38. From a distance

What have these three got in common?: 

• the Atacama Desert; 
• butter beans; and 
• Sir Alfred Herbert? 

I'll give you a clue: this blog-post, when it settles finally into its weighty purpose, will get  tellingly close - too close maybe - to a very tough issue.

So: what do the Atacama, butter beans and Sir Alfred have in common? 
If you need more time, then look away, because here is the answer: 
They all look better from a distance.

With the Atacama, the reason is self-evident: It’s drier than binomial distribution tables, and, (like the study of them), when you get stuck in it, it kills you. 
(I am told that, in probability theory, the binomial distribution with parameters n and p is the discrete probability distribution of the number of successes in a sequence of n independent y/n experiments, each of which yields p probability of success. See what I mean?)

To give credit where it is due, however, the Atacama is a majestic way to dry out ...

... but nevertheless is best appreciated from a considerably long way off.

A butter bean is the second example of something, which, when experienced close up, is distinctly less palatable. Fair enough, from a distance a gang of them can look dishonestly appetising …

… but inadvertently bite into one of these imposters, and your incisors feel like they’ve just got stuck into a long-abandoned mouse-nest hiding behind the lettuce. Butter beans masquerade as vegetables; they pretend to enhance good-for-you salads; they impersonate new Jersey Royal potatoes. But in fact they are nothing more than badly-packaged sawdust.

Sir Alfred Herbert is my third example of something more readily appreciable from further away. He was a 20^th century Coventry philanthropist, and Officer of the Belgian Order of Leopold. (In case you are wondering, I believe that the Belgian Order of Leopold was “Apportez-moi meer chocolade”, but I am not sure.)

Sir Alfred donated an art gallery to Coventry, and within is the most stunning piece of art I have ever seen: the size of an entire wall, it depicts Sir Alfie by means of the most extraordinary and unlikely technique. Not only is it best seen from the other side of the gallery, but you actually need a video to take it in:

https://youtu.be/BfAW7aLayNg

Some things, then, are better appreciated from a distance.

Which leads me seamlessly into the next wisp of thought-vapour emanating from the spout of my ageing kettle: 

“From a distance” was the title of an iconic song of my youth.

Actually, I was 39 when it came out, but I felt young inside.

(Funny, isn’t it, how you keep on feeling 18, even when you need help putting your socks on; help hearing conversations in your garden when two bees are chatting in next-door’s; help finding your glasses when someone has left them on top of your head; and help remembering who this person is who just greeted you like an old friend, but whose face is only vaguely familiar, like a book you might have read, but didn’t.) (He’s your next-door neighbour, by the way. Also ex-rugby team-mate, who shared a desk with you at work; who carried you down to base-camp when you broke your leg on Everest; married your sister; and is godfather to three of your children. But normally he wears glasses.)

Anyway, “From a distance” was the title of an iconic song of my youth.

There’s a bit in it that goes:

“From a distance,

We are instruments

Marching in a common band,

Playing songs of hope,

Playing songs of peace,

They are the songs of every man.”

For a generation of Baby Boomers, brought up on Love-Not-War, this struck a beautiful and harmonious chord. We really did feel the hope and the peace.

But what, I now wonder, did the song mean by “from a distance”?

Did it mean from far away in space? In time? In perception?

Surely it did not mean that from a distance there was hope and peace, but when you got right up close, it turned out that there was just corruption and irreconcilable intolerance?

         

I don’t think so.

Of course, corruption and intolerance are with us always, and you will always stumble over them when trying to influence any of the world's crises. But I think perhaps that the song was saying this: there is such a thing as being too close to a problem. You only see the day-to-day frustrations; the two steps back not the three steps forward; the fly, not the ointment; the one curmudgeon, not the hundred supporters; the broken parachute, not the lovely view. (Note to self: need to work on the metaphors.)

From a distance, in other words, you can see how far we have come, rather than only how far left to go. 

So, from a distance, the EMBRACE-Tushikamane project has grown from being a shy skinny infant of a project, to a well-balanced healthy youngster, ready to leave home and set the world to rights. From a distance, we have come a long way – as chronicled in this blog, and summarised in the recent post:

http://yellowchuckchucks.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/tushikamane-we-are-in-solidarity.html

However, if there is such a thing as being too close to a problem, there is also such a thing as being too far away.  

