Reclaiming The Female Experience Through Womb Ecology with Kai Njeri

On today's episode we have Kai Njeri. A birth worker and womb ecologist based in Tanzania, she shares how her journey to healing an autoimmune condition led her into birth and the work she does with wombs of the world in training doulas and community workers is changing the landscape of birth in her community. 

We unpack what womb ecology is, how women are groomed from their menarche to view our bodies as dirty and less than and how it translates to the way society treats birthing women and mothers and the collective work we need to do to make the world a better place for our little ones. 

She is also a fantastic writer and poet who uses her words to highlight just how powerful birth and women are . 

To find out more about her and the work she does reach out to her on instagram at Ni.tiku or wombs of the world. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Hello and welcome to the Back to Basics podcast. If you're joining us for the first time, this is a podcast for anyone walking the journey of birth, parenting, and supporting those who are. In each episode, we come back to what matters most: honest stories by African women, trusted guidance, and the kind of community that helps you trust yourself. I'm Nicole and I'm so glad you're here. So take a breath because you're in the right place. Tell us a little bit about you just before we get started into the episode. Yeah, how who you are, how you got into the work you do. Um, yeah, then we can go from there.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Okay. Um, my name is Kai, Kai and Jerry, and I got into this work through regenerative agriculture, actually. Um, which I got into through a diagnosis, and I had to figure out how to sort of like treat myself. Um, and that's why I got into regenerative agriculture. And then one of the connections that I made um in that journey uh first introduced the word doula to me in 2014, and I was like, eh, what's that? Um which has been an interesting journey because I still now roles are switched, and I'm usually the one who I'm like, I'm a doula, and they're like, huh? What's that?

SPEAKER_01 1:25

I know it's a lot better now though.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Yes, yes, so much better. But living in Tanzania, um, it's it's I still get the same reactions that I got in Kenya in like 2019, 2018. Um, and so anyways, she introduces this thing to me, and I'm so fascinated. And the whole for me, especially through regenerative agriculture, I kept coming back to, um, and this is after having studied psychology in uni, and I kept coming back to like what is the starting point? The human psyche is capable of so much beauty, and we are also kept capable capable of and creating so much ugliness in this world. Yeah, um, so how how can we return to like what does return even look like? What is what is this virus that has affected the psyche, you know? Um, and when I heard of dool and started to like research and all, I was like, wait, this might be a big piece of the of the puzzle I've been trying to put together. If we can tend to the point of origin birth, if we can make it so that birth we're not having violent beginnings, and therefore that violence is not imprinting at the point of arrival, yeah, um, then maybe we have a better chance. And then I I did my doula training in 2019 with an American um, it was an American program, and while it was a good program, it also just it can hipoteza. Yeah, because it's like okay, yes, we're discussing business models, yes, we're discussing all of this, like hospitals versus home, and it works so differently here from. Yeah, so differently. Um, so I came home and I was so confused, and I was like, okay, you know what? The thing that led me to study this, there's a reason, and you will guide me. You know, um, you'll continue to guide me. So that's that's um, I guess that would be my bathworker origin story.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

And were you already a mom, or did you become a mom after getting to birth work?

SPEAKER_00 3:48

I became a mom after, so I trained in 2019 and then I had my son in 2022. Yeah, yeah. And that um that was an interesting journey as well because I remember between training and having him, because I get trained and then immediately COVID happens. So it's okay, yeah. Um, and then so I I served a couple of moms, I supported a couple of moms. Um, but I always had this like lingering question at the back of my mind. Um, yes, there's what I know and what I'm holding, and I can see that it's serving the moms, but how how can I serve? And I'd have clients who'd straight up ask me, if you're not a mom, what do you know? Wow, okay, you know, yeah, like I I would get that. I even had a client who um was asking me questions about breastfeeding, and she's like, but how do I know that you know, you know, like you've this is not an experience that you've had, yeah. If I tell you I'm feeling this, you've you don't know what that means, you know. And I was like, I hear you ouch, but I hear you, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

That's that's such an interesting um perspective because like men dominate um maternal care, yeah, and they literally can never have children, but no one's like, why are we listening to men? And they can never have this experience.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

The door you just opened right now. I mean, 100%. Why are you doubting me? And you know, like this particular mom, she had wanted to have a V back. Um, and because her dog, this was in Rwanda, and because her doctor, so she came, she she wanted to have a V back, but then still had a date to go to Hosi. And so she still went, and that's whatever. Um, but then she gets there on a Friday, and the doctor says to her, I'm supposed to be a groomsman um casho. So you have two options because I'm the one who's been dealing with you. You have two options. Either we have a cesarean bath today. Wow. Um, because she wasn't, she wasn't quote unquote opening up, she wasn't dilating fast enough. So, in case of anything, if you have two options. Either we we have the cesarean bath, I operate on you to tonight, or you chance it through the weekend and I won't be around, and you get whoever, or maybe things go well and I'm here on Monday and I can do the the operation.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Annie that it makes it makes my eye twitch when I when I hear things like that.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

And that was my first prop, and it was baptism by fire. That was my first proper client. Oh okay, and I remember going to the because she chose to to have the um to have the CS on the Friday because he has to go through his thing, yeah. Um, and I remember going to the and like I respected her choice and I was like, I'm with you whichever way. But I remember going to the parking lot and just calling my mom and crying and just being like, wow, I see I see Vile Amechezua too. I see the game they just played, yeah, and I see the way that just like broke her wheel.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

And and as much as like, I mean, that is just to say, if if mandem, this guy will never know what birth pregnancy is in his body, and these are the people who are making it so that we're having the kinds of birth that we're having. I mean, it's not completely on them because we also have some I've seen some, I've seen women do some things, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Um I just say it's like you know how they're like, I want a female Obi. But I'm like, she learned from the same curriculum, she just has different genitals.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Yeah, that is that is so true. It's the same patriarchal capitalistic system holding up this knowledge, holding up this education. So whether you come in a male or a female body and colonial, that's the other part. It's a very colonial, yeah. Um how dare I forget that one? It's a very colonial um curriculum. So whatever body you wear, that's like it's almost besides the point. You know, you're still it's the same operating system, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

It's a very well-oiled um machine, unfortunately, but true.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Yeah, um, so, anyways, uh that that conversation, like I've had those conversations, but then having my son was hey, now that I that was the baptism by fire because um he decided to show up early. Um, so I had a home birth planned. I'm a doula, so I like I know the things, you know. I had a home birth planned, I was looking for a midwife, and that's that's not the easiest thing. Then it wasn't the easiest thing because I'd also just moved to Tanzania, but it was not easy to find um a midwife who could uh be there for a home birth. Um, so I was in the process of kutafuta, anyways. And I had like two good strong leads, so I was working on that. Um your son is like leads is you uh seven months, 32 weeks for what I'm drinking. Um and these 32 weeks are like just before Christmas. So me Christmas Christmas New Year um 2022. Nili Kulia Hosi. I was in hospital and um so I had him at 33 weeks, and it was rough because latching, I mean, just what it took to switch from a home bath to now my options are suddenly so limited. You know, now we're talking about a cesarean bath as basically my only option. I mean, they talked about inducing, but then they actually didn't even present inducing to me. Um, and I didn't quite understand why until like much later, as I'm learning, you know, just with to reduce the chances of him getting infected. Um and I also I personally am grateful that we went the CS direction than inducing. Um, because my body was like was completely not ready. Yeah, I had yeah, I had not a single cramp, what's another contraction, cramp, nothing. Um, and then as you can imagine, we had a lot of trouble with breastfeeding. His tiny little mouth had no idea. Um, it's supposed to be latching onto a nipple, yeah. And so I had like changed my diet, so I'd like like I'd be full milk and all the full fat. Um, and here I am just like licking all this milk, and he just is not able to take it. I mean, I was still like bottle feeding him and spoon feeding him and all of that, but so, anyways, a week after his um due date, um his I have a friend who calls it guest date, and I prefer that. So we can that's what I call it, yes, yes, because we're just playing guesswork here, but you know what? Yeah, because due date is like his deadline, yeah. Um so a week after his guest date, he figures it out. Oh god, um yeah, figures it out, but by that time I'm out of milk. Um, but I still yeah, I I I decided um to still give him my breast. I was like, you know what, it's not just about the milk. Yeah, there's a lot of connecting, there's a lot of there's a lot else, yeah, yeah. It's not just like nutrition. It's not just nutrition. So up until he was um 10 months, that's when he just decided, okay, I'm done. I'm a big boy now. I can, you know, yeah, find my own ways to sleep and all. Um, but it really, I after I got trained, I was very interested in um preconception, pregnancy, and birth. Um I had very little interest in the postpartum period. After after my own experience, I was like, where postpartum. So now I give so much attention to postpartum. As much as I mostly will get clients for the entire spectrum, I give so much more attention to postpartum. But yeah, that's that's how becoming a mom myself has shifted my has evolved my experience of of being a bathworker, being a doola. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

And I think for me, I I struggle nowadays because you know, it feels like people just want you like as long as the mom is alive and the baby's okay, and then everyone's like that's okay. And I feel like for me, birth is very deep, you know. It is for me, I approach birth from a decolonizing perspective, from um women's health, from women's empowerment, from sexual health, and I just think it's you know, it's it matters, it matters a lot how women is treated in birth and postpartum, yeah. All of that. So I just want to know what it means to you because I've read a lot of your work and I love it. I love the way you speak about birth, and you just have a treating it in a way that you know it's in my head, but I don't have the words. So, yeah, so I'd just love to know what birth means to you.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

Yeah, um birth is the first to me, birth is the first point of like life touching the human being, of life saying, I can be a human being. You know, like it's the way it stretches open the bathroom, the way it just like you're taken through this like you're both contracting and expanding more than you ever will in both directions in your life. Like it's so powerful. The tension between the contracting and the expanding, like it's so powerful, yeah. It both rips you wide open and like returns you to the smallest, most delicate, most vulnerable version of you. Yeah, it is and and I think just to add on to that is because I because of the work that I do with Worms of the World, which I didn't even introduce at the beginning. I have questions about that, so don't worry. We'll get to that. So, because of the work that I do with Worms of the World, I spend a lot of time in hospitals. My own practice um has been mostly um women who want to have home births. So my own practice has shown me what it looks like, the power of birth when tended to, when cared for, when held well, when a woman feels strong in her body, when she recognizes her power. And then my work in hospitals has shown me what happens when she doesn't even know how powerful she is, she doesn't even know when this power is taken away from her, is like ripped away from her. Yeah, I see women powerless and to have seen the other end of that spectrum, like to see both ends of that spectrum is a mind fuck.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

It's so hard to hold. I yeah, when I step into the hospital, I really have to like give myself a pep talk and try not to yeah, I don't know, project is I don't know if project is the right word, but I just have to be very mindful about how I step into the space because at the same time, I'm like there's they're taking away so much, and there's so much for the woman and the baby, but at the same time, I acknowledge that there's a lot of fear to work through if I get to a place where like okay, birth, I'm not a victim of birth, you know.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Yeah, it's yeah, and and going back to the system we were talking about, patriarchal, colonial, capitalist, you know, it's um it's a very extractive system, and what is being extracted in the moment of birth is the power of birth. Because that's whether whether that is the intention of the doctor of the midwife or not, that is the system within which they've been nurtured, within which they've acquired their knowledge, so they then become the agents of this extraction. And and you see the white white coat syndrome, like you see, the moment he says that's it. Like the number of times I've had I've had women ask for fundle pressure, you know, and the way they ask for it is ni say DNS IDN, like I have no more strength, please help me. And what she's asking for is fundle pressure, and I'm like, yeah, you're about to lose your baby, please. Take my hand, take my hand. And this is what makes it even more diabolical to me is that a lot of the times this extraction is not happening. I mean, a lot of times it is happening violently, but the woman a lot of the times comes in submissive. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

You know, you've been groomed from your titles, from the 15-minute appointments, but waiting three hours in the waiting room. Yeah, yeah, it's just grooming to this one moment where they are just like lay down and let us deal with you.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Yeah, let us. This this is our job, you know nothing. And I'll even take this grooming farther back, which helps and doesn't help because now it becomes an even bigger conversation. I feel you. Um you see how like some of the rites of passage that we had around um our menarchy, you know, are like the um the first moment of the body, like our reproductive bodies, our maiden bodies coming to life that like we don't we don't honor those moments. They're now there's so much taboo around it, there's so much shame, so much fear, so much guilt, so much can you, it's just yeah. It's gross.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

You're you're a woman and you're gross, and can you do your nasty business over there?

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Over there. Don't don't don't touch me with your grossness, you know, and then you become the embodiment of that grossness. And let's not forget, it started even before that with you being told, hey, nobody wants to see your partsabook, close your legs, vizouri when you sit down. Yeah, and you're getting it mostly from your mother, from your aunties, from your who have gone through their own gross, you know, and they're now the ones passing it on. So by the time we're even getting to conception, you're already primed, you're so well primed for this violence for abuse. That's that's it. For abuse, you're so you're so well primed for this extract, you're an active participant in that extractive experience, you know, and knowingly you uh you actively participate in it, and that is not putting at all, no, no, no, that is not blaming the mom, that is not, and that's why we've gone back and talked about how it happens so that by the time she's arriving here, she's the one asking for the funnel, you know. She's the one volunteering because, as far as she knows, this is the best case scenario. This is her taking care of this, is her making sure her baby comes out alive. Yeah, yeah, you know, because there's only two ways it goes you and baby come out alive or you don't. Exactly. Hapakati cut it, there's no care. What do you mean? I'm not a paying, um, I'm not I I don't have the money to afford care. I'm in a public, I'm giving birth in a public hospital. That is beyond what I can afford. For me, if I come out and my baby is alive and I'm alive, even if I have cuts from here, I have tears from here, I that episiotomy damaged me. The position laying on my back just like messed up my pelvis, the path under pressure, did this and the Other thing, and I'm taking back a child who's going to be developmentally challenged, yeah, because they also messed up the resuscitation. Exactly. You know, yeah. Mimi, I have to, I can't walk straight. Maybe we'll never be able to walk the way I did before I had this baby again. You know, but we're alive. God is good.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Yeah. And I don't know, it just it makes me it makes me so sad because I I think about private hospitals. I don't know if it's the same in Tanzania, but here I usually say the difference between a private hospital and a public is you're paying hundreds of thousands just to be treated with respect, you know? Yeah. But otherwise, they are not treating birth the way they should, right? And they usually even have higher C section rates, and you know, it's kind of like the way you are saying the doctor would say, Oh, I have I had a client who the doctor had a conference, and basically all OBs in Nairobi were going for this conference, so it was kind of like, Um, we need to get this baby out before my conference, or you'll figure yourself out, you know. So I just it it bothers me so much, and I love how you took it back to menstruation because I remember so distinctly in uni we had this um sex something class, yeah. Oh god, human sexuality, yeah, human sexuality, yes, yeah, yeah. Went to USAU as well. Yes, ah, okay, yeah. So we had this human sexuality class, and this lady puts up her hand, and we were talking about the clitoris or something like that, and she didn't know what it was. She had she, I'm like, dude, it's it's on your body, you know, and yeah, we are so disconnected from our period, from being a woman, you know, it's kind of like you're not a man, so you suck, you know. All that other stuff that comes with being you, I don't really want to know about it unless it's the male experience, you know. So, yeah, it's so hard to talk about without women feeling like they're being shamed for the choices they make. Yeah, but we've just grown up in this system that has just programmed us to not see the power of being a woman, you know. I see women talk about their periods, or it's disgusting, it's shark weak, all that stuff. Yeah, and I think, yeah, for me, I was just like, I need to change all of this. You know, I don't want my daughter to think of periods as dirty, even in the kiosks when they try and wrap it in paper, I'll take it out and I'll just hold it like this, you know, just to make sure. Like we don't feel shame. Yeah, yeah. And my mom was quite sex positive, and I think I grew up in a time where people were, you know, were checking for your virginity, your moms were, you know, all that stuff, just a lot of very abusive behavior to women, you know. Yeah, so yeah, there's a lot I could say about that. But yeah, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

