Story Midwifery

 

 

 

 

Hi.  Welcome to this blog.  My name is “Niña de Sus Ojos”, which is a Spanish idiom meaning “the apple of her or his eye”. The apple of anybody’s eye, really, which is, of course, an English idiom meaning “deeply loved, prized, prioritized and cared for.”  I really truly believe that’s who I am in the eyes of God!

It’s only the simple yet profound kernel of “classic” Christianity. What’s that ageless little children’s song, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so”? I actually believe that.  The blog attempts to document my lifelong journey of coming to the place of believing that.

The reason I entitled this blogpage “Story Midwifery” is three-fold.  Firstly I’ve always loved the word “midwifery”, just as a word! Secondly, If I had a second life to live I think that when I grew up in that life I would choose the career of Certified Nurse-Midwife-overseas worker, or Nurse-Practitioner-overseas worker. That’s partly because I love Bolivia so much, live there and identