Nothing could prepare Julie for the experience of living and working in the heart of Africa. This memoir takes you on Julie’s journey to Kalene Mission Hospital in Zambia, where she worked as a midwife for five months caring for African women and their babies at the most cherished time in their lives. It is a story of joy and heartbreak, of courage and perseverance, and of an extraordinary … extraordinary adventure.
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Powerfully life-giving
Watson pens a magnetic memoir in Born for Life: Midwife in Africa. I have read work from this author before, and I learned even more about this life-giving woman. This book gives a lot of information about the author’s journey in Zambia, Africa. She is a midwife, and spent many months taking care of women and their children, babies. I must say that it is awe-inspiring, not just the work that Julie does, but where she does it, and how she does it. I find her compassionate ten-fold. The story is not just a story, it’s the truth as Julie writes about her experiences. Tragedy, triumphs, and definite courage of this author, and how she writes it, telling the world of the culture, and what many African women may be missing, but she gave her all. Children were born alive, women were getting prenatal care, probably for the first time, and live births excelled. A very heart-fulfilling, heart-breaking and joyous adventure. Extremely emotional journey. Born for Life: Midwife in Africa is a definite recommendation by Amy’s Bookshelf Reviews. I look forward to reading many more stories by this author.
“Midwife in Africa” is the compelling story of the challenges Julie Watson faced when volunteering as a midwife at Kalene Missionary Hospital, in 2010.
Julie shares details of preparation for the trip, including self funding, visa and work permit issues, as she and her husband Barry, who volunteers behind the scenes at the mission, travel from their home in New Zealand to Zambia.
The complications of childbirth become a harsh daily reality, as Julie joins a dedicated team of doctors and midwives in challenging conditions. New life and death coexist, yet a strong sense of community thrives between both the staff and the pregnant and nursing mothers living at the hospital.
She and Barry adapt to life without the luxuries we take for granted, cook and eat what is grown locally, share Christmas away from family, and immerse themselves in African culture.
The generous spirit of Julie Watson permeates this fascinating memoir from beginning to end.
With a desire to put her skills in nursing and midwifery to good use, the author and her mechanic and Jack-of-all-trades husband Barry, leave the home comforts of New Zealand to volunteer their services in the isolated Kalene Mission hospital in rural Zambia.
With directness, clarity and enthralling detail, Julie Watson captures the challenges of working in a hospital that serves a vast area that lacks most of what she was used to enjoying as normal services back home.
In this modest account, the author brings her part of Africa with all its beauty and its inelegance, its joys and its sorrows alive in brilliant colour before our eyes.
Her book left me with a profound admiration for those, the salt of the earth, who dedicate their lives or even a part of their lives to helping others in need.
This memoir of midwife Julie Watson’s time in Africa touches every part of the heart and alternates between joy and sorrow. Joy for the mothers and healthy babies, and sorrow for the mothers who lose their babies.
A love for women and their babies sent Julie to Africa to fight the statistics provided by the World Health Organization: 2.7 million babies die in the first month of life, and another 2.6 million babies are stillborn. Some 830 women a day die from complications during pregnancy and childbirth. Julie knew that most of these deaths were preventable and she wanted to use her skill, wisdom, and ability to give as many African mothers and babies the chance at life that they deserved.
Julie’s book opens up life in another country that will stagger the reader with its hardships, shortages, privation—and yet—the fullness of life and joy exhibited by African families in spite of the limits they face in daily living. Julie found herself stretched to and beyond her limits in her endeavor to save the mothers and children entrusted to her care in spite of the scarcity of medical supplies and equipment.
Born for Life Midwife in Africa is a book with staying power—easy to ponder and hard to forget after the last word in the last sentence on the last page of the book.
I received this book from the author, Julie Watson, as an Advanced Review Copy in return for an honest review. I was sent it because of my connection with Africa, so I will admit I was already pre-disposed to enjoy it. However, I was more than just fascinated by this account of the author’s five months volunteering as a midwife at a remote mission hospital in Zambia. What an amazing experience and what a marvellous thing she and her husband did by going to Kalene hospital in northern Zambia as self-funded volunteers. I have huge respect for people who make this kind of commitment. It must have taken immense courage to step out of their comfort zone and into a situation where they had none of the trappings of ‘normal’ life and then had to cope with so many life and death situations.
The book covers the lead-up to their departure and all the bureaucratic issues involved with gaining the necessary permits to work in Zambia in the medical field. Julie Watson tells the story in a matter of fact way without exaggeration or drama, but the reader can feel the frustration involved. Keeping patience when faced with African ‘time’ is something I could relate to easily. Once the administration nightmares are over, the couple fly north to Kalene and I was immediately plunged into the world of hospital and volunteer life at the maternity department of this outlying mission hospital. With a team of dedicated doctors, midwifes, experienced native assistants and volunteers, the maternity ward deals with a constant stream of women and a daily battle with crises.
Women often arrive at the hospital ill and in danger and there are inevitable tragedies. Babies die with much more frequency than they do in a first world country where pregnant women receive such great care. However, apart from the places where I felt the author’s sorrow and pain over the deaths (which inevitably reminded her of her own loss), most would think she found it easy to adapt. But it must have been difficult, challenging and painful. Julie Watson’s writing style is quite formal, so it was only close to the end when I realised how much stress she’d been under throughout the whole five months. It’s just astonishing that she coped with it given all she had to face.
For anyone who has some medical knowledge and is interested in how women give birth and cope in rural Africa, it is a fascinating read and a testament to the courage of African women. There is quite a bit of medical terminology, which is explained in a glossary at the end of the book. There is also a lot of repetition, but that’s the nature of the job. However, there are some interesting glimpses of life in the surrounding villages and the couple’s social life as volunteers. That said, most of the book is focused on the women, babies and medical staff at the maternity ward.
After reading it, I am convinced this is a very important book as it records so much about what happens at a mission hospital and the conditions of pregnant women in Africa. I don’t personally know of another memoir that deals with this specific situation. Although it didn’t tell me as much about that part of Zambia as I’d hoped, it told me much more about the problems faced by the courageous, warm-hearted African women and the loving commitment of those who volunteer to help them. Hats off, Julie Watson. I wish you much success with this book and I am sure you will have it. It will be well deserved.