On Breasts, Talking to Strangers, and Other Things My Mother Taught Me.

Julio Villasenor

Have you ever thought how cool it would be if our eyes had little cameras that could capture moments and the emotion behind them? This is something that I find myself wishing for lately. Imagine it.

Blink. The image of a five year old boy with the biggest smile waving to you when you pass by as he carries a bag full of branches bigger than him on top of his head. Blink. The joy of seeing a truck that has been bouncing you around all day being loaded with the mill necessary to make porridge. Blink. The wonder of driving through fields on the back on a bike on a night so dark yet so full of stars that it feels like the sky is a giant black snow-globe that has been pierced by thousands of tiny needles. Blink. The warm feeling of seeing a sea of little six year olds in their school uniforms run towards you to shake hands and sometimes hug your legs. Blink. The sense of peace as you watch sunrays and clouds play hide and seek behind rows of endless hills. Blink. The awkwardness of having a stranger’s breast pop out. Blink. Having another stranger pop out a breast. Blink. And a third one…

Ok. Wait. My little eye-camera wish hasn’t happened and those last blinks might need some explanation. After all, this is not that kind of blog.

As I mentioned in my last blog I have been going to Health Care Centers to understand more about the healthcare system in Rwanda, implement a small market survey and meet the women that participate in TIP’s programs. Meeting these women is always a fun experience. I especially enjoy watching how women handle and carry their babies. In Rwanda women will bend forward from the waist, balance their babies on their backs and then drape a piece of cloth over them, tie the blanket in the front and proceed with their daily lives. The final effect is like a small strapless backpack with a little doll head popping out of it. Sometimes they’ll also tie a blanket around their necks use it as a cape Superman-style to cover their babies.

I was in a HC watching the woman in front of me do this simple yet elaborate baby wrapping dance when the toddler next to her started pulling at his mother’s skirt. The mother, who was midsentence, grabbed the baby by the arm, quickly placed him on her lap and nonchalantly pulled out her breast for some baby casual dining open-air style. All of this without the slightest pause in the conversation she was having.

So what do you do in this situation? Do you politely turn the other way? Make eye contact followed by a slight “good job” nod? Stare into space? Ask how you say “bon appetite” in Kinyarwandan? Pretend something super interesting just happened in the opposite side of the room and turn around? I was tempted to go for this last option but suddenly all the children started pulling at their mothers who did the same exact thing the first one had done. No corner of the room was safe, I was cornered by bare breasted breastfeeding mothers… It was a feeding frenzy…

The only thing is, I was the only one that was freaking out. The rest of the room went on with the conversation they were having despite the fact that half of them where flashing each other. Once I realized that the skies weren’t falling and that what was going on was absolutely natural I actually started seeing the beauty in the scene and was slightly embarrassed by my initial reaction. You see, I am in Rwanda to help a business that is focused on fighting malnutrition by giving people fortified porridge, but what if not a mother’s milk is the original fortified food? What best way to fight malnutrition than by breastfeeding? And if we are really getting poetic, what best way to strengthen the bond between a mother and child?

I guess at this point I should acknowledge that my mother is a card-carrying member of La Leche League, a group dedicated to supporting breastfeeding. I should also say that my amazing wife breastfeed our kid even past the point at which it was no longer “socially cool”, which I have a feeling is now sadly around the three week mark. So, if anything, I now question when and why breastfeeding became uncool in the more “modern” world. Don’t you think it’s a little bit strange that, as a society, we are obsessed with super foods but whenever a mom super-feeds her baby people in the room get super uncomfortable?

Anyway… food for thought……

But now that we are sort of talking about families, let me tell you the quick story of how I spent father’s day this year.

The designated Sunday found me slightly hung-over (another story) walking around Nyabugogo (the taxi-van/bus station) looking for my ride home. I met a driver who recognized me and pointed me to his taxi-van. As I approached it I noticed that the vehicle was already very crammed and the only remaining seats were those in the first and second row next to the door. Not the best seats because sometimes the taxi will pick up people on the way back to Ruli, if the taxi is full (which it always is) and you are in one of the aforementioned seats, people WILL seat on you. So, not feeling up to the task of potentially being a stranger’s cushion I asked the driver if there was another taxi leaving soon. He replied in the negative and so started an exchange that was partly English, partly French, partly Kinyarwandan but mostly hand gestures the objective of which was to get me in the taxi-van.

The driver, though friendly, was adamant and so I did what any self-respecting modern day person would do: I pretended my phone rang and somehow conveyed to the driver that it was going to be an important and long call. Once the taxi-van drove off I finished my imaginary conversation and started looking for a new ride. I soon found one, mostly empty, that was waiting for passengers, so I took a seat in the corner of the very last row. While waiting for the taxi-van to fill up, which took about an hour, I had the pleasure of regretting the previous night’s beers, so when the engine came alive I had a mixture of happiness at the prospect of finally getting home and dread at the road that would get me there.

The taxi, as always, was crammed to the point at which I marveled that I wasn’t fluent in Kinyarwandan yet simply by virtue of osmosis. As I pondered these thoughts I made eye contact with a girl sitting two seats away from me who had been looking at me inquisitively. She told me her name was Leopold and asked me what I was doing in Rwanda. This sparked a small conversation about me and my family so I brought out my phone to show her pictures of my loved ones. Before I knew it the phone was taxi-van public property; as it went through different hands people started commenting on the pictures they saw and asking me more questions. The woman sitting in front of me started having some form of argument with her husband; an argument that was resolved when she grabbed my hand and, forgetting that it was still attached to my body, pulled it forward to show her husband, seated in the row in front of her, that there was a ring on it.

The rest of the ride home was a taxi-van conversation on family, marriage, porridge, kids, the economy, health and several other subjects. Everyone chimed in, everyone laughed at my broken Kinyarwandan and everyone shared something about themselves. It was dark when we made it back and as I walked home I reflected on the amazing father’s day gift I had just gotten: I had boarded a taxi full of strangers and, by sharing pictures of my family, by the time we got to Ruli I got out of a taxi full of new friends.  

Hide-and-seek

Loading our truck with the hammermill

How much life do you see in these two pictures