Last week, five thousand miles away in Dar Es Salaam, our new Tanzanian Project Leader was due to activate his role, with the objective of having five ‘community participation’ groups up and running by next Easter. A short time into the job, he has resigned.

From close up, this is a disaster. Who will run the project now?

A central point at issue, however, was what to do about the status quo encountered in many African schemes: corruption. The Project Leader’s proposal included the payment of ‘thank-you’ sums to village leaders, to ‘incentivise’ them to allow us into the village. Yes, really. To allow us to help them reduce maternal and child death.

Should we bribe village leaders to allow us to help bring the village into the twenty-first century? No. No!! No!!! This is not the way to lead under-resourced people into a better world. Of course, I understand that corruption not only exists, but is deeply embedded in many countries. I know that fighting it at high level is a thankless though not hopeless task. However, although it might be naïve to believe it, we are on the cusp of something new and fresh: the empowerment of women in rural impoverished communities, with the sure knowledge that this leads to betterment of village life at every level.

We have been privileged to be party to the World Health Organisation’s most modern strategy for preventing the tragic loss of mothers and children. We have been presented with all their materials and methodology. Now we are going to make it happen. Corrupt back-handers to traditional village leaders are not part of this vision, and, I firmly hope, will not only be rejected by those organising the support of the communities, but also by the communities themselves.

We have a plan B, and even as I write this, the Berega and Tunguli communities themselves are coming up with a responsible and sustainable strategy, which does not include 'incentives'. More of this in the next blog.

Managing the process from five thousand miles away has the advantage of allowing me not to be over-disconcerted by set-backs. I can see where we are going, and I know all too well how bad the problems were before we began the journey. Going back is not an option.

However, what we also need now, besides the vision and direction, is the right people in the right roles. Close to the heart of the problems, we need Tanzanians who take a dogged and courageous pride in what we hope to achieve. Rural Africans who are determined that the villages will leave far behind them both the tragedy and corruption of days gone by.

Maybe their children will look back, from a distance, and feel the warm glow expressed by a song they never heard, but maybe always knew:

  

“From a distance, there is harmony, and it echoes through the land.
It’s the hope of hopes, it’s the love of loves, it’s the heart of every man.”

For reference: Tushikamane: We are in solidarity!

Many people have requested an up-to-the-minute description of what is about to happen in rural Tanzania: reducing deaths of mothers and babies beginning with the formation of women's groups in remote rural communities.

Here is a short résumé:

In the UK, one mother in 10,000 dies in relation to giving birth – about one every two years. In rural Tanzania, by contrast, nearly 1 in every 100 women dies in childbirth, and up to 10% of children do not reach their fifth birthday. In this vast but peaceful country, the reasons are many and interconnected: lack of access to health care; social inequality; lack of education; chronic disease; malnutrition; long distances to travel when sick; poor family planning; and poor transport. Underlying it all, 90% of the population live on $2/day or less.

How do we in the privileged world help mend such awfulness? It is not as simple as trying, from 5,000 miles away, to fix the problems with water, nutrition, sanitation, education, transport, or antenatal care. Sadly, Africa does not work like that. The ambulance breaks down. The family planning service is not used. The Traditional Birth Attendant continues to watch helplessly as the woman bleeds to death from a ruptured uterus, or dies in convulsions from eclampsia.

In this litany of tragedy, however, a new and hopeful song is emerging: the voice of women.

Engaging with rural African women, and finding what they think about their own problems, is a complex and difficult task. But giving them a voice in their own communities, and allowing small rural villages to set their own priorities, is finally making a substantial impact on death. In Malawi, this approach produced a 74% reduction in maternal death, and a 41% reduction in death of babies.

http://vimeo.com/12427420

This stunning achievement is perhaps less surprising when you consider how many of the causes of untimely death of mothers and babies would be in part influenced by maternal choice: seeking help early; breast feeding; immunisation; better nutrition; take-up of antenatal care and family planning; etc.

Can Malawi’s success be exported to its northern neighbour? We intend to find out! Berega Hospital serves a vast and inaccessible territory of rural Tanzania with a population of 217,000. There are 8,500 births/year, of which only 1000 occur in a health facility. After two years of planning, a new project now hopes to reduce tragic deaths, and to bring sustainable and multi-faceted enrichment to the lives of the women of this area.

