May 4-6 Midwifery conference and trip to Pokhara

A clear day in Kathmandu!

Greetings from Pokhara!

 May 6, five of us (Krista, Kristi, Cathy, Mickey, and I) traveled by tourist bus from Kathmandu to Pokhara. It was a beautiful drive. The landscape in this part of Nepal was much more fertile and lush than the Karnali region that we took our jeep ride through last week. Kristi kept commenting on how dry it was and I kept saying it looked great. A matter of perspective for sure!

We checked into Sacred Valley Hotel. Luckily they sent our driver in a large passenger van. We need it for our luggage. We are bringing teaching materials, donations and all our supplies for our 3 week clinical placement in Baglung so we have A LOT of luggage. It filled the back of the van and a good portion of the roof too!

Now to go back a few days. Cathy, Mickey and I were at the Midwifery conference on May 4. Cathy was the figure or oratory, which was a great honour. For us, just getting back from Mugu region, Kathmandu has been a stark contrast and even our drive up to Pokhara was a bit of a culture shock. At the conference there were hundreds of people, mostly women, many of them with lots of education and expertise in the field of maternity care. I had been feeling quite heavy about the state of women in the Mugu area and meeting leaders in the field in Nepal was good for me. So much needs to be done to improve the lives of those women, however at the conference I met many energetic passionate people who are currently working in programs and on projects that are trying to help address this. Additionally, all the midwifery leaders we already knew from MIDSON were in attendance as well and it was so nice to see them again. Especially Nani and she was the one person there who had been to Mugu with us and truly understood. In the afternoon I attended the sessions relating to uterine prolapse and violence against women. One presentation by Aruna Uprety was on acceptance and success of using pessaries for women who have uterine prolapse. They found that a majority of women still had the pessary at follow up and that it improved their quality of life - this is a great alternative to surgery and hopefully will be used in more places in Nepal as uterine prolapse here is quite common. Poverty, pregnancies early in life, lack of skilled attendant at birth, and returning to hard work too soon are some of the factors that lead to more uterine prolapse. Another presentation was on the relationship between having prolapse and spousal violence. Women were more likely to experience emotional, physical and sexual violence from their partner if they suffered from uterine prolapse. There was also a fascinating presentation by an anthropology fellow on the maternal-child health situation post-earthquake. He mentioned that in Nepal, often good results are found to please donors and alluded to the fact that some information that has been presented in the past may be focusing on all the accomplishments,perhaps even exaggerating them, whereas his work was focused on noticing what still needed to be done. Unfortunately due to the delayed schedule of the conference his presentation was cut short, but I have requested the paper when it is published and look forward to reading it! Since arriving here I have read 5-6 books, non-fiction and fiction about Nepal and many research papers - anything to learn more about the context is helping me to better understand what I am a witness to.

Nani and I

The night of the 4th we spent up on our hotel rooftop patio in Kathmandu, singing with some new friends we made here. Funny enough, many of them are Canadian! It was a good end to the night when I came down off the patio and jumped into a taxi to go the airport to get Kristi and Krista! I arrived at the airport and walked in just in time to see them walking out! It is very exciting to be with them and have comrades for the next part of our journey!

We all went to the conference on May 5th, International Day of the Midwife and got sashes that say International Day of the Midwife May 5 in Nepali! It was so nice to be able to celebrate this special day with our friends and colleagues in Nepal. It was also great to be at a midwifery conference and to learn about what is happening in Nepal in relation to maternal and child health and the development of midwifery. We were assured again at the conference that the Bachelor level Midwifery will be available in Nepal soon. We all hope this is the case and that strong, brave women take up the call to serve the women of Nepal with compassionate skilled midwifery care.

Likely (hopefully) you will be hearing less from me and more from Kristi and Krista to get a new and fresh perspective on our journey. I will continue to write occasionally though. Thank you for continuing to follow our experience. More pictures from Mickey to come!