BodyTalk in the Pediatric Ward

Yesterday I received the most exciting news after ballet class! Yannika approached me and told me that I could "follow Yolanda around" the following morning at the Pediatric Ward. I didn’t know what this would involve, but I was excited to see what would come of it, and to see the inner workings of a rural hospital. Excited to do something!

As a side note, I have three of the most powerful women in Macha in my ballet class (including the notorious Dr. Yannika, who I actually really like when we’re not discussing complimentary healthcare). There are also many men, from the age of 16 to a grandfather who wears yellow lense sunglasses and his shirt unbuttoned to his navel. He’s pretty cool actually. He’s a father of eight. Just one wife I think. Some here have two or three! One day he was referencing some world history and he said, "You have to know what’s going on in the world, even if you’ll never see it." I started crying, and then started laughing because I was so embarrassed to be crying. He will never see the world, and it made me sad, but it made me happy that he cared so much about it, and that he valued knowledge and understanding. The first thing he asked me when we met was, "How are the fires there?" He knew that Southern California was burning? How? Why? It was cool. So anyway, ballet on Monday was good. I’m trying to get the kids ready for a recital on Thursday, and I teach my last adult ballet class on Wednesday. I wish you could see it! They’re so cute. I haven’t taken any pictures, because I’m working so hard to keep the class flowing, but maybe tomorrow I’ll get Kevin to take a few. It’s also very dark in the community center where we hold the class.

So that was Monday, but today was amazing. I woke up and did the dishes out at the boar hole before the day got too hot, and put on my shetenge and a shirt with sleeves, even though I knew it would be terribly hot. Where are the rains?!? It’s been raining in Lusaka, but not here. The farmers have stopped planting til the rains come again. Maybe I should get out and do a rain dance. Then I swung by the restaurant to buy a muffin for 1500 kwatcha when I bumped into Fred. You can’t go anywhere without bumping into someone. I’ve been talking to Fred about BodyTalk for a week now, and he finally had time for a session for his stomach ulcers. So I did my first BodyTalk session on a Zambian! He’s the one who owns the radio station, and hopes to be a future president of Zambia. So that was fun. Then I hurried off to the hospital and found someone at reception to take me to the pediatric ward. I found Yolanda right away and she took me on a tour of the ward, showing me every baby and telling me why they were there. Several of the babies were in pain, and I showed her ways of touching them that would calm them and relieve some of their pain. Basically BodyTalk without the tapping, and techniques from my compassionate touch training with Heart Touch. After the tour I just started making the rounds; doing BodyTalk Access without the physical tapping (just doing it mentally), until I realized no one was monitoring me, and I could do anything I wanted. Even the nurses didn’t blink at me wandering in and out of their office to wash my hands. So different than the States. It was an amazing experience. I don’t even know how to begin to write about it. The first boy I worked with had just come from surgery on his leg. A cart pulled by oxen had fallen on his leg and the infection had spread down to the bone. He was screaming and squirming just out of surgery, and I started doing Fast Aid immediately. It’s a series of techniques where you balance the brain, link the brain to the injured area, balance the brain again, and then balance the reciprocal to the area. All of this helps to restore the Mind to the area to speed up healing. The boy calmed down immediately, and I did Access on him. As soon as we finished reciprocals, he had to use the bathroom, which is common I find, and when he returned I did Cortices a few more times and he fell asleep. His father was there and I showed him how he could touch his head to help calm him. His father was the only parent of a patient that spoke English. And the only father, come to think of it. Mostly mothers, and mostly babies. His son was about 6, I think. Then I worked on a boy who was crying and fussing and I calmed him down with Fast Aid to his injured arm and some Access. I picked him up and put him in a bed, because he was lying on the floor with his mother. Imagine. I loved carrying his warm body into bed. I wish I could have taken pictures to show you. If only you could look into my mind. They’ll live there forever. I got him calmed down and I was able to communicate to the mother that she needed to bathe him. She did shortly after, to my surprise. I washed my hands and moved on to an orphan from another village. This baby came in sick, and had an infection on his lips and they were all bloody. I did some Access, Fast Aid, and compassionate touch on him. The BodyTalk and touch really, calmed him down. He was one of my favorites.

None of the babies fought me at first, and if there was a parent or guardian, they didn’t question me either. I guess, if you’re white, you can do whatever you want. They assume you're a doctor or nurse! I worked with many other little babies there, some more briefly than others. Some were sleeping peacefully, and I didn’t want to wake them by touching them.

