MEET EFFIE

This is a story about a little girl named Effie. She was about 10 years old when I met her, some 50 years ago. Truth is, I don’t really remember what she looked like—only that she was slight, mousey, somewhat unkempt looking, and subdued.

I met her in the hospital. I was in the ob/gyn ward for testing and a surgical procedure. Back then, hospital rooms were either two patients to a room (that was the more private level of care) or a ward of 8 patients. There was no such thing as a private room.

Since the testing I was undergoing was not painful or strenuous, when no tests were scheduled I was “free to roam”—within limits, of course. But I could walk around the ob/gyn area. And that’s how I met Effie.

Understandably, all of the patients in this area were women—and all were there for reasons relating to women’s reproductive health. The gynecological patients (which I was) were separated from the obstetric patients. So, there were no newborn babies or nursing mothers nearby.

In the course of my wandering around the area, I met a Puerto Rican woman, in one of the 8 bed wards. She was in her mid-50s—likely in the hospital for a hysterectomy. The nurses were very concerned about her because she wasn’t eating. Keep in mind, this was in the days before “get you in and get you out” hospital stays. You could be there for upward to a week for even routine surgery. So, her not eating was of concern. Because I am nosey, and was wandering around chatting with other patients, I quickly discovered the Puerto Rican woman spoke no English. The daily food choices were printed on menus in English and given to patients each day to circle their choices for meals. If nothing was circled, the default meat was beef. This woman did NOT like beef. After talking with her a bit (dusting off my high school Spanish), I learned that she had not been circling any choice on her daily menu. So, she constantly was served food she didn’t like. A bit of quick translation on my part—pollo y puerco—and she was able to give her preference and began eating again. (When the nurses discovered my “translating skills,” they asked me to tell the woman not to smoke with the oxygen tanks so close by!)

Back to Effie. As you can see, she was an anomalous patient. She didn’t need ovarian surgery, as I did. She didn’t need a hysterectomy as did the Puerto Rican woman. And, I assumed she wasn't pregnant because this was not the obstetric part of the hospital. So, what was her problem? When I talked with her, all she could tell me was that she understood she had a “growth” in her and needed to have it removed so she could get better.

Well, that piqued my curiosity. Growth? In a gynecological ward? It didn’t take much figuring to work out that she WAS pregnant. I was so stunned, that I asked a nurse—why does Effie think she has a growth and doesn’t know she is pregnant. The nurse explained (note: this was in the pre-HIPPA days) that a) the child had no sexual understanding at all. Obviously, she hadn’t been told “the facts of life,” including what it meant when she began menstruating early; b) she was about 8-10 weeks pregnant; c) she had been impregnated by her father; and d) the hospital was going to use a procedure which would cause her to go into “labor", deliver the fetus, and then go home. BUT she was NOT to be told why she would have all this done—that she was pregnant.

That’s the last I heard of Effie. I have long wondered what happened to her? Did she return home to be abused again? Did she realize, when she reached adulthood, that the pains were that she experienced as a girl in the hospital was actually “labor”? Where did she end up in life?

So, why I am telling you this long story? I am telling you this because this is a sad occasional reality. Pre-teen girls become pregnant because someone impregnates them. A medically safe abortion is a kindness for that young girl.  I am also telling you this story because it happened in 1970—before the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade. Then, without abortion being legal and safely available, women AND girls who became pregnant had few options. Yet, someone found a way to have Effie’s wrong pregnancy terminated. Not that I think it was handled in a way that was psychologically healthy—but it was handled.

I leave you to draw your own conclusions about what criminalizing abortion will do. BUT one thing I can tell you—it will NOT end abortion. But it will end medically safe procedures. Like it or not, you cannot accomplish the end of abortion until you make it impossible for a woman OR girl to become pregnant.

Long Distance Family

One of my blogging friends, Julie Zickefoose, has been writing on Facebook about long distance separation from her daughter.

Which set me to thinking about some of my long distance family connection experiences. Herewith some of those thoughts.