The project is called: EMBRACE: ‘Empowering Women & Babies to Receive Adequate Care & Equality’. (In Swahili: Tushikamane: ‘We are working together in solidarity’.) Through empowerment and education of women – including young pregnant women, as well as Traditional Birth Attendants, Village Health Workers, Hamlet Leaders and key women – the project will seek to help these remote villages find their own way forward into the twenty-first century.

In each hamlet, working with existing authorities and structures, a women’s group be formed. It will begin by listening to the stories of women of child-bearing age: remarkable mothers who give birth and raise children far from any modern help. It will then seek to explore the roots of the problems of maternal and child mortality. As the conversations delve deeper into the problems, gradually others are drawn in to make their contribution: the men; the community health workers; teachers; existing charities and NGOs; Governmental initiatives; etc.

At the end of a defined process, each group will identify local needs, and will set out locally-developed potential solutions – many of which will go beyond health: eg tackling education, transport, water, sanitation, food, agronomy, family planning and poverty.

The resulting synergy between the women, the village structures, and any agencies already trying to help, will provide a mechanism through which to channel future help. Already, charities both here in the UK, as well as locally in Tanzania, are waiting eagerly for these women’s groups to be functioning throughout the area.

Greg Kabadi, the Tanzanian lead for Tushikamane, has spent fifteen years in public health projects designed to reduce the toll of death in his countrywomen. It has been a long, tough road. Now, however, having just returned from observing the Malawi success, he is truly optimistic of a new start. Finally, he believes, sustainable progress may now be made against the anachronistic tragedy of death at birth.

For more information see:

Hospital: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9YBOYn10FA

Terrain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDGP2GJRWuA

Blog: http://yellowchuckchucks.blogspot.co.uk/

email: email.lozza@gmail.com

37. “Are we nearly there yet?”

When our eldest daughter was 7, the other three were aged 5, 3, and 1 respectively.

  

For holidays, we would usually pile in the car and set off for a week’s camping on the Continent. Long car journeys, (and preparing for them), therefore, were seminars in applied child psychology:

“No, it’s not an ugly plastic rucksack I found in the park, (with nothing wrong with it except a broken zip, by the way), it’s a special magic fairy suitcase I borrowed from a princess!”

“Look! Dolly and Teddy are going for a wee before we set off! Does anyone else want to squeeze out a wee?”

“Eat up your food so you don’t get hungry on the way. Dry bread is a special treat! Who can eat theirs first?”

“Look! Dolly and Teddy are throwing up on the roadside before we set off. Does anyone else want to get car-sick before they even get in their seats?” …

“No, not you, mummy…”

“Right! Who would like to have the special snuggly seat in the boot with all the luggage?” …  

“No, not you, mummy…”

Etc.

However, once the journey is under way, the real psychological deal-breaker is the management of the deadly phrase, “Are we nearly there yet?” As plaintive as a baby’s cry; as irritating as Kim Yong Un’s haircut; and as impossible to ignore as a bevy of bickering tom-cats being struck by a falling piano. Yet ignore it you must, for the sake of your sanity. (Unless, of course, the questioner is the driver, your saintly relative by marriage, after she notices that her navigator has been asleep since Milton Keynes).

Yes, long journeys then were a real mission, full of the unexpected, and, what was worse, the expected.

However, what I failed to appreciate in those days of discovering that we should have turned right at France, is this: any number of factors might prevent you from spending a week in Marais-Isolé de Mouches, but almost all of them wreak their negative effect before the journey starts. By the time your car engine coughs into life, reaching the destination is almost guaranteed. Sooner or later. Often later. But nevertheless you arrive. It may be that you are not nearly-there-yet when you realise after driving fifty miles that you left teddy on the doorstep, but you know that, eventually, you are going to be.

And so it is that I am delighted to report that the EMBRACE-Tushikamane journey, after two years of careful planning, is finally about to begin. I wanted to say that it has been a tough two years, but, in reality, it hasn’t.

We needed first to decide how exactly we were going to tackle the awful maternal and child mortality in the rural areas served by hospitals such as Berega. You three regular blog- readers will remember that I went there for a couple of months in 2013, in the naïve hope of influencing the deaths in childbirth by improving the maternity services. It transpired that seven out of eight deaths occurred in the community, due to tantalisingly remediable causes such as lack of transport when needing a caesarean; having no money for any health intervention; lack of antibiotics in septicaemia; ruptured uterus from taking traditional medicine; lack of early recognition of blood pressure and therefore death from eclampsia; bleeding to death for lack of a simple injection to deliver the placenta, etc, etc.