There's a lot to be said about that. It's I I grew up in a um in a heavily Christian household, and even then, um, both my parents were pastors, and and then I had my first period quite early, I was 10. Um, but my mom just like took it on and we talked and like ask me anything, I will tell you all the things, and and I am so grateful for that because it just made it so even when like boys in school were trying to shame me for it, I was so shamefree. Exactly. So shame free. I'm like, you're trying what? I'm sorry, but my mom already did the work, you know. And and like that, one person, one person, one person, my mom, you know, like because I went into a world that was so eager to to shame me, to make my body, and then you know, unfortunately, the reality is the moment you start to have to heaps, the moment you start to have boobies, all the pedophiles just popping up out of nowhere, everywhere. Uncle Sidui, who suddenly is visiting a lot and like saying hi to you, giving those long hugs, and you know, John from the from the shop, Sidui who from over there, yeah, and suddenly I'm this 10-11-year-old receiving so much male attention. This teacher trying this thing, that other one trying that thing, you know, and and it's it was it was so confusing because I could see how on one hand these are the same people, even if it's not them themselves, but it's the same spaces where women are being talked about in such disgusting ways. But at the same time, these same people are giving me this attention right that feels complementary, and and now in hindsight, I'm like first off, you guys were doing adult men were trying things with a 10, 11, 12 year old, like and then like it's such a um it's such a delicate time, like how how we're not tending to our daughters better, how we're not celebrating the heck out of them, and and and teaching them just how powerful the cycle is. One maybe you've come across this in my in online spaces, but I also I um started this initiative with a friend of mine called the um Kiladada Initiative. And the focus of the Kiladada Initiative is menstrual education, and we fundraise, we buy a bunch of um um reusable menstrual kits, and we go to schools and we talk to girls, and we, you know, um, and I was doing that even before, way before I was a bathworker. Um, and and I think that is a big part of why it's been so easy for me to see the connection, you know, just like um beating all of these stories. It's it's the same story at different stages of our lives. And if we can't, I had a cousin of mine call me, he's in the UK and he called me his daughter, he's in Kenya, and he was like, hi, my daughter. I spent time with my daughter, she stands, she just told me she started her period, and I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. They went to the supermarket, and she said, This is what I use. So he bought a like a cart full of them. They get home, he bought a cart full of cantiliners. Oh no, I was like, What my brother, I'm sorry. But you know, he asks me, What is there a way you can help me? I'm like, I will go celebrate the heck out of this girl. I will take, I will make time, I will sit with her, I will make her a kit with all the things. We will take it. A whole ceremony. A whole ceremony, as we will do dinner, I'll prepare her nice food. Like tell any question you have, ask it. We will go, I will take my time if it means I have to spend two days, three days with her, we will do that because I know that that time will be so significant, yeah, in the rest of her story as a woman and coming into womanhood, coming into being um of reproductive age.

SPEAKER_02 30:07

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:11

Oh, but yeah. Oh, I love that. I think for me, like when I got into birth, because I got into birth before I had a baby, and then I did my daughter training as I was pregnant, and I just knew I wanted it to be so different for my daughters. So I knew okay, I didn't know I was having daughters, but I just assumed. So I knew I was gonna have um a little ceremony when they start their cycle. I wanted them to know about you know their parts, um, how to take care of themselves, the beauty of being a woman. Like, I didn't want them to see themselves as girls and like less than. And now my daughter has been to two of my births, and when I tell you, she can tell you about placenta's blood, babies, all of it. She just like she's just so on top of it, and she's just six years old. So sometimes I'll just feel like she'll just be like, guys, you know this placenta, and it does this, and these are the veins, and I'm just like, Wow, I could cry. Oh yeah, and I'm just like, I have done, I have done what I wanted to do, even though I know there's so much more. But I just know for her when she has her children, if she decides to, first of all, I know she'll just be like, Yeah, we're just having the baby, like no drama. Yeah, yeah, that's that's a period, she'll know you know how long it's last, she knows where to get her products, what it looks like. It's not gonna be strange because I don't hide my cycle, like when I'm bleeding. You know, sometimes she'll walk in and ask me what that is, and I'll just tell her it's a pad, you know, just age-appropriate stuff.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

So for me, it's just been like I'm studying now, so that by the time she gets to this time, hopefully, she's feeling like you know, this is just some foreign um concept or yeah, no, time or rite of passage, as you said. Like, I just want every part of her growth to be honored. Um, so I think with that, maybe you can tell us. I've seen you call yourself a womb ecologist, so maybe you can just define what that is, yeah, what that would look like. Yeah, never heard it before.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

Yeah, before I get to that, first let me just take the moment to celebrate you. That is so I mean, I had thought I was going to have a daughter, and that was like that was going to be my whole, you know. And anytime I hear moms talk about raising that their daughters like that, you know, to to occupy, like to truly occupy our bodies. Oh, yeah. You know, that I'm just like, this, it's happening, the revolution is happening. One mom, one daughter at a time. Oh it's just been like it brings me to tears. Oh, it's happening. My son was like, you know what? I'm not changing my plans.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Same thing because he's probably going to have a wife or a child or a sister, you know, or cousin.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

Exactly. And now he's three, he's three and a half, a little over a half. And he goes to me for the trainings, like the doula trainings that we do in Sansi, but the training we just did in in Karatu, like he's there. We're doing hip squeezes, neni neni. He comes out, you know, like watching cartoon, and he's like trying to hip squeeze a doctor.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

And also, I'm like doing my morning stretching. This actually happened yesterday, and I was doing my morning stretches, and I was I got into cut cow, and he comes to me and he's like, Mama, mama, mama, baby coming out, baby coming out. I have one, I have one, I can rest. The fact that it is the hands and like on my phones, and he knows birthing. That's birthing that's a position for him of birth. I'm like, ah, so I too mamma is a cut. Oh, and you know how times he like wear, he like put something in his t-shirt, and then he comes to me and he's like, Oh like it's this just normalizing how it is that it's so much easier for us to talk about wet dreams. Like you learn that I remember learning about wet dreams when I was in primary school, and it was talked about with such ease, but then the periods we had to like go to the side as girls, imagine, you know, and be taught about our periods. I'm like, no, I use the cup, and everyone's you know, at this age, they're like attached to you, yeah. Um so I'm on my period, I'm like pulling my cup out, and he'll just he'll come and he's like picking in the bowl. He's curious, like, what is this? And he's like, Mama, you're bleeding. I'm like, yeah, Baby. Every month, mama, mama, you know, just like her body washes her system and blood comes out, yeah, and you know, we go on. You see, mama is big and strong, mama is big and strong, big and strong, like you, big and strong. Okay, and you feel that story, you know.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

My daughter is like, every month, every time again, I'm like, imagine.