When I was around 2 years old, my parents went to southern Africa as missionaries. Their families, who lived in Pennsylvania, had only one way of staying in touch with my parents, and me as a grandchild. LETTERS. In fact, old style aerogram letters.  Also, of course, regular mail. To keep my grandparents up to date, my parents would send photos of me to my grandparents. In turn, they sent birthday cards. It was not until 7 years later, when we returned to the United States, that I saw these grandparents again.  For my paternal grandparents, I was the first (and for a while the only) grandchild. I know how much my grandmother Emma longed to be with me.

Then, after a year, my parents, along with me and my brother, returned to southern Africa. So another several years of being absent from family relatives. When circumstances arose that caused my parents to return to the United States, I was 14. And once again, I got to see my grandparents.

Fast forward to early 1960, when I was 15, my parents once again went to southern Africa, but this time I stayed in the United States to finish my high school years, and begin college. Of course, as a 15 year old girl, I thought that was totally cool.  But it did mean returning to long distance family contact--still at that point letters. 

Of course, there were a few other means of swifter communication than letters then--cablegrams, for example. But that mechanism was laborious and brief.

One feature of letters and cablegrams is that such is asynchronous communication. Send a letter, one side of the conversation. Wait for a return. Another side of the conversation -- and so on, back and forth. Not exactly conducive to interactive communication , i.e. synchronous, that is the hallmark of good communication.

In September, 1956 the transatlantic telephone cable was laid. So, then, it became possible to make telephone calls, and have a conversation...sort of. 

I had a singular experience with a transatlantic telephone call. When I was a sophomore in college, and apparently acting quite morose, some of my dorm mates collected money for me to make a call to my parents.  It was a most cumbersome process. First, I had to submit a request to make a call, in order to be given a time when I could call. Of course, I had to factor in time differences. I recently checked to see how such a call would have been made. In 1963, the time of my call, here's how it worked --

"TAT-3 was AT&T Corporation's third transatlantic telephone cable. It was in operation from 1963 to 1986. It had 414 kHz of bandwidth, allowing it to carry 138 telephone circuits (simultaneous calls). It was 3,518 nautical miles long, connecting Widemouth Bay in Cornwall, England to Tuckerton, New Jersey in the United States". Source--Wikipedia

And that was just to get the call from the United States to England. I have no idea how the call then made its way from England to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia).

So, on the day of the call--as I recall, at a cost of $25 for 3 minutes--I called my parents. And after the various relays, I could talk with my family. Now, factor in a bit of delay for the transit of those signals, and you get the sense. I would say something...hesitation... then get a response. And so forth.

I recall my mother passed the phone to my brother, who breathlessly rushed into telling me about school, violin lessons, and playing cricket (or soccer). Then she passed the phone to my sister, then about 5 years old, and I could hear my sister saying "NO"...
Then back to my mother briefly, and the call was over.

Fast forward to the year 2000. I was now a mother, of an 18 year old daughter, who was launching out of her own to work in London, UK, for several months. By now, there were computers, and there was email. And a kind of text messaging--with AOL messenger. Again asynchronous communication. My daughter could write something, I would answer and so forth. At the time, we began signing off with "love you to the moon and back."  And, there were telephone calls--via a public telephone box. So, she would call from London, dropping coins in the phone, and we could talk. In the background I could hear the London street noise.

So, we arrive at the present. I now have my two children some 8,000 miles apart. One child in California 3,000 miles from where I am, and one child in London 5,000 miles from me.  And they in turn have children--so I now return to the long-distance grand-parenting. Only this time, I am the grandparent.

Communications, of course, has once again changed. We now have text messages instantly back and forth. Plus we have FaceTime (or Skype), and Snapchat. So now, I can see them, talk with them, watch them play. Of course, it's not the same as being together--kind of difficult to hug them). But it is far better than the old type of long distance parenting, or grand-parenting.

Looking forward to teleporting, a la Star Trek.

Redux--Summertime. . .and the livin’ is easy

Recall a summer time memory from your youth--I confess that I suggested that prompt to Comeback Bloggers, having previously posted about one of my summertime memories--the swimming hole.

