This is Mrs S. She is a local midwife in the village of Fond Blanc. This is about a 45 minute walk from Cazale. Mrs S. is 84 years old. She has been delivering babies since she was young. She learned this skill from her mother. Each time she delivers a baby, she has a book where she writes their names. I asked how many and she said oh so many, too many to count. Her daughter said she has all the notebooks since she first started so many years ago. There are some families she has been present for 3 generations of births. She has been losing her eye sight and can no longer see well. This has made her sad that she had to quit her long time job. She has been receiving food boxes from RHFH for awhile now. She is thankful for this small gift to her.

Recently, she became sick. She had a fever and aches and pains. She felt like she could not get out of bed. In small villages, everyone knows when someone is ill. One day, her daughter got up early to make her some stew. When she went outside to her kitchen she found her yard had a lot of people there. They had heard Mrs S. was sick. The took everything from the daughter that she had to make the stew. Several of them said we are cooking today. Others went in and began cleaning the house. Others began sweeping the yard. Someone asked if they had any clothes that needed washing. Younger kids offered to go and carry water for them from the local source. Mrs S. said her eyes got wet, and then she began laughing. She was so happy. She decided to get out of bed and go sit on the porch and eat her freshly made stew made by her friends.

I was able to thank her for her years of service. I said all those people love you because you treated them like people. You took care of them. You loved them and cared about them. This was the village’s way of repaying her kind heart and wisdom given to them for so many years.