SPEAKER_00 35:34

Let me tell you, and and that's exactly it. I I grew up as much as much as I grew up in um um a Christian household, mom was so comfortable with me and and like her body. Like I'd I'd sit and chat with her as she's you know, oiling her body and getting ready, and you know, like her showing me her naked body was not a thing we never got to a point to this day. If we go visit a relative and we're like, we need to get out first, we just shower, we go shower quickly and we come out and we go do our things. And it's like that, those things just make it so the human body is normal, it's a it's these are our bodies, the the functions of the human body are normal, you know. Um but, anyways, to womb ecology. So womb ecology for me is the intersection of three areas of um work and skill and curiosity and knowledge. Um, so like I said, I came into birth work through regenerative agriculture. Uh and so I've done actually in Kenya, most of my work was around food and seed systems um and food and seed sovereignty. And like I mentioned earlier, I came into that work from being diagnosed with a cod with an autoimmune condition. And so I like started to do research on because they they give you steroids for these things, yeah. And they gave me steroids, and my cycle, which since I was 10, had never been irregular, and it I lost my cycles, like rhythms for like six months. I was like, you know what? Thanks. No, we're not doing this. Um, like this is the one anchoring thing in my life. Um, so then I started to do the research and you know, went in down the rabbit hole of our food systems and how we're growing our food, and oh, and then I had to learn how what what it means, and that you will see is like the pattern for me. The moment I encounter, okay, so this part of the system is not working well. What does a thriving version of it look like? And then I go learn how to contribute to that version, and then I then start to produce work and you know, create into the the the thriving version of it. So did some work in that area. I still do, but not as it's not like right now I'm doing so much more bathwork.

SPEAKER_02 38:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

Then it just I really did not expect to be doing this much bathwork. I came because I moved to Tanzania the same year I had him, and I moved here because my my mom and my younger brother had moved here already, and we'd just gone to land, and they were like, Kai, we can't be hiring someone to do what you do. What's holding you in Kenya? Where do you I'm not working an 85, you know. So like Kuja. So I was like, okay, na kuja. Um and so I thought that was going to be mostly what I'm doing here. I come here and Kumbeta Zenya had a whole other script um in place, and and I'm so grateful for it. So then food and seed systems naturally just touches land, land biodiversity, land-based um restoration, land-based healing. And then before getting into food systems, um, I had like taken several courses um in facilitation, um, but like holistic facilitation, like for group sessions. Okay, so I started with psychology at the university, and then some ways through um through the course, I was like, this whole model of you sit in front of me and tell me, and then I keep there and listen. And then you're just talking about some old white dudes that put out this theory and that that has mission what they have to do with me as an African woman.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

I used to argue all the time with the psych lecturers in USIU. I'm like, why are we listening to these people who are dead? They're white. Like, are there no recent African like I don't understand? It's not connecting.

SPEAKER_00 40:23

Yeah, do you know? I got kicked out of a philosophy class in USIU. The lecturer was like, get out, get out, because me had not shut up. I had two that semester, I had two philosophy classes. One of the so one lecturer loved me, and like if he didn't hear my voice in a discussion, it was like, okay, okay, okay, okay, now that we're done. And then the other one hated me because I'd be there challenging his, you know, and then he was so he'd say some things, and I'm like, I'm sorry, but as a philosophy, etc. You can't be your mouth cannot be opening to say things like this. And I would challenge him, Bila Walga. I wanted to like try to get out, talker. I was like, this is the entire problem with the education system. You're kicking me out of a philosophy class.

SPEAKER_01 41:19

That was my issue with church. Like, when I was younger, I used to raise my hand to ask questions because I'd hear the pastor say something, and I'm like, I have I have follow-up questions, please.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

And my mom is like, Can you just we don't ask questions, we just take it. No, me neither. And I just decided I went home one time and I was like, mom, I'm not going back. I need I need a semester break. I need a break. I need there's something about this that and how I actually put it to her, I was like, mom, you know, I'm not, you know, I'm a smart babe. School will destroy my brain, and I don't want that. Like it will mess me up and I don't want that. And I told her, You don't worry, I will they will call me to teach them in these institutions. Don't worry, give me time, you know. You know, and so she had her process with it and she just found peace. And basically, everything else that I've learned since then, most of what I've learned has been through apprenticeship.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

Did you go back to uni? No.

SPEAKER_00 42:45

I love it. You know, I was like, you know what? Um, I actually don't think this model is for me. You know, it serves who it serves. You're each. Okay, don't go, don't sit near the mosquitoes, okay? Um, and I was like, this this model is not for me. It's it may serve some people, but and I'm not, and I remember even say to my mom, you know me, I love to learn. I'm a curious person, I love education. It is the educational model, the model of transmission of knowledge that I refuse. Your system you make at your mom. I I know, and um so, anyways, that and I don't even know how I ended up there. Yes, the the psychology piece. So I still knew that there was something in me that was feeling called towards healing the psyche, towards you know, regeneration of the psyche. And so I found I somehow life guided me to several different teachers with whom I learned. Um, shout out to Vanessa, these women, they just like they they showed me what it can look like, you know, when when I don't have to stand aside or beside my womanhood, um, when I don't have to um cast aside my Africanness, when I don't have to cast aside um my way with time and flow, you know, and and that those were such gifts, those were such gifts. So that then has played into the whole land-based healing, land-based restoration work, and then now birth work. And the more I got into all of this work, the more I started to realize it's the same thing. Birth is life, birth is life, food is life, yeah, agriculture is life, like it's the same, and then as a woman, it's so easy to see because I am a seasonal and cyclic being. I know the planet is a seasonal and cyclic being, right? Placent plants look like tree roots, but like it's it's the same stuff, you know, and so then was born. So I was talking to I don't remember who it was, I think it was Charlotte, the founder of Wombs of the World. We're having a conversation, and it was the first time the word womb and ecology like came out of my mouth at the same time, and I didn't even record it. Um, so then later on, we're having a conversation. She's like, hi, I'd like to have you, you know, write a newsletter, talk about womb ecology. I'm like, what's womb ecology? She's like, hi, I'm saying your words back to you. So you are the first womb ecologist ever. Maybe I love it, I love it. Probably. Um, I think this idea has existed for so many people, but it was just with those words, you know, just not with those words. Um, and I see how and why and that's why I've like gone back with my story to show how the word ecology was already so available in my vocabulary because of my food systems and seed systems work and my land um restoration biodiversity work. So that was already um a way that I think. So them seeing how the womb, how it meets the womb, it was just such an easy, huh? Here it is. It's all and my yeah, and I want to say their premise, but I'll say my premise with um the womb, the version of womb ecology I'm putting forward is that if we place the womb at the center of our systems, care of the womb at the center of our at the center of our systems, we've taken care of everything. Every single thing, every single thing, everything, every single thing. We've taken care of our food systems, we've taken care of our seed systems, taken care of economies, we've taken care of education, we've taken care of our spiritualities, we've taken care of the planet, we've taken care of our psychosocial system, like we've taken care, we've touched everything, our health systems, everything. And so I look at tending to the womb as tending to a fractal of all of life as it expresses and presents itself on this planet. And if we tend to the womb, well, let me put it this way tending to the womb means turning to our systems, turning to the systems makes it so that the womb can thrive. If the womb thrives, our systems thrive. Yeah, and the way I see it, I work with the four concentric circles for now. For now, I know that I know that will grow because I'm also this is also revealing itself to me as a perspective, you know, as a body of knowledge, as a way to think of life. Um, and right now it's the individual, the the the individual body, the the the womb, that is like level one. Level two is a psychosocial, because where one womb meets another, it's a psychosocial plane. And then um the where the where these wombs are held, the systems, the you know, the economies, the um health systems, education systems, they they determine how the wombs interact with each other and so on. And then we have the planetary that holds everything. Um Alinka Kunguza Valin. Um, and so that those are the layers that I I work with right now. Um, I'm currently working on a course, it's taking its weak time to find its way through me, and I'm fine. I I'm happy to take time. Good things take time. Um we know that as bath workers, yeah, you don't rush birth.

SPEAKER_01 49:24

You cannot rush birth.

