to my left seemed to share this conviction, and he sat hunched over his long wooden cane, barely able to move from the steadily rising temperature and from lack of space. The man to my right, however, was oblivious to all discomforts as he chomped away on his morning snack of fish heads wrapped in a greasy page of newspaper.
While we were waiting for the final passenger to board, Ali persuaded someone to give me a new position in the front seat. Guiltily I accepted, and climbed in to sit between the driver and the chief of Madungunei.
The route to Madungunei was a never-ending red dirt road, filled with rocks and potholes that threatened to overturn our matatu . After an hour of travel that left my teeth chattering from the vibrations of the engine and the rough terrain, we finally arrived at our destination. It was a 15-minute walk to Ali’s home, and the only hints that we hadn’t come to the end of the earth were occasional mud and thatch houses, often with a naked toddler staring from the darkness of the doorway,
At his home Ali showed off a pile of skinny logs, and told me of his plans to build a better house for his family in Madungunei. He sat me down on a wooden bench near the wall of his existing house (a one-room building with nothing but a mattress on the dirt floor) and brought his pregnant wife, Mwanasha, and his mother, Mama Nyundo Baya, an expert birth attendant, to join us.
Mama Nyundo wore a purple khanga wrapped around her body like a towel. Her hair was cut close to the scalp, and the dark tight curls were just beginning to give in to the white that had begun to grow. Her bare feet were gray with dust and dirt, hardened by many years of calluses, and she looked her sixty-three years. Mwanasha, who sat next to me, had a beautiful smile, and her black sleeveless shirt covered a belly that was small for a woman eight months pregnant. Her hair was braided and a safety pin was woven through one of the braids. A boy of a little more than one year clung to her legs, watching me with wide eyes. He wore a red T-shirt large enough to allow for a few more years of growth, and sometimes mustered up the courage to poke a tiny finger into my thigh.
Mama Nyundo answered many of my questions, but shook her head and walked away when Mwanasha spoke of things that she believed should not be discussed in the presence of a man. A thirty-year-old mother of three, with a fourth due to arrive in a month, Mwanasha was an odd combination of maturity and girlishness, of curiosity and indifference. She explained that Muslim women do not sleep with their husbands for forty days after giving birth because the woman is often still paining, might still bleed occasionally, and has a bad odor. The passing of forty days is celebrated with the naming of the baby, and the shaving of the infants head (this is done for cleanliness, and Ali was surprised to learn that this is not practiced in America . He laughed and claimed that this is the reason why the hair of the mzungu has such a fine texture). Mwanasha explained the delay in giving the child a name by telling me that the fear of death during early infancy causes parents to be wary of announcing a name, which would suggest the child’s permanence in their lives.
Excited to help me learn, Ali volunteered his mother and wife for a physical demonstration. Feeling intrusive yet excited, I followed the women into the house. I watched Mama Nyundo rub coconut oil into a greasy ring around the circumference of her daughter-in-law’s round stomach, and deftly massage, using her strong fingers and entire palm. In less than 10 minutes the exam was complete, and announcing the baby to be well and in a good position, she left the dusty room. Next it was my turn, and I tentatively placed my hands on Mwanasha’s brown belly. I was barely able to decipher the developing limbs of the child, but I could feel a hard form gently protruding underneath protective layers of fatty tissue. Her belly was shiny from the oil, and I could see where the skin had stretched in its renovation to accommodate a second person. I looked up at Mwanasha, and she laughed. I laughed with her, sharing the wonder of the phenomena of childbirth.
Later, alone in my room, my notebooks scattered on the bed and small desk, images of women and babies filled my thoughts. I could hear through my window the constant chaos that is everyday life in urban Kenya—the call for prayer, bicycle bells, men and women yelling, children laughing, and the babies that seem always to be crying.
From my friendship with Ali and his wife, I had come to appreciate the cycles of life that connect women and families: Babies are born; some will die before their first birthday, some will grow into remarkable children. Some will grow so old they will stop counting the years and come to possess intriguing wisdom. An everyday miracle, the swelling of a woman’s belly links young and aged with incredibly strong and colorful threads.
Jessica Novak graduated from Connecticut College in 2003 with a degree in Gender and Women’s Studies and Dance. While there she participated in the School for International Training’s Kenya Coastal Studies program.