It is interesting to me is that I share, along with Ginger and Ruth, recollections of scrambled seasons.  Having grown up in southern Africa,  as a child I experienced "reversed seasons"--that is, summer in November, December and January, and winter in June, July, August.  Combine with that the schedule the school system followed--a calendar based school year beginning in January with holidays spaced throughout the year. We had a six week break at Christmas, and two 3 week breaks in the year between terms.  

So my earliest summertime memories are intermingled with Christmas holidays, definitely not the usual memory that a child in North America might have.

But, my parents did return to the U.S. when I was a teen--and I had several wonderful summers full of "typical" memories.

Here are two of the most vivid. I have written about them before, but the memories are still fresh and when I think my youthful summer times, these are what I recollect.

I can recall two idyllic summers when I lived with my uncle and aunt near the village of Grantham, PA. Too young to work (by the standards then), I had to find things to fill my summers. And I filled them very well, thank you.

What did we do? Well, we could walk to the little IGA grocer in the middle of the village. By today’s standards, this grocery would be a convenience store, but then it served to provide all the food goods we might need. And it had a soda cooler right inside the door. We would pad down the hill to the IGA, go inside in the relative cool, fish around for the right soda, then sucking our bottles, walk back home.

 

Or we would go to the local swimming hole. Do they even have swimming holes anymore? The one near Grantham was called the Riffles, and to get there you had to walk along the railroad tracks. The swimming hole was formed by an abandoned dam, which had fallen mostly into disrepair, but the remnants of a deep water reservoir remained. There was a nearby tree with the proverbial swing on which braver souls than I could swing far out over the swimming hole then drop in. We could sit on the remnants of the dam, sunning, talking, (if old enough) with a boy.





Soon enough, I no longer had time to fill my summers with such idol activities. Instead, at age 18 I went to Canada, along the shores of Lake Erie, to work for "rich" people--U.S. residents who worked in Buffalo, NY, but had summer homes on the Canadian side of Lake Erie. I did that for 3 summers.  No more swimming in swimming holes, no more leisurely walks to the corner grocery store.

Ah, summer. A time of leisure, a time for building memories, a time--at least when you are young--"the living' is easy."
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Photo credit: http://www.tribalcore.com/adventure/images/swimming-hole1.jpg 

This Above All...

If you studied Hamlet in high school (or wherever) you can finish the quote: "to thine own self be true."

Sounds like great advice, doesn't it? What is ironic, however, is that the character who speaks these lines is Polonius, who is--to put it rather bluntly--a big windbag. He is constantly interfering with affairs that he should leave alone.

So, how does this connect to the writing challenge of the week--what advice would I give my younger self? Well, I suppose just this: advice is not always helpful.

As I get older, I find myself doing the reminiscing bit. You know, going over events from the past, wondering what would have happened had I...fill in the blank with a "this" or "that."

But I always come back to one conclusion: while I am well aware that things in my life aren't perfect, and I certainly am not perfect, in the main--I like the way my life has turned out and I like myself.

So for fear of altering the course of my life in some unforeseen way, if given the chance, I would most certainly decline to tell my younger self anything.

Except...

There are a few dumb things I did. Perhaps if I had been forewarned, I might have done better.  Such as:

--remember the time I stopped going to movies? Well, that was dumb. Plain and simple. I love movies and I made no great moral point by avoiding them.

--then there was the time that because I had a migraine, I decided not to go to a concert. My husband had gotten tickets for us to go to an Eagles concert--I am a big fan of that group. Turned out the concert was superb--part of their comeback tour.  To this day, my husband has the tickets tucked away. And every so often he mentions it. Wish I had told myself--go to the concert. The headache won't last; the experience of a great concert will.

--swimming. Yup, just that. I wish I had learned to swim properly when I was a child. I had lessons, and regularly went to the public pool (in Bulawayo) where we had instructions. But I just couldn't get the hang of it. I loathed diving--putting my head underwater. I never mastered breathing. I can't float. Seriously--I just sink. So I wish...

--And one thing I most certainly would have told my younger self--take advantage of the places where you live and absorb as much as you can. For example. having grown up in southern Africa, I never even tried to learn any of the languages. I missed out on the experience of a lifetime simply because I couldn't be bothered.

That's it, folks.