SPEAKER_00 49:26

Yeah, you cannot rush birth. It happens, it happens as it happens. Um so I'm currently in the process of giving birth to this person. I am well and heavily pregnant. Um, but that's that's womb ecology. And I I mean, I've had like, you know, when you send someone your bio and they like edit it, I've had people call me womb ecologist, but I actually use womb ecologists to refer to anyone that comes into the space of learning womb ecology with me, you know, and in and into that space of curiosity alongside me. Um, I don't offer myself as a teacher in that way. I'm just like I might be a little further ahead in terms of my curiosity. I've been asking questions around womb ecology as a perspective, maybe for a little longer. We've given it language for a little longer, but we are all coming into this as womb ecologists as long as we are asking the questions.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

Okay, yeah, yeah. Wow, I have so many questions. Um yeah, so maybe what does what does it look like in practice, like you being a womb ecologist, and yeah, how does it translate to your community or maybe your birth work?

SPEAKER_00 50:56

Yeah. Um, so first off, it's been a lot of writing, um, has been like my first main expression of womb ecology as a perspective, just for me to even be able to see it myself outside of my head, you know. Um, so it's been lots of writing. You said you've interacted with some of it, and so that's one. And for me, writing is such a is such a real form of expression because like for the longest time I've written poetry. I actually have a book I published in 2020 in the in the thick of uh COVID. I was like, hey, okay, I think we need hope. So I compiled a lot of poetry I'd been writing over the years and like um had a publication. Um so words for me are such a way to get my thoughts out, but also see my brain. Yeah, see myself from the inside out. Um, so that's been one form. And then the my approach to birth work um is so, and this is a really good point to now like bring in the ecosystem that I'm part of part of of birth work, I think. So there's like I mentioned earlier, there's the clients that I take on, um, and that's like personal clients, and we do the things and um pregnancy, birth postpartum. Um and with them, I you know, I say to my clients, I will offer you spiritual support, I will offer you nutritional support, I will offer you physical support, I will offer you emotional support, I will offer you, you know, social support, I will cook for and with you. I will, you know, all of this is laid out before you. You take what you want. And and I'm like, this is what you're getting. This is the package, you know, this is what you get. And the extent to which you use this aspect or the other is you, but it's available to you as long as I am supporting you. And and I don't know too much about other people's practice, but having interacted with a lot of just because of the the the doulas that we get um through the wombs of the world um work that come to volunteer at the hospitals here, um I know that it's it's it's quite a different approach. You know, it's I know these people who lean into the ceremony, lean into the, you know, and all of that. Um but it tends to be how do I put it? It's like, and especially for what I've seen here, I mean by here I mean East Africa, you'll have the the doolas who already come in like heavily spiritual, and so they come, those will be the ones coming in with ceremony, and then you have the ones that like did the you know, whatever training and are more are more scientific, yeah, for lack of a better way to put it. And those ones will rarely interact with ceremony, will rarely interact. It's very, you know, it's very structured, very structured. And I think because of just what I've been exposed to, mind sort of like bridges between the two worlds.

SPEAKER_01 54:41

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:41

And that's exactly what womb ecology is doing, is that it's saying this is the known science, these are the known technologies from all over the world. I'm honoring the sciences and the technologies and the spiritualities, and I'm making them available to my client. If you don't want a part of it, that's fine. You know, it will not be forced on you. But, you know, we'll have conversations with a client about her relationship with her mother and how that's coming up. And I'm able to bring in my facilitator knowledge, my uh psyche, you know, um mental health knowledge into it, into that conversation, um, and support through that. And um some will want more support with that than they'll want with the nutritional aspect of it, you know. Um, and that will be where they needed more uh more holding. Um, and then some will not touch any of that at all, and we'll just want to be able to have a good hospital, you know, yeah. And I'm like, Safi, I'm here, you know, but um that leaning into that, the the seasonalities and the cycle and the cycles of birth as well, and how we're able to like travel through um just the entire spectrum of pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum period as distinct seasons that ask different things of us, but uh that are woven of the same threads. Um so at that one-on-one level. And then the other piece that's really come alive that I didn't I hoped would come alive when I was doing my doula training because I came back home and I realized man, there's a lot of education that needs to happen. There's a lot of um, I'm so tempted to say awareness, but I was gonna say that. But hey, that one has been butchered, but you know, but it is that it fits, you know, it's it's it's people need women need to know what their rights are. Yeah, bathwatchers need to know that they're being watched, you know, that the way we show up, you know, clinicians, the way clinicians show up, it it changes a woman's life, you know, and I and I think because of already coming into it with an ecosystems perspective, I could see the different like how these different parts touch everything. And so at that next, well, I guess that that's like a level up. I haven't touched this mean the psychosocial level, but at that level up of systems, um, we have the art of labor wounds of the world um art of labor method. And it's basically a doula training for for clinicians. And that's the training we just did um end of April and May and early May. And like that, that was the first time we were doing that, was the pilot. And because how it came to be was we with the hospitals we work with um in Karatu, west, like two and a half hours west of Arusha. We our end vision is to set to have hospitals be vertical birth spaces, vertical labor and birth spaces.

SPEAKER_01 58:26

A dream. A dream.

SPEAKER_00 58:30

Um, and so the art of labor method is uh like the our first step in reverse engineering that process. Um, because we started by going and pitching to the hospitals. Hey, there's this idea we have. We've been working with you for almost eight years now. Um we've built trust. There's an idea we have that I think would be very valuable and would just be a better experience all around. Um, here it is. They love the idea, but then we'd come back to okay, who is using these spaces, the mums, who's taking them through these spaces, the midwives. They don't know how to use this space. And so what we did, Wombs of the World funded um the training of four. So I do this other training in Zanzibar, that's just a doula training. Yeah. Um, alongside uh my colleague and friend Wenna. And so Wombs of the World um sponsored the training of four clinicians, uh, a doctor and three midwives. And they came and we had a wonderful time. It brought up, you know, stuff for them and some things they felt were valuable, some things they felt were not valuable, but that was a doula training.

SPEAKER_01 59:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:50

Um and they came back, and I remember us walking into one of the um into one of the bathrooms, finding one of the women that had come and gotten trained, full on full body funnel pressure. Aki, my heart broke, Nikki my heart. I just I walked out, I was angry, I was sad, I felt defeated. You know, I felt like I thought we did something. Yeah, you know, I thought we done something. So to come in and see that, man, I was so sad. I was like, okay, you feel your feelings, process them, and then back to the drawing board. So I was like, okay, how are we doing this? At that time, Charlotte has been going through her own process as well, and we're like having our weekly meetings and like thinking through all of this, and then in her conversations with different people, different partners, um the idea of a clinic, uh a dual training for clinicians was born. And so when she tells me about it, I'm like, This is step one. This is where we begin. What we did was a dual training, it served partially, expose them to some of the rationale for why we changed positions, the role of oxytocin, why slapping around a mom is not helpful.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:26

Um, it's not crazy how little medical professionals know about birth.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:33

I just find it so wild.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:35

It is so wild, and then when I walk in the hospital, they're all looking at me side eye, they kick me out of the labor room.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:46

I'm like, yeah, okay, just just just just humble kid over to us. Let's learn from each other. Yeah, I mean we can work together, yeah. We can work together, we don't have to fight. Alianza, alianza body letter. Um, and so it was a three-day training, and we did three of them. It was a three-day training, and we did three of them, and we had 52 clinicians come through. A whole like quarter of them were doctors.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:21

And how did you guys um I guess sell it to them? I feel like I don't know if it's the same there, but for for here, I don't know, OBs are kind of very stuck in their ways. Yeah, so I feel like yeah, just telling them, Oh, you need to know more about this, they'll be like, What are you what are you even telling me?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:41

