Stephen Andersen- “Motherhood in Africa”

Our Mother’s Day program was about Motherhood in Africa, presented by Stephen Andersen, who took a leave from his IBM job to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mali, 2005-07.

            The Peace Corps is a US government program, begun in 1961, aimed at promoting world peace and friendship, through better understanding of Americans by other peoples, as well as better understanding of other peoples by Americans. Volunteers live among the people they work with in other countries. Examples of Peace Corps initiatives include water projects, health clinics, radio stations, cyber cafes, and helping to set up businesses.

            Africa is not (as many people think) a country, but a continent with 53 nations, and about 13% of the world’s population – but only 2% of its economy. Mali is rated the fourth poorest country on Earth. It is 98% Muslim. Steve worked in a village called Sanakorobo.

            He related how stepping off the plane for the first time in Mali was a great shock, not only because of the 105 degree temperature (at midnight). What struck him most powerfully was the extreme poverty, and it was evident from his presentation that it is something he still hasn’t gotten over.

            Steve ran down the characteristics of extreme poverty: chronic hunger; no health care; no clean water or sanitation; no education; lack of rudimentary shelter; and extreme suffering or death from small causes. He told the story of someone he met, a police officer (on a social rung way above the bottom in Mali) who accidentally cut his foot while starting his motorbike. The kind of medical attention we’d consider routine was not available in Mali. In a few months, the man was dead.

            Women face particular health challenges, mostly related to childbearing in primitive conditions. The risks are aggravated by the still-widespread practice of female “circumcision” (genital mutilation). The purpose is to promote marital fidelity by eliminating female sexual pleasure. It also promotes death in childbirth through excessive bleeding.

            Steve spoke too of some of the frustrations that he himself, coming from a developed society, experienced in Mali: chronic health problems of one kind or another; poor diet; chipped teeth from stones and bone fragments in food; and neighbors with loud TVs. Yes – it was common to watch TV outdoors, or to play loud music, while socializing, late into the night. [Sensitive aesthetes should skip the rest of this paragraph] And then there was the matter of toilet amenities, of which there were none. Steve explained that, in Mali, in lieu of toilet paper, one used one’s left hand, taking care always to shake hands with the right.

            One point Steve returned to several times was that, despite their seemingly bleak conditions of life, people he encountered were predominantly cheerful and friendly; and that children, especially, despite having so little, generally exuded happiness.

            He also told about his visit to Kibera, Africa’s second largest slum (after Soweto), in Kenya, on the continent’s other side, with around a million inhabitants. There he hooked up with an indigenous business enterprise, crafting saleable tshotchkas (an African word, meaning “gewgaws”) from, among other things, discarded bones. Steve and his partner Becky displayed a large selection of such items for sale, many of them quite elegant and attractive. He briefly discussed the importance of microfinance in lifting Africans from poverty; this refers to very small loans to help poor people get a foothold in business enterprises. Conventional financial institutions do not serve such populations. Microfinance was pioneered by Muhammad Yunus, in Bangladesh, who got the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for it [a rare recognition for a salutary market-based solution to problems of poverty].

            The biggest overall lessons Steve emphasized, from his Peace Corps experience, were the preciousness of life, and how much we have to be thankful for.