I've done a lot of soul searching about how to write this entry, and I'm not sure I've arrived at a conclusion, but I'm going to let it come out how it comes out.
I don't have a whole lot of experience with death, especially not the death of young people
gracias a Dios, so I'm really bad at dealing with it in general.
Last Saturday (October 12), a young woman in our community died in childbirth. If you've been reading my blog or talking to me, I'm sure you have the idea that the
Maternal and Child Health project of Peace Corps Guatemala has
something to do with deaths of this nature.
Maternal Health in Guatemala GenerallyOur whole point in being here is to stop deaths like this from happening. Watch just the first minute of
this. After that, it gets preachy and introduces very weird music. That's the reality that women here live in. Most women in my community give birth at home with the help of a trained (or untrained)
comadrona (traditional midwife). The
comadronas are trained to recognize warning signs and send the women to the hospital if they show signs of preclampsia, hemorrhage, breach birth, or anything else that could potentially complicate the delivery.
When women die, it is typically because the comadrona waited too long to send her to the hospital, because the husband refuses to let her be taken to the hospital, or because it took too long to arrive once the woman was sent.
That was not the case in my community. She started her delivery in the hospital. She did everything right.
It was so sad too because she had come to the Puesto de Salud where I work the Wednesday and Thursday of that week, once for a consultation and once for an educational charla and to receive dietary supplementation for her toddler.
The BurialI went to the burial. I didn't go to the church services or the house of the family, but I went to the cemetery for the actual burial. The cemetery in my community is beautiful and tranquil, up a hill, nestled among the corn stalks as tall as houses. And the view of mountains, the Santa Maria volcano, and the sea of corn behind make the site as gorgeous and peaceful as you could ever want.
The picture at the top is a random cemetery in Solola pulled from wikipedia. I didn't have the heart to take a picture of the cemetery and especially not of the burial. But almost all the cemeteries in Guatemala are like that--with the large, brightly colored crypts proudly displaying the names of the families buried there.
At least at the front.
The back half of the cemetery is just mounds, unmarked graves where the poorer community members bury their loved ones. The most astounding were the mounds no more than 3-4 feet long where you know they'd buried children.
The grave for the woman who died was in the back corner, all the way to the end. The neighborhood men dug the grave, placed the casket, and covered the casket with dirt all by hand. (If you've been to a funeral in the States, that alone is very different. The pall bearers roll the casket on wheels and it is lowered into the ground ceremoniously with a machine. The staff of the cemetery covers it later. Or at least that's how it's been at all the funeral's I've been to.)
There were at least a hundred people there, probably more. The mariachi band, complete with full regalia and all the instruments played for at least an hour. People were chatting, walking around, and eating fruits from the man who was, of course, selling oranges with the skins spiraled off, papaya, pineapple, and coconut--all covered with powdered nuts.
After the burial was over, I walked over to greet a work partner and she introduced me to the family who were all wearing white fabric tied around their heads. I told them I was so sorry to hear about the loss of their sister/daughter/wife/friend and they kept saying "Si, se murio mi hija/mi hermana/Maria". (Yes, my daughter/wife/Maria died). And I had no words with which to respond.
Meeting the Baby
I ran into the husband of the woman today after the first day of our Girls' Empowerment Camp (GLOW Camp, we call it. I'll get to that later.).
I asked him how he was doing, and he said he was sad and started to tear up. The other woman I was with (a representative from the Ministry of Health who also knew him) told him to be strong and not to let his kids see him cry. This was the same thing that my counterpart had told him the week before when we had stopped by his house as part of an investigation we were doing regarding why his wife died. It just struck me as odd because of how different our reaction to death is in the US.
Anyway, after that, I told him I had muchas ganas to meet the baby, and he invited me to his house de una vez. They immediately drove me in the pickup they were riding in (they even kicked someone out of the front seat so I could sit up there) and brought the baby out to meet me. He was swaddled in about 6 blankets and covered so thoroughly I couldn't tell where his head was.
He weighs around 5 pounds; the tiny little thing was born about a month early. Right now, he's drinking formula but they're looking into how to get him fed by a wet nurse or other family member who is still nursing. Bottle feeding is a little more dangerous here than in the States because if the water used to make the formula isn't properly purified or the bottles and plastic nipples aren't disinfected fully, the baby can get extremely sick and even die.
But they let me hold him for at least an hour and a half. It was the first time I got to feed a baby that little. I think that was the smallest baby I've ever seen in person.
Mourning Traditions
I'm told that there is a 9 day mourning period when someone dies in Guatemala. The funeral is almost always the next day after the death. The extended family gathers immediately after the death, and it seems like they just stay.
When I was at the home, there were close to 50 people hanging out just talking. They fed me lunch from an enormous pot of stew and rice (and of course, let's not forget the tamales. It was awesome and delicious, and I couldn't believe and yet was not surprised that they had invited me into their home for lunch.
I gave the mother of the woman who died, the customary kiss on the cheek as I entered and again as I exited, but she held me in a tight hug as she thanked me for joining them after her daughter's death. That struck me as odd. For me, I felt like I was invading, that I had entered a sacred space for the family, and they were grateful to me that I had cared to show up. Such a different (and in so many ways more beautiful) way of viewing mourning.
I'm sure I'll find out more of what mourning is like in Guatemala as I continue my service. Sorry this entry was so long. I'm sure there's so much more I want to say about this, but that's what I've been thinking about for the last week (and the reason why you haven't gotten an entry in that long).