This litany of awfulness would have been overwhelming had it not been for the pioneering work of Prof. Anthony Costello, Mikey Rosato, and the team at UCL, London. Anthony is the Director of Global Health, and he and his colleagues were only too well aware that charitable interventions in utterly resource-poor settings often produced only dependency and transient benefit. They therefore devised and fine-tuned a mechanism for getting each small community to participate in determining its own destiny, beginning with setting up women’s groups. Success followed success, and eventually their methodology became official WHO policy:

http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/127939/1/9789241507271_eng.pdf?ua=1

A charity was set up to perpetuate the aims – ‘Women and Children First’ – and at the same time as the system produced huge success in Malawi, under the leadership of Florida Banda:

http://www.maimwana.org/

https://vimeo.com/15751446

Fortunately for EMBRACE-Tushikamane, we have had enormous support from Mikey Rosato at W&C First, from Florida Banda in Malawi, and from Prof. Costello himself ...

... reprising his supporting role of forty-six years ago, when he played Scrooge to my Cratchit in the school play:

“A must-see triumph! *****!” (Blackheath Herald).

“Wood brought tears to my eyes!” (Belmont Hill Spectator).  

“I brought tears to Wood’s eyes!” (My mum, when I then failed my exams).

(Note the black stuff on top of my head, by the way. One day I woke up and it was gone.)

Countless other happy coincidences, (if coincidences they be), have created the circumstances for the successful start of the journey: 

• the good will of the hospital hierarchy and the leaders of the community; 
• the drive and determination of Prof. Arri Coomarasamy at the University of Birmingham and the charity Ammalife, in housing the project, finding it support;
• the provision for Helen Williams to centre her PhD thesis on the project; 
• the help of ‘Hands4Africa’ in mapping the roads; 
• the support of the Diocese of Worcester and the charity Mission Morogoro being ready to respond to at least some of the needs which will be articulated by the women’s groups; 
• the generosity of many of you supporters, in providing for the financial costs thus far;
• the free provision of materials, advice and technical support from Mikey Rosato at W&C First; 
• and finally the creation of partnership with key individuals such as Dr Godfrey Mbaruku at the Ifakara Health Institute¹, and Prof Senga Pemba at the Tanzanian Training Centre for International Health², who hope to use our project as a pilot for spreading the programme more widely in Tanzania. 

1.    http://www.ihi.or.tz/

2.    http://www.healthtrainingifakara.org/about-us.html

Additionally, the hospital itself is getting ready for any future influx. The Nursing School at the hospital has just had its registration made full instead of provisional; the paediatrician David Curnock annually visits Berega to top up skills in care of the newborn; the obstetrician Dr Ahmed Ali will be going again to Berega next month to help improve maternity services; and his wife Elizabeth, a midwife-tutor, is amidst plans to be able to foment the engagement and training of traditional birth attendants.

However, none of this journey preparation would have been of any use without a driver, and the driver needs to be in the car, not 5000 miles away in the UK. What a delight to report then, that Dr. Greg Kabadi will be taking on local leadership of the project.

Greg is Tanzanian, with 15 years of experience in project management of community-based maternal health programmes. Indeed his PhD was closely linked to the work we are doing, and he is passionate about reducing maternal death in rural Tanzania. He is a public health and African community project management specialist rather than a medic, and that actually suits our purpose better.

He will begin his association with us by seeing how this work has already achieved a major impact in a similar setting. At the beginning of July he will be visiting the Malawi team and villages, and will get first-hand experience of how the process works and of what it can achieve.

Some time in the autumn, when all is ready, he and I and Helen Williams will visit Berega and Tunguli, to meet the key people. We will finalise recruitment of staff, finding local champions of women’s issues to begin to help the women of the villages find their voice.

And so, finally, we begin.

“Are we nearly there yet?”

Of course we are nearly there! We have set off.

36 The patience of Job

In Africa, life moves at a slower pace, towards an ironically shorter end. Planned change, if it happens at all, happens in African time, which begins tomorrow, and then takes a break for a while. It is almost a sign of weakness to pitch up to a meeting on time in Africa, and it is certainly a sign of naivety, (unless there are free sandwiches), as no one else will be there.