I've been in I went to school for eight years, bro. What are you telling me? Yeah, uh, you who did your training over a weekend. Um, so um, I think what was helpful was that these hospitals are hospitals we've had relationships with for eight years. Yeah, they've seen us come in, yeah. They've seen us come in and do these things we're saying to them, and they've seen the results, they just did not understand what was going on. As much as you try to explain it to them, it's been explaining one piece of the puzzle without showing the entire picture. Okay, so it wasn't quite clicking, and then so that was, I think that was part of it, and then now, since we've done the training, they've been talking to their friends in other hospitals, and now we're having more uh people other hospitals just reaching out to us because within the first two weeks, like Nikki, within the first two weeks, they were telling us how cesarean rates have dropped, how fun like we stopped doing fundal pressure, how the number of epiconomies being done has dropped. And I was just like, ah, thank you, God redemption. So um, so that was how that unfolded, and so as that's unfolding, the training we've been doing in Zanziba, um now it sort of unfolds into this thing where um in partnership with another uh a local organization, um Wena gets because the Wena lives in Zanziba. I live in Tanga. And so she'd been in conversation with different people about what's the you know, the doula training and all of that. And um she a partnership forms where we get the opportunity to pitch uh an elect an elective, a doula training elective um for community health workers. So they get they go through the Kawaida community health worker training, and then if they pick this elective, which is our doula training, they become a community bath worker. Okay. And so these two things are happening at the same time, independent of each other. I mean, when I and I have sort of been like the the like I've been the common thing between these two spaces, and then over time, Wena has also now come into the the rooms of the world space because we trained the um art of labor method together. Um, but these things were sort of happening independent of each other, like none was advising the other. Um but what it's looking like right now is that the two um trainings um will hopefully be working together because what we're seeing is um you train the you train the clinicians, but then a big part of the challenge for them is that the mothers are getting to them already in critical condition a lot of the times, and in karate. You have Maasai's, you have um Wairaki, those are like the two main communities. And Maasai's, you know, they live Hokonjoko Bali. Yeah. You know, so they and they don't want anything to do with hospitals, which I understand. Um, and they'll try to have give birth at home, and then a complication happens, and then you know, by the time they get or mom is in a bad way, mom dies, you know. So we have the clinicians that are trained in gentle birth, then we have the community birth workers that serve as the the go between yeah, the go between the the hospital and the community and the mom in the community. And then the next thing we're developing now is a training that will be attached to, and it's we're not actually developing, we're hoping to get into a partnership with an organization in Zanziba that has that developed uh ANC attached um group um group care thing, training sessions um for moms. So we have the moms receiving the same knowledge as the community birthers, speaking the same language as the clinicians. We've closed, we've met everyone in the ecosystem. So, okay, now I have a question for you. Um when it's okay, it's okay. Um, how often do you um support families? Like, do you what what does your practice look like in terms of? I mean, yes, we learn, we come into this work for the women um and the babies, and then along the way you realize eh, if the man is not in on this, um, it's going to be hard. And there's fights that as a doula you don't want to be part of, and they will mean so much more if the husband is taking it on, like in a hospital.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:12

So you know, so um yeah, so you're asking how I support the families, yeah. I think same as you, I used to focus primarily on the mom. But I think from a few years ago, once there was a period in time where hospitals banned doers, so I was just like, okay, since I can't go, let me just show the dad. And honestly, when I go to hospitals, I find I don't have much power. So I even struggled with being a doula because I'm like, I can teach you all these things, you know, the benefits of um walking, um, the risks of epidural, all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:52

Sorry, one moment. No worries. Uh let me I need to get a t-shirt for him. No worries. Hey, Paulette disappeared, kidogo. No worries, mom life. Mom life. Well, I can't just say my mom's a kidogo. Oh, you don't stay with her still? No, no, no. We're we are like in many ways, but also different in many ways. Um, yeah, but every once in a while, it was her birthday. We did uh actually her birthday is tomorrow, but we did the party on Saturday.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:31

We are back. Um, yeah, I was telling you about how I support the dads, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:37

Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:39

Um, yeah, so I think after hospitals banned doolas, um, I was just like, I prefer being at home birth, so it's okay.

unknown 1:09:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:47

So I focus more now. I think primarily most of my work is teaching, actually. I realize I don't even have to be at the birth if I teach the dad what they need to do to show up and how to kind of protect the space. Because even just you know, being an African, him as the dad will come with more authority if they're like, Yeah, my wife doesn't want, you know, cervical exams or their water broken. Yeah, yeah, it was just very it ended up being very confrontational in the hospital, and I was like, I'm not really helping because the hospital doesn't value me, they don't even see me as like an important person part of the birth process. Yeah, the time I'm putting my opinion in, then yeah, they're just like get out of the room, then they do whatever they want to do anyway. So, yeah, I think for me, I do a lot of education for dads, and it just makes it, I think, a lot less traumatic for them as well. Because I always tell women, like, imagine your husband has to sit there and basically watch you get like sexually abused, but yeah, you know, anormalized or like societally accepted abuse, like even of the yeah, like so many dads are traumatized by birth, and there's there's nowhere for them to go to like talk or just be like, yo, that was fucked up. Sorry, your kid.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:11

Yeah, no, yeah, I hear you. I I would love to when I come, I'd love to like sit and talk some more about. I mean, we can talk now, then, but we can talk always, always forever. That's it. Um, but about that, because I mean I get with the home birds, the dad will always want to, you know, to be part of it and to know how to go about it. So I'd love to learn um like what you offer the the dads. And yeah, because I I do what I can, but I always feel like there's there's I feel like I need to learn something here, you know, by you know, from someone who's doing it and like has seen try this method. This isn't quite this one is the one that they, you know. So, anyways, I'd love to I'd love to to to learn.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:09

I'd love to learn. Have you talked to maybe dads you've worked with or are working with?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:14

Yes. So what I've done. So the first um bath that I supported here was my brother's, uh, my brother's wife's actually. And um, and then they didn't even want a midwife. So it was like just us. And oh at home at home, and it went really well up until she had like severe postpartum hemorrhaging. Oh god. Um but then we we I usually have like a contingency plan of like we're not doing a home birth. If you haven't gone to the hospital at 38 weeks and like gotten like full systems checked, um, and then the hospital that I gave birth at here, um, the doctor knows we're like off to the side kidoga doing our own thing. So so he doesn't talk too much about you know, he's he gets it. Um so she had told him she wants to do a home birth and all of that, and um we'd said in case of anything, yeah, and we are like she lives, they live like five minutes from the hospital, so like yeah, but Yoy was sober, she like went blind, like she lost so much blood, but she's good now, like everything is fine. Um, and then it's been two other births since, and both the dads have been involved. Um, this last one is an engineer, so he needed to like see it visually, you know. So I had to write up this whole thing of like um the like the first part of of of of labor, this is what's going on, like the the mechanics of it. Yeah, yeah. This is what's going on inside, this is likely how she's feeling, this is the kind of support she needs. Okay, second stage, this is where we are, this is what's going on. Okay, this at this stage, this is what's going on, this is you know, um, and it was so helpful, but then on the day of he just passed out, and all of us, all of us were like, you know what? Best case scenario. Actually, one less person to worry about. One less, he just found a cacona palivo and just went to sleep. And me and the not fainted slept. Oh no, no, no. The other, the nice, the nice version.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:40

Okay, I was picturing some dude who'd fainted, and you're just like, ah, we'll just do that later.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:49

No, no, I realized now I should use that um differently, but yeah, he went to sleep, and Sitch Kandela should glaze too, and that was actually quite nice. And he'd wake up and go find food and bring it and go do this and come back. Um, but he felt confident, and that was the thing for me. He felt confident in case of anything, he wasn't just like you know, he knew how to approach things, so um, yeah. Anyways, uh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:22

Um, okay, yeah, but I think they're quite simple. Usually I just tell them what to do, what birth would look like. So I'm like, okay, first early labor, this is what she'll look like, and this is what she might need from you. Yeah, pushing. If she starts voicing like she's getting tired or she's giving up, I tell you, I give them like these three things to do. Okay, if this doesn't work, do this, this doesn't work to that, and then yeah, kind of I feel like they get they're very comfortable when they know, like they have instructions. Yeah, yes, aside from that, and yeah, I'm like, if she tells you to shut up, you shut up. If she wants you to touch her back, just listen, be a good boy, and just listen.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:59