Perhaps, as Polonius advised, I was being true to myself. Too impatient, too distracted, too young and immature. But, isn't that what it means to be young? Even if I had been able to advise my younger self, I doubt if I would have paid attention.

All Fall Down

I have now started this blog post three times...it's not that I have writer's block (I don't). And it's not that I had something in mind when I shared the prompt of "falling" (I didn't).

It's just that thus far I have read the falling entries of some fellow bloggers...and I almost feel as though I have little left to say.

So what I’ve settled on for the prompt of “falling” is to recount two personal experiences.

It is no wonder that fear of falling is one that many people have. And, for some of us that fear is coupled with a fear of heights.  Stands to reason—when you are somewhere high, falling seems so much more likely.

But some times, we fall in the most prosaic of ways.

I did. While I have fallen more that twice, two stories will have to do.

Since I recently wrote about a portion of my childhood, you know I went to boarding school. By the time I was ready to enter Form 1 (roughly equivalent to 7^th grade) I was attending a government run boarding school in Bulawayo.  This was my first steps into “adulthood.”  Not really, of course but it seemed like it. Each of the dorms in which we slept were somewhat self-governed. And to head up the internal governing of each dorm was a head prefect—a girl elected by her dorm classmates.  By some fluke, that girl was me…for a short while.

We all made our own beds, tidied our own space, stored our clothing in footlockers.  And on Saturdays we changed the sheets.  One such day, with the beds stripped, we got to being the children we were. We were giggling and bouncing. Jumping on the beds. Until.

Until one of the beds broke. The metal springs simply gave way, and crashed to the floor.  When the house matron came around to investigate, she zeroed in on me. I have no idea if I was really to blame, but as head prefect, I was the one who was blamed.

What I remember most clearly is the house matron’s verdict: You’re demoted.

I was stunned. How could something my fellow classmates picked me for be taken away? And how was I the only one to blame when it was a group activity?  Never mind—I alone was the one who fell from grace.

The second story about falling happened just last Hallowe’en. In our township, there is a designated night for “Trick or Treat”.  With the doorbell ringing periodically, my husband and I switch off between one of us answering the door, and the other keeping the dog calm.

Since my husband had answered the door several times in a row, when the doorbell rang again—I jumped up and said: I’ll get this one.  I went hurrying to the door and—yes—caught my foot on an end table. In an instant, I was falling, completely unable to stop. I fell SPLAT into the entry way of our house. The front door was open with only the glass storm door between me and the outside. There stood a young child and her horrified mother.

While I was lying face down, my husband rushed to me and asked if I was OK—my only response was: just get the door.

Of course, that fall was foolish and painful. I thought I must have broken some bones, but somehow I had not. Oh, I had a fat lip from banging my face. And a few weeks after, my one shoulder began to stiffen. I sought the help of a physical therapist who put me through a series of exercises (which I still do).

Now as a woman of a certain age, no longer a school girl, I understand that falling is a hazard.  And, I try to walk very carefully. 

Leaving Home

A number of years ago, I was doing some research on my paternal grandparents. They had been missionaries in southern Africa (from 1920 to 1929), so there was a wealth of material on which to draw. You see, I was writing a short biography for a small historical journal.

Not only did I read letters they had written to each other and various church publications my grandfather had written for, but I also interviewed their children--my father, my aunt, and my uncles. When I posed a question to one of my uncles, he gave an interesting answer.  The question was: when did you leave home?  His answer was--Leave home? I didn't leave home, home left me.

Well.

Leaving home has been a repeating occurrence in my life.  And those times--having to say goodbye--are what I think were the events that moved me from childhood to adulthood.  I can't really say--as my uncle did--that home left me. But my first leaving home was something precipitated by choices my parents made.

(Click to enlarge...I am the one in the yellow dress. Apparently I didn't get the message to wear a blue dress.)

When I was 5 (turning 6 in a month), I first went to boarding school.  You see, my parents were also missionaries in southern Africa. One of the dilemmas that my parents had (as did many people who were "aliens" in a country and culture not their own) was what to do about educating their children. For the first two years, my mother taught me, using correspondence material. But, soon it became clear that as the only missionary child on the mission station, I needed a different environment. I only recently learned that part of the impetus for my early departure for boarding school was the fact that I began to be "too bossy" around the African students at the mission school.

