One Thing After Another

This is an update on the April 7th post, “Happy Birthday.”

A few days after Geoffrey’s new baby boy had graced the world with his first cries in that awful clinic, I phoned him to see how the family was doing. He responded that the baby was fine and that the mom was in some good pain, but he then related some sad news. Because we were rushing to get Emily (his girlfriend) to the medical facility in time for the birth, Geoffrey had left the door to their one-room house un-padlocked in his haste. Because of the relatively remote location, thieves were plundering their meager possessions while Emily was laboring on the delivery table. They had taken her dresses, their only mattress, and other personal belongings that day, leaving the new Mom and Dad without the means to provide for their new child.

When Virginia and Kelly arrived at the house a day after the phone call with a baby bed, more clothes, various lotions, soaps, powders, toys, and an arsenal of new mom knowledge, they found Joel clothed in the three-month-old onesies we had given as a gift prior to the birth, and wrapped in Josiah’s old baby towel.

Because the clinic had sent this first time mom away with absolutely no instruction on hygiene, breastfeeding, or how to care for the baby in any way, Virginia wanted to instruct Emily in basic infant and self care so that she wouldn’t feel unequipped to handle the normal things that occur after birth and the feelings of anxiety starting out as a new mom.

Geoffrey and Emily are not married, either in our Western ceremonies or in the cultural African introduction. Because he took Emily to his home and began a new family without the consent of her parents and without paying the bride price for her, the parents are now demanding that she and Baby Joel move back to the village, more than eight hours away, until Geoffrey can come up with the equivalent of $900. This sum is an enormous amount of money that will take him at least one year to work for, even with assistance and loans from his employer (us). This separation is a sad start for the new family, but comes as a natural consequence of doing things in an improper way from the start.

But for such a tough life, they sure have great attitudes and smiles…