Even African leaders are calling for Africans to set their body clocks to today:

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/788640.shtml

In rural Tanzania, then, those planning long-term, sustainable change need not just all the other positive attributes of change agents, but also the patience of Job.

(The ‘Patience of Job’, as you probably know, refers to the proverbial patience of a Biblical figure who lived, it seems, soon after Abraham.

He lost everything he had, including all his wealth, camels, sheep, donkeys, and friends – and even his children, who all died. Then, when he had patiently proved his submission to God, he was rewarded with twice as much wealth, and twice as many camels, sheep, donkeys, and friends. And also ten replacement children – these were the days before University tuition fees.)

Anyway, even Job would have raised an intolerant eyebrow at the vicissitudes of the women of rural Africa. Not dying in childbirth surely should have been an urgent need for endless generations. African women have been far too patient.

Even if Job were getting restless for action, however, it does not imply that the alternative way ahead should therefore be given over entirely to impatience.

I say this despite being something of an expert on impatience. Surgeons are naturally impatient, but I have taken it to new levels, and indeed have invented several forms of impatience previously unknown to mankind. There cannot be many people, for instance, who never listen to the BBC news on the radio, because it is unbearable to waste 6 beeps of their life waiting for it to start.

(My wife, by contrast, is very, very patient. Very patient. When we first met, she used to slow the car as she approached green traffic lights, so as to be ready in case they turned red. Commendably safe, I am sure, but only love, deep respect, and lack of dual controls and a cricket bat stopped me from taking command. Safety is not everything. I eventually brought her round by making her morning cup of tea with cold bathwater in case I scalded myself.)

Anyway, here is the paradox: When things go naturally slowly, impatience can be a useful and necessary driver to kick-start some action: getting a caesarean done quickly, for instance, in a culture where people traditionally meander to the theatre when they are ready. However, impatience is a blunt instrument. Getting things to happen quickly, and getting angry when they don’t, is likely to produce a quick-fix solution – or drive you to an early grave without yielding a benefit.

(The early-grave danger is a particular worry, given the paroxysmal wrath induced in me by automated phone-answering systems:

“Hi! My name is Emma. Welcome to the Public Toilet Opening Times Enquiry Service.

With my initially soothing but eventually apoplexy-inducing voice, I am going to guide you through the options, at the same time as liberally sprinkling my patronising pronouncement with infuriatingly facile irrelevancies.

Press 1 if you would like to know the nearest public toilet to your current location. This service can only be accessed by honorary life members, or by adding the access code which you will find on the door of any public toilet.

Press 2 if you would like to know how much time and money you have wasted on our automated phone system, and others like it, over the past year.

Press 3 if you would like to start going round a seemingly endless set of options which eventually by tomorrow lunchtime leads you back to this one.

I’m sorry. I did not understand that.

Please try again, but without hitting your phone needlessly hard, or throwing it against a wall and stamping on the remains.

OK. Using a six-digit number system, please say or enter on your keypad the date of birth of your favourite estate-agent’s best friend.

You seem to be having trouble.

If you have forgotten your security data, you can refresh it now, by logging into

http://www.pleaserefreshmydataeventhoughtogetonthesiteIneedmypasswordwhichI’vealsoforgotten@deathbyinternet.com, and enter the length of the second molar of your first pet.

Well done. You are nearly there.

Finally, whilst you are on-line, we need to know that you are not a robot.

Here is a 1x1cm picture of smudged Turkish graffiti on a toilet wall in Istanbul, in a photo taken from the International Space Station. What are the second and fourth letters of the signature?

Press 4 if you have already been incontinent.”

It’s a tricky thing, then, impatience. It is not about efficiency, or getting a job done as best as possible in the time available. It’s not even about making sure that the final result is the one you want. Impatient driving for instance, gets you there no faster, risks not getting you there at all, and annoys everyone, include yourself, in the process.

Impatience, then, is not about passion for excellence. It is simply about being determined that the next five seconds go to plan. Then the next five seconds. And so on. In surgery, that it is almost always good, but in the rest of life, impatience is a hindrance to the smooth flowing of a calm and productive existence.