So, my parents took me to a boarding school. That was the first of several such schools. Each time, I was away from home with holiday stretches in between terms.  Then, when I was 15 we returned to the U.S.  However, my parents did not stay here. After a year's furlough (kind of a working vacation) they returned to southern Africa. 

My parents asked me if I wanted to stay in the U.S. I was in 10th grade, and college would be the next stop on my educational pathway, which would mean either I stayed in the U.S., or returned. I chose to stay.

That was, as I now reflect, the moment when I crossed over from childhood to adulthood. Oh, there were other gradual maturations along the way. But once my parents were on another continent, I had many decisions to make on my own.  My uncle* and aunt had accepted guardianship for me, but I did much on my own.  For example, I opened a bank account...which was at a bank in a town 5 miles away from where I lived. No such thing as on-line banking.

Even though I turned 16 about the time my parents returned to southern Africa, I did NOT learn how to drive. My uncle was not too keen on a teenage "daughter" learning to drive. Oh, I forgot to mention that my uncle and aunt had no children of their own, so suddenly having a teenager on their hands was a real shock.  

For two years, I lived with my uncle and aunt  where my uncle was college president. Then I went to college at that place. One year after I began college, my uncle accepted another position, and moved half the country away. I stayed put, of course, being in college. So my self-reliance increased. 

When the college was closed for holidays, I had to find a place to be. Very kind dear friends at times invited me home with them. Or I was in college choir, and we toured during spring breaks. Summers were another challenge. For 3 summers, I traveled to near Fort Erie, Ontario to work in wealthy folks' summer homes along Lake Erie.  How did I get to Canada and back? From central Pennsylvania? I have no idea, except somehow I managed to arrange rides.

So, did I leave home? Or did home leave me? Whichever (or both) I certainly had to grow up.  Not long before her death, my mother expressed to me her regret that she and my dad had agreed to allow me to stay in the U.S.  I thought for just a few moments, and then said to my mother--don't. Don't regret a decision you thought you had to make. I like who I am now, and obviously part of what made me who I am is a consequence of the life I have lived. So don't regret your decision.


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*Not the same uncle as in the story in the first paragraph.

On The Rocks

I am inspired--or at the very least nudged--by the resolve of a childhood friend of mine who has vowed to resuscitate her blog by writing a blog a day for a month.  Now, it must be noted that she posted this intent on April 1--but I do think she is serious.  You can read her entries here.

At any rate, she has posted two blogs about her experiences growing up as a missionary child in southern Africa.  As I indicated, she is a childhood friend, so we share some common memories.  Reading her posts got me to thinking--it's been a long time since I posted anything about childhood.  As any long time reader of this blog knows, I have explored that topic.  All you need to do is conduct a search on my blog using CHILDHOOD and you will get quite a few entries.

But one topic I have not explored:  climbing rocks.  Now almost every child has had the opportunity to climb.  It is one of the true joys of childhood.  It can also be one of the precipitants of a serious childhood injury due to falls.  Most of us climb trees.  Some of us with access to farms climb in haylofts.  But, I would venture that not that many of us have climbed rocks. 

I most certainly did.  The mission station where my parents were when I was last living in southern Africa was situated among the Matopo Hills (the current spelling is now MatoBo, and you can Google it to learn a bit more about this fascinating geologic place).

The Matopo Hills featured large boulders that rose like hills.  These are not small rocks--these are truly magnificent and somewhat mysterious looking rocks.  Many of them have caves, and in these caves where early humans lived they painted.  The uniqueness of the paintings and their importance in the development of art earned them a designation as a World Heritage site.

 

Painting of some Matopo Rocks by South African artist Olive Hind

Now, I didn't go climbing into caves.  What I did was climb the rocks around the mission station.  The Matopo Mission was situated among some of these rocks--it made for a fascinating playground.

One time, I was playing tag with a missionary friend, a boy named Eugene.  He was a bit older than me, and far more daring.  As we chased over these rocks, with him in the lead, we came to a place where one rock was over-hanging another.  Eugene jumped, landing safely below.  I came up to the precipice and looked over.  A moment of terror seized me, but--ever competitive and spurred on by "anything he can do, I can do better" I jumped.  Miracle of miracles, I too landed safely below.