Yeah, ideally, like have shutting up as the default, like that's what that's what I'm saying. Yeah, don't talk too much. I don't want to hear your jokes. This is this is not the place, yeah. Unless she asks for it, silence is the best thing right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:17

Yeah, but I find they're quite good. Honestly, it hasn't been it's quite easy to teach them, especially for me. Like, my approach to birth isn't like doing too much, especially now. You know, in the beginning, I used to have all these things. I wanted a peanut ball, I wanted you know a tense machine. Now, most times I just go with myself and a rice sock, and we're good. That's it, actually. That's kind of like my birth bag.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:41

Yeah, yeah. No, I I get that for me. It's um I'm also that's I'm also the same philosophy. It's it's going well if I'm not doing too much. And a lot of the times, I mean, so far it's been mostly hip squeezes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, hip squeezes counter pressure, like literally, and like making sure the the name the diffuser is refilled, exactly, and she has water, but and usually I like hand off the water the water duty to the husband, exactly the glass is full, and she you know I'm like those are your two things. That's it, those are your two jobs, you know, literally, that's it. That's it. We've got everything else covered.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:32

So yeah, yeah, okay, awesome. I feel like I could talk to you forever, but um, so we can I can release you.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:38

Let's keep doing the thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:41

Maybe you can tell me kind of um yeah, how what's happening with wombs of the world? Are you coming to Kenya?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:52

So um actually I have a meeting tomorrow that um might bring wombs of okay. So I have to answer another question to answer that question. Um, so you remember the ecosystem I painted for you? Um so we now have potentially three different programs that are working together, potentially um, because we're still sort of like the work that we've been doing in Zanziba, which is now becoming the CBW training. Um, we're registering in the process of registering an AGO for that one. Okay, um, and um building out the partnership that will then be the one big training that holds these three parts. Um, and I have a meeting tomorrow with um the CEO of Border Girls. Oh wow because like what the chat I'm sure they've already had this experience of like mom is on top of the bike and baby's yeah, and baby is just here, you know. So if if we're able to equip um the border girls themselves as doolas, if they can receive a doula training or the same training we're providing CBWs, yeah, then you know it's they're not just border girls, they actually can offer support if if and or when needed. Um, so everything going well, we that would be like our first point of entry for this three-part program, um, which would then be Wombs of the Wild, the organization registering with the CBW training, it's calling it's called Maito, and then the partnership that would then provide the ANC attached um group care for the moms. Um, and then what I'm hoping happens is that we can partner with Border Girls to then also that piece of accessibility because it's a real one. Um, a lot of moms are not making it. Do you need to? No, no, no. She just wants to sit in with us.

unknown 1:20:08

Oh, yay!

SPEAKER_00 1:20:11

It's you again. Hi, welcome. It's so nice to have you here. Nice. She put on makeup, yeah. Well, some of us are being lazy on my hair with do we get pretty? Girl, my my children are buddies for my daughter. Okay, I I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:35

Yes, someone who's recovering from uh relaxing hair and all of that stuff. I'm just like okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:44

Is that is that what we're doing?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:48

Yeah, I blame my sisters.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:51

Um yeah, that's what that is what happens when you have sisters, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. I I do not have sisters, and I can't tell you the last time I wore makeup, I can't tell you the last time I had hair that wasn't either locks or natural. So now to directly answer your question, um, and to also introduce myself uh and like how I'm connected to Worms of the World. So I um so Worms of the World has two branches working in Tanzania, um, the company, the LLC, and that branch does the advanced doula training trips. So it's a 10-day um trip, and doers from different parts of the world come spend 10 days with us, um, six of which are spent in the hospitals, um, just squeezing hips and loving on moms and loving on midwives, and you know, um, and then um we do a safari in there, we like take them to there's a Maasai community whose women we work with. Um we're building uh we've been um helping them build a school for their like little kindergartners. Um and so we go hang out with the Maasai, we like sit in circles with the Maasai mamas and they tell us about birth and like they even like um play out birth um as is as it happens um in their culture. Um, and it's such a beautiful, such a beautiful experience. It's usually a highlight for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:36

Um sounds like a dream. If I could do that, like just travel all around Africa and like just listen to learn from different midwives. That that's my dream.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:48

Let me tell you, let me tell you. I've had the chance to do that um in Tanzania and South Africa, and and in Tanzania we've like sat with the Maasai, we've sat with uh Wazabe, um as mostly it, and then in South Africa, I we traveled still a wounds of the world trip, and we traveled with um our hostess, amazing midwife machilo, Dr. Matilo Motei, and she just like traveled us through these different parts of South Africa and start with midwives, and it was so rich, you know. Like we know so much, Nikki. We know so much, so so much. We know so much, yeah. Anyways, um, so so that's one of the things, and with that one, I'm the lead facilitator for the Tanzania trip. Um, and then there's the foundation, and with the foundation, I'm the regional programs director for Africa. Wow, um and uh um I think this was the only way I was going to be an employee. This it had to be like it had to be birth work. Like I have tried working for people in the past, and it's a whole lie. Um, but this um and Charlotte's way is also very we work together, you know? And it's yeah, and she she she respects the fact that she knows what she what she knows, I know what I know, and together we know a lot.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:33

Um yeah, so um, and with the foundation, the focus of the foundation is education, and so the art of um labor method is under the foundation, and so that's what we are. I mean, it's piloted in Karatu, but we already have hospitals in Arusha asking for this. Um my dream, I mean, the wounds of the world foundation dream is to get this out to every to everyone. Um, and we partnered um the creating of the workbook and the course was with the International Childbirth Initiative. And um, so we've designed the um the training to work with the 12 steps that that are it's a long, it's a long word.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:27

I really should have this at the top of my mom brain zone.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:33

I know my multitask brain. Um, but it's the um steps to the 12 steps to um I think it's I think the word is compassionate, um mother, child, family, um care. And it's very, it's very as a doula, as a doula who practices the way you do, it's very no da, you know. Um, but then ICI works primarily with hospitals. And so in those spaces, it is so very not no da. So what we're doing is we've aligned our training with those 12 steps so that that training can also be used to onboard um new um hospitals that come on as ICI sites so that they are not just getting exposed to the 12 steps, but they're actually getting receiving a training. Um, so we are expecting uh in this coming year we'll know like what uptake will look like. Um but already it seems like there's some organizations that are wanting to take this training to like some parts of Asia, some parts of you know, wherever. Yeah, and it's it's so exciting. Like the reality, like the possibility that this could be a reality that actually changes things, Nikki. That's crazy. Like this is it is so and to be part of it, and to be part of it, little old me, to be part of it. It's just ah, what a blessing. Um, and especially because when I did my training, like I said at the beginning, I did my training and I came back and I was like, eh man, it just it feels like where I'm standing with what I know and the reality on the ground, like the gap is so big, I don't know what to do with this gap. And um, and like my a big vision for me has been to do a lot of training. And so I initially tried to partner with the organization that I trained with, um, but it didn't work out, and I was like, okay, when it's time, it will. And it is time, I guess. Um, because I'm doing way more training than I would have ever imagined, and there's so much. There's so much for me to learn. Like I still don't know so much. I still want to learn so much. But what I know, there's a lot of people who don't, you know, and so I'm not waiting until I know that so much that I feel like I don't know. You know, I have what I have right now um is something. And that's something I'm I'm willing, I'm happy, I'm excited to share it. And then let's grow together, you know. So yeah, so that's um that's what's going on with Wombs of the World. And um that is what our hope and our vision is that we get this the out of labor method out to as many space. I mean, if it becomes a whole revolution, wow. I see it, I see it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't feel distant and then um working with other organizations, so wombs of the world doing that, and then Maito coming in with the community bath worker training. Even like for now, I mean, I want to, I want to when I can't tell that's just how I think, I think big, like I see the whole world. But I also know that any big thing is cumulative action. Yeah, you know, it's what seems like a small step, and then another one, and another one, and another one, and another one, and you look back and you've traveled an entire continent, you know. Um, but right now what feels good is in this, if by end of 2027 we've done trainings here, Kenya, Rwanda, because already have like I've had invitations already for a while from Rwanda. Um we've had, and I think because I have ties to Kenya, I mean I'm a Kenyan, I just live here. Um, there's been um people reaching out, there's been my own desire um to come to Kenya and just bring some of this. Yeah. So if by the end of next year I can look back at the year and go, like, the seeds have been planted. You know, we've already planted seeds here, and so I'm watching them just like spread themselves now. Um if we can do atakamani pilot Kenya Rwanda, like that will be so nourishing. Uh-huh. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:29