And so, finally, to the point. (Thank you for your patience.) I went out to Tanzania nearly two years ago, to the remote villages around Berega:

I came back pumped up with impatient determination to help Berega tackle the desperate tragedy of death in childbirth. Out of this was born EMBRACE-Tushikamane.

That project plans to begin by building a platform of women’s groups in the remote rural hamlets, as we now know this to be an important prelude to success.

A year ago, we had already mustered: the money to begin; the partners to help us succeed; the experts in the methodology to advise us; the charitable NGO to house our efforts; the freshly-mapped road plans of the territory; the support of the community and the hospital; the potential recruits as local project leads; three people who regularly read this blog; and even a highly talented PhD researcher to analyse what will happen.

However, much as these achievements might have been immediately gratifying, they are not enough. On kicking off the project, we would have had fulfilling 5 seconds, with many more of them to follow, but, finally, we would have joined the vast list of well-intentioned failures. The reason is this: firstly, we need a system whereby the women of the villages not just keep up the impetus, but spread it to surrounding villages, until it becomes the norm for rural Tanzanian women collectively to take action to tackle the roots of the problems that kill them.

Secondly, we also need successful examples of where the women’s group’s energy and prioritisation has led to sustainable development: better health, better nutrition, better childbirth arrangements, cleaner water, better antenatal care, better family planning, and so on. 

Thirdly, we need individual champions to spread the lessons.

However, for all this to happen, and happen well, our central need is to embed the whole process in Tanzanian people, Tanzanian systems, and Tanzanian ways of doing things. From the training of the project leads and community leaders, through to the coordination of responses, all of this must be integrated into a Tanzanian-led, Tanzania-based system.

To move towards this goal, we have needed the patience of Job – and so have you, when months drift by without anything seeming to change. However, we are getting there. We have identified Ifakara as the epicentre of these developments, and we now have buy-in from two major players, each with a great international reputation for making a difference:

http://www.ihi.or.tz/

http://www.healthtrainingifakara.org/

I hope by the next blog to be able to report that we have a Tanzanian project manager working with these Institutions, and a date for the start: of the collaboration, of local staff selection, and of training.

After far too many generations, that will be Job well done.

35. Every Dog Has His Day (And women get 8th March)

In England, there is a saying: ‘Every dog has his day’. It means that, if you are a dog, then sooner or later your time of favour will come.

For at least one of your 4,000 days on the planet, you will not be made to sit or do tricks; you will be permitted to eat that deliciously decaying detritus you found under a bush; and humans will understand the honour you are bestowing when you mark your territory on their trouser leg.

However, I have to say that for me, the jury is still out on the value of this saying as a piece of proverbial wisdom to pass down the generations:

“Don’t worry, son, every dog has his day!”

“Oh thanks Dad! Does that mean that soon I will stop being bullied, and instead will start being appreciated by my teachers, will then have my talents nurtured, and eventually will conquer all injustice and settle down to a life of peace and plenty?”

“Er, no, son. It means that today, on a special deal which I can offer for one day only, I won’t scold you if you chase our cat.”

(It is no surprise to me, by the way, that this adage might be of little worth, given that it was popularised by Shakespeare in his play, Hamlet. We are talking about a play in which the hero is named after a cigar or small town; when he’s not talking to himself, he talks to ghosts and skulls; and yet he feigns madness by speaking Mediaeval English. Then everyone dies. This is not the output of a rational mind.)

It is not for its edification, then, that I began thinking about this proverb on International Women’s Day last month, but for its subliminal implications. Every dog has its day? All the women on earth get one day on 8th March, but dogs get one each?

But here is an extension of these musings on canine quotas. Being 'a bit of a dog’ is something of a backhanded compliment, so I'd be quite content with the comparison, and would get on and have my day. However, if there were a parallel axiom for the female of the species, it would not roll off the tongue quite so well. “Every bitch has her day” doesn’t really work as a pick-me-up for the downtrodden. Dog = fine. Bitch= insult. Where does this all come from?

It seems that right from Saxon times and before, the males of commonly encountered animals had names to be aspired to, macho and manly: stallion, bull, cock, buck, stag, ram, stud, etc. Much of this Teutonic nomenclature legitimately derives from the tendency of male mammals, in due season, when they stop fighting, feasting and farting, to exhibit something of an appetite for cocking, bucking, stagging, studding, ramming, and the like. Fair play. We are who we are. Those Saxons called it like they saw it.