Hiking out away from the mission station a bit, Eugene and I found places where the rocks had been cleft by eons of rain water, wearing away and finally splitting a rock.  If you stood at the bottom, you could look up and see that the cleft went all the way to the top of the rock.  So, how to get up there?  Well, you chimney-stacked.  And Eugene taught me to chimney stack.

Since I have returned to the United States, I have not seen the Matopo Hills again.  But, years ago, when I first visited the Gettysburg Battlefield with my husband, I was thrilled to see Devil's Den there.  This place also had large rocks--a very small outcropping compared to the Matopo Hills, but nevertheless rocks worthy of climbing.

I do think my climbing days are long over--there's my age, there's my bad knee, and there's my slowly developing fear of heights.  Now, when I am some place aloft (such as a Ferris wheel), my toes curl under and my feet sweat!

Whatever happened to that daring girl who jumped off one rock onto another, or chimney stacked?  Ah, well, no matter.  I will let others be "on the rocks"--I will keep my feet firmly planted on the ground.

Glimpses of A Childhood Home

One of the pleasures for me in our recent trip to South Africa was to experience some scenes that reminded me very much of my childhood.  Long time readers will know that I did not grow up in South Africa, but in the country just to the north--now Zimbabwe, Rhodesia in the years I was there.


I had been ages since I saw a lovely avenue of trees bordering a well-tended dirt road.  The one shown below is the avenue leading up to Boschendal The Estate, now a wine estate.  It was originally established in 1685 as a farm including vineyards.  In 1897, Cecil Rhodes acquired the estate, established fruit orchards and eventually turned the whole estate over to De Beers.

In Bulawayo, the town where I went to school, the avenues were lined with jacaranda trees.  Below is a photo of jacaranda blossoms close up.  It was wonderful to see them again.  Also, bougainvillea, another flower from childhood memory.

During my parents' time as missionaries, they occasionally had vacation time--it was during these times that we visited Cape Town.  Of course, Table Mountain is the iconic landmark in Cape Town.  You see it everywhere you travel around Cape Town.  


My prior time going to the top of Table Mountain was when I was a child.  Then, the cable car was a less sturdy looking device.  Based on a website recounting the history of the cable car, I assume when my dad and I visited it, we rode the car identified as the First Cable Car.  The newest iteration of cable car is much sleeker and sound.  Despite my fear of heights, I rode the cable car with no apprehension at all.  The small nob you see at the top is the cable car station.

And, here I sit with my husband on rocks at the top of Table Mountain.

Not the same rock, to be sure, but here's proof that I sat on the rocks atop Table Mountain once before--with my dad, some time in the early 1950s.

Most people identify almost any part of Africa as a place with animals.  Growing up, I did see lots of animals--more, actually, than we saw on our recent trip.  One animal that is still seemingly present everywhere is the baboon.  Oh, yes, I recall baboons from my childhood.


As we drove various places, baboons could be seen along side or even on the roads.  One baboon had found a beer bottle, which he cradled jealously, and kept from the other baboons in the troop.  The photo below is one our son-in-law took.  He was seated on the side of the car with the best view.  Travelers are sternly warned: 1) not to open car doors as the baboons know no fear; 2) not to feed the baboons; and 3) not to harm the baboons which are a protected species.  We saw people whose job was to mind the baboons, and warn cars to slow down.  I wondered if the people told their friends they were in "monkey business." 
  

Finally, many of my childhood memories involve lovely flowers and interesting birds.  The flowers shown were in Kirstenbosch Gardens, a lovely large park adjacent to Cecil Rhodes' Cape Town estate of Kirstenbosch. 


The bird is the blue crane which is the South African national bird.  Kind of an odd looking bird, if you ask me.

But the most scene reminiscent of my childhood were the African skies.  I kept thinking of Paul Simon's song "Under African Skies" as I looked at the endless sky unfurling around me.

Not all the scenes in South Africa are as lovely--I will share some of my sadness in another post.