the twins...

latifatou, moises, shabi and i were sitting on my porch in the middle of a conversation when agnes, the pharmacist, ran over to my house with a flat, metal container in her hand...a woman next door to agnes was in labor and ready to give birth as we spoke...since moises arrived on his moto latifa grabbed his keys without asking as i grabbed my helmet...as i jumped on the moto that latifa has already started up, agnes handed me the metal container...suddenly we were off to find the woman...by the time we arrived she had already given birth right in the grass to twins: a boy and a girl...they were so small and barely moving...i opened the container to find gloves, scissors, and 2 small clamps...latifa put on the gloves before tying off and cutting the ambilical cords...as she was doing this, she yelled for some cloth and a basin...an older woman handed me the cloths which i quickly arranged them for wrapping up the kids to take to the health center...once the babies were wrapped, we placed them in the basin...latifa then assisted the mother with the afterbirth and afterwards wrapped the mother up to soak up the blood and extra fluids...as she was working on mom, i grabbed the basin with the twins and took them over to the moto...latifa instructed the mom to stay put and bring the kids to the center...she jumped on the moto and signaled for me to get on...my instincts were immediately in gear, i put on my helmet, picked up the basin and hopped on without thinking twice...it wasn't until we started moving that i suddenly realized that i was carrying two newborns in a basin on a motocycle...'don't you dare drop them' played in my mind like a broken record as we rode over rocks, bumps and other challenges to getting these babies to the health center safely...the faster latifa went, the harder i held on to the basin until we reached the center...

i hopped off just as fast as i hopped on and ran into the delivery room with the basin where francoise, the matron (midwife's assistant) was waiting...as soon as i got off, latifa had taken off for the mother...carefully francoise grabbed the babies from the basin, placed them on a bed and began to clean them off, weight, measure and clothe them...in the meantime, latifa arrived with the mother and placed her on the delivery table to make sure the placenta had been completely removed...when a woman gives birth at the hospital they are supposed to bring extra rags, soap, petroleum jelly and clothes for the baby...the father was somewhat paralyzed from the waist down and used a hand-pedal wheelchair to get around or placed flip-flops on his hands and dragged his feet along behind him for shorter distances...the mother was also partly paralyzed except it was her leg and arm on the left side...i have no idea what the father does but mom is a seller at the market...they also have 2 other girls: 3 and 6 years old...the family was so poor that all they had were rags...there was nothing to clothe the children in...

harmattam had just started so the temperature was starting to cool down...the babies needed to be properly dressed so i asked if we could all chip in money and buy the children some clothes...agnes who had been waiting for us at the health center collected money and went a few villages over to buy baby clothes...while agnes was gone, mother and twins were placed in the hopital section where they would stay for a few days before returning home...a few hours later agnes returned with the clothes for the twins...the mother was very touched and grateful that she kept thanking us over and over...

the following wednesday the mother had brought the twins for vaccinations...she was having a hard time breastfeeding them which we were very concerned about...we kept encouraging her to keep trying...i also made it a point to visit the family once a week, just to see how the family was doing and to monitor the progress of the twins...around the end of october i made my third visit to their home...'good afternoon'...'how are you?' 'and your husband?' 'and your girls?' 'and the twins?'...'the girl died'...'WHAT!'...'yeah, she died last week'...'of what'...'oh, we don't know she just died.'...and like that life goes on...i was astonished at their casualness when they said she died...it was as if that happens every day like brushing your teeth...or eating...something you don't think twice about...ironically, here in africa children die all the time for no reason at all...out of every 5 babies born today 1 will never reach its 5th birthday...out of every 1,000 live births, 32 children will die at birth, 35 will die within the first 2 months, 129 will die between 1 and 5 years old...so the death of the twin girl was no surprise to anyone, except to me...