Then I moved into the section of the Pediatric Ward where they keep babies with HIV. There was a little baby girl who was breathing really short and was in pain. Her hands were wrapped with clothe so she wouldn’t pull the IV in her nose out. When I was with Yolanda, she was the third baby I worked with. She had looked right up at me and looked me dead in the eyes. None of the others had done this. Her short breathing stopped for a minute and she seemed to improve, but then returned to the short breathing, Her mother was lying there beside her. Both the baby and the mother were very beautiful. I went to this baby first when I entered the room because I sensed she had the greatest need. However when I approached her later in the afternoon, she pushed my hand away with her wrapped hand. I went to touch her again and she wouldn’t let me. She was staring me in the eyes. I finally listened inside and realized that she was telling me "no". I didn’t know why. But I had to respect that and I washed my hands and moved on.

I worked with many children who were malnourished, dehydrated, and lacking protein, and therefore had these little sores on their skin. Many were small for their age, and their skin hung off their arms like clothes that were two sizes too big. Some children willingly let me work with them, and others pushed me away. Some slept through, and others woke up and said, "no". I was surprised, but interested by this response. One room was full of mothers feeding their babies nshima and rape as I made my rounds. The women were interested in what I was doing, but they didn’t speak English. After I worked on one baby, one woman would mimic what I was doing, and point towards another baby to get me to work on that one. The last boy I worked on was another double orphan, who was about to be discharged after coming in with TB. He had a big swollen belly, and the grandmother was the first to ask me for some food. I had finished my rounds then, and I had to leave to get food, so I told her I’d be back with something. I made it back to the other side of the village just in time to catch Kevin finishing his creative writing class, and we ordered some lunch. It’s the only way to get meat since they don’t sell it at the market. You have to raise your own animals, or travel an hour to Choma. Kevin told me at lunch that our alcoholic neighbor had been by that day to tell Kevin that Florence’s sister had died, and he hinted he didn’t have any money to send the sister's body back to her family in Mapanza. Florence was my friend, and I'm sad for her loss. After eating lunch and setting aside some chicken and rice for the boy, I went back to the ward. I found the boy, and it was so fun to give him the food. Then I went to check on the babies I had worked on that morning. The boy post-surgery was still sleeping, and the baby with the mouth infection was doing better. The boy with the injured arm was sitting up, totally aware and looking at me. It was amazing to see. I never made it to the other side of the ward, because I passed a woman sitting on the ground next to a crib with a tiny, tiny baby in it. She was crying, and I asked, "What happened" and she said, "My mother died" and burst into tears. It was the first time all day that I cried and I gave her a long hug. She said, "How will I care for this baby?" Imagine having nothing, and having a new baby, and no milk in your breasts to feed it. Though once she gets home, her village will traditionally help her care for it. I realized a few minutes into it, that it was not her mother who had died, it was the newborn baby’s mother. I looked at the paperwork she had and saw that the mother was severely anemic and had hemorrhaged after delivering, and died three days later. This woman was the sister to the father, who now had to care for the baby. I watched the baby while she went to get something, and when she returned I gave her some money. Suddenly there was screaming down the hall and I passed a room with a mother screaming and whaling and lying over her child. Another woman was standing there with her hands over the baby's eyes. I assumed the baby had died, but I didn't know who it was. Minutes later, Yolanda arrived back and we figured out which baby it was. It was the first baby to tell me "no". I think she was ready to die.

On my way out the door a sick woman had just arrived at the hospital, and I helped the men load her onto a cart from the back of a pick up truck. She was wrapped in shetenges, wimpering, covered in sweat with her breasts hanging out. Again, there is something about carrying a warm, sick body that is like nothing else. I wonder if I could hold them a little longer, if I could make them better. Then I went home to wash my hands and take a nap. Can’t get the smell of the ward off though.

Tonight we had a really nice pasta dinner at Karen’s house. She just got back from Lusaka, so she had cheese at her house! I gave Sandra a BodyTalk session after dinner. Two Zambians in one day. Oh and I did my second BodyTalk session on the village of Matcha this afternoon. For the BodyTalkers, it was permission for the heart to be balanced, linked to It is Safe to Receive love. First session was a permission to be healthy linked to Cell Repair on HIV medication (very toxic). Oh and I also found out that I have two massage clients here in Macha that I’ve got to schedule in over the next two days! Well goodnight friends. Wish I were home, but glad to be here all at the same time. See you soon!