By this argument, however, the female Saxon species-names should reflect, by contrast, some feminine qualities. A bull’s mate might have been a ‘Feeder’, or ‘Carer’. A carthorse’s companion could perhaps have been a ‘Toiler’. A fox or dog’s life-partner maybe a ‘Rearer’:

Instead of which, we have ‘cow’, ‘nag’, 'vixen', and ‘bitch’. To which we could add mare, sow, nanny, and hind.

I have a theory as to how this derogatory naming-system came about. Given that Saxon tribes did not speak the same language as Romans, Vikings, Gauls, and others around them, it follows that there must have been a time when they were inventing the words for the world they lived in. This presumably happened around the campfire at night-time, when the menfolk got back from procuring, protecting, plundering, and perhaps a touch of extempore procreating. 

The women would then of course be tasked with preparing the cerf-en-croute, and would only get a fleeting chance for a chat. Even the hen-pecked warrior would hesitate to be late for the nocturnal naming-fest, no matter how much he valued his spouse’s view.

So you might imagine a conversation like this:

Woman: “O Hunter-man!”

(This is before they had names even for themselves)

Man: “Yes O Broth-But-Sometimes-Stew-Woman?”

Woman: “Tonight, men at fire are naming our horned-milk-beast!”
Man: “Yes. And me got good idea: Me say call it: ‘Bob’ …”
Woman: “Hmm… Me no like ‘Bob’. Not very female. No. You must call it ‘Succa-Succa-Life-Milk’.”

Man: “If me call it ‘Succa-Succa-Life-Milk’, Hunter-War-men hurt me bad …”

Woman: “If you love me, you call it ‘Succa-Succa-Life-Milk’ …”

(later, after naming fest):

Woman: “O Hunter Man! Why you got only one eye?”

Man: “They’re going with ‘cow’ …”

As then, now. A barely noticed inequity and imbalance, and yet one which defines and destabilises the very basis of our lives: Men, (well, actually, males, and even then not all of them), when given the authority, the power, and a free rein, tend to have a more violent and openly confrontational world view. The result has been a world in which war is more important than water, and cruelty is a stronger currency than caring.

(By the way, if you are a woman reading this, don’t get smug. If women alone had the authority, the power, and a free rein, the world would still be unbalanced and unstable:

“My Lady!!! Even now the enemy are at the gates of the Tower of London!”

“Then haste! Summon my Personal Guard!”

“The Tofu-Eaters are already in position, Ma’am!”

“Have they their needles?”

“Ready at your command, Ma’am.”

“Then let the Tapestry begin!!”

This is nonsensical stereotyping, of course, but it made me laugh, so I couldn’t resist. I just want to say that we share the same differences. What we need, but don’t have, is balance.)

But to the serious point: Balance. Yin and yang. Competition and cooperation. Determination and concession. The view of those who are running the country; and the view of those who are running the home. The perspective of those travelling miles for work; and that of those travelling miles for water. The old customs; but the new understanding – of society, of family, of health, of disease, and of why so many mothers die in childbirth.

Look, it’s far, far too much of an over-simplification to suggest that war and violence are a man thing. But you can’t help feeling that many of the most unspeakable excesses that currently plague our news-streams would not be occurring in a world where women had a full say.

What is certainly true is this: in rural Malawian villages where women have found a voice – with the blessing, participation and encouragement of the men – truly wonderful things are happening. The desperate toll of death in childbirth is finally reducing. Please watch again:

http://vimeo.com/12427420

Florida Banda and Mikey Rosato, two of the key players in this transformation, are fully signed up to the EMBRACE-Tushikamane project to spread the development of women’s groups into rural Tanzania.

Even as I write, I am waiting for finalisation of the inaugural meeting of Florida with EMBRACE’s Tanzanian partners. The conference will celebrate the success of community participation and women’s groups in reducing deaths of mums and babies in the villages of Malawi. Its main focus, however, will be on how to spread the lessons to other countries – especially neighbouring Tanzania, which shares so much in culture and deprivation.

I will have to play my part in catalysing where I can, but my main role must of course eventually be to make myself entirely dispensable. I’m working on it.

Meanwhile, I am not a woman, I’m not from a village, and I’m not even African, but I do hope I get to see the tragedy of death in childbirth beginning to be a rarity in rural Tanzania.

Maybe I will.

Every dog has his day.