I have a friend that I'm collaborating with, and she lives in Rwanda, right? She's utopian though. Ah and what we wanted to do was kind of connect all us bath workers around Africa because she's in Rwanda, I'm here, you're there, and we're all just working in our own little like silos. And we just wanted to see how we can just bring this all together.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:53

So I think if you're looking for someone to connect with, she's in Kigali. I will yeah, we're starting a little group chat, then maybe we can all just be in communication and see how we can just make this like viral. Absolutely, it's time, yeah. Because I think even for me in my business, I'm trying to I'm trying to make it so I can impact more, like I told you, more people, because I there's not many women who can afford my services, and I don't think you need to pay your way to get respectable, dignified care, you know. So I'm trying to see how I can make that happen through, like, I don't know, an education program. There's also Mother Health International, so they're like, I don't know if you've heard of them. Mother Health International, they're in Uganda, so she they it's an organization, they have like a birth center in some shags in Uganda, led by midwives, and they do a lot of training. And I'm like, if we can have like those two birth centers in like Kisi, in Siaya, you don't have to worry about all these shitty ass hospitals not having education, qualified. Yeah, so if you can find a way to like upskill traditional birth attendance, that's kind of where my mind is at right now. Yes, yeah. So if you're open, absolutely we can just con I can connect you with her, see if you know if you want to go to Rwanda first. I think she'd be more than happy to you because she's also telling me a lot of women in Rwanda have uh so her she works in lactation, so a lot of women they are coming to her with you know breastfeeding issues because they've had very traumatic births, yeah. And yeah, so she's just trying to see how she can prevent the poor breastfeeding and the birth trauma. So I think, yeah, it should be something very feasible, yeah. Yeah, especially if you're already looking to go there, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:03

And I think I mean, I am so with you on the birth center. So um the how when I and I actually came together, like outside of the um the the Zanziba trainings, how we ended up at um registering an NG, an NGO was because and is because um we want to set up a bath center in Tanga. Oh wow, and yeah, but now a lot of our attention and a lot of our work is going into training, and I'm beginning to appreciate and I can feel my energy moving more towards that for now because I see how the hospitals are where women are giving birth already, excuse me. You know, birth is already happening here, even as we're thinking of setting up spaces where the kind of birth we want can happen, birth is already happening in hospitals. Yeah, is it possible? Are there ways to make it so that the birth that's already happening in hospitals can improve? You know, so that it's women are going to these same places and having better birth experiences. Um and then as we develop that, I'm still holding the vision of a birth center. Um, but I think right now my mind has sort of been taken by the possibility of better birth experiences where birth is already happening. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, but then what I think draws me to the idea of a birth center still, or even if it's not a bath center, um bringing in so like this is what we do in Zanziba, the do-let training that we do in Zanziba, we bring in traditional midwives and they teach alongside us. Um, and they teach alongside us, and they teach, where was I? Where was I? What was I saying?

SPEAKER_01 1:35:07

You you are transitioning, you're focusing more on education, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:13

Um, but wanting to preserve and bring in and like sort of like bring forward what traditional midwives know. Um, because that's I mean, they are the like as doolas, I feel like these are our like that's our lineage is a traditional.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:37

I have I have nightmares that their midwives TBA is dying right now, and nobody knows what and going with that knowledge, it's it it keeps me up at night.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:47

Yeah, so what we're doing in Zanzibar is we have um traditional um midwives come and teach with us. Um, and like they hold certain um sections of the training, and you know, we ask questions, we learn herbalism, you know, we lear positions, we learn like they teach us like different massage techniques, salts, um, like so much. And that for us is this will not be brought into hospitals unless it's being brought by a doula, because they've been cast out of the hospitals, they've been cast out of the practice. So we, however, have the opportunity to bring that into the prenatals, bring that into the postpartum, and some of it into the birth if we have home births. Um, and when we're lucky enough to like bring elements of it into hospital births. But we get we have the opportunity to be to bring forward some of what traditional um uh midwives have always held and learned, I mean, have always held and known and practiced. So with the doula trainings, I feel like that's that's something that it's a path that I want to keep looking more and more into. Um and now that is something that we're doing more under my, I mean, Wombs of the World has a doula training that is beautiful. Um, and then for those of us who want to, who are like based in East Africa and want to take um to train as a doula who has access to East African traditional midwives, um, and the knowledge and to preserve that knowledge. Michael's um uh doula training, we're just continuing to grow that. Um, and yeah, I mean, I would love to see what we can do with Ruby Mamos. Um you don't have to have to say too much.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:01

Let's go. Yeah, let's go. I've been ready.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:05

Yes, man. Let's there's so there's so much work to do, is and I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:11

Honestly, me, I'm ready. If we have to live in in the middle of CIA for six months and learn from midwives, me, I am good with that.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:19

Let's go, let's find them, let's sit with them, and let's learn.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:23

I know my my auntie-in-law is um, she's a traditional birth attendant here in Dago. And my mother-in-law didn't know until I had my home birth, and she was freaking out. And then her sister is like, you know, I give birth to my kids at home, right? It's like, well, it runs in the blood. Wow, yeah, so I think it would be so nice, especially here. I think women are just so done with the medical system, yeah, and they're craving a different way.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:00

Yeah, yeah. Alinka, you're a chaffu, you're chaffu, baby. Yeah, chaffu.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:09

Okay, I guess yeah, we can now end it and you can tell people where they want to find you. Maybe if they're in Tanzania and they're about to have a baby and they need a doula, yeah. How can they reach out to you? Or maybe someone wants to partner with wombs of the world somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:24

Yeah, yeah. Um, so Instagram, um, on my Instagram, yeah. Um, so there's several ways. If it's not the if it's not the children, it's a grandmother. Um, it's okay. So I'll never um so Instagram um is an easy place to find me, nitiku. Um, and I think under that it says tikkutiku me because life. Um and um you can DM me or um you'll have there's a link there to my link tree that will just like show you my um lead you to like my work, my return work around rhomecology to just give uh someone a sense of what's going on and like all the other work that I do. And on there, there's a calendarly uh link to set up a meeting. Um so those are my options, or um on there you can also find my email link, which is kaikaynu at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:31

So yeah, awesome. Thank you so much for making time to talk to me. I yeah, I read I read some of your articles, and I was like, Yeah, I just have to have you here.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:45

Thank you, thank you for the invitation. I've been following Ruby Mamas for a while, really I became aware of you um just after my doula training and was like and I was and was looking for like other doors and like you know and was looking for him. Oh, perfect. I was looking for other doolas to connect with, and you know, all of that. Um, and you your name popped up. Um, well, Ruby Mamas popped up, and I don't think I ever connected, but I was like, okay, I'll I'll follow who new month.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:29

I will link your contacts and your Instagram on the podcast, and then yeah, Sawa Sawa, thank you so much. Thank you, bye-bye, say bye. Bye bye. Let's go get your sister. Yes, good job. And that's a wrap on today's episode. If this conversation sparked something in you, share it with someone who needs to hear it so they can feel a little more confident and a lot less alone. We would love to hear from you, so leave a comment and follow the pod so you don't miss any new episodes. We're building a community and we'd love for you to be part of it. Until next time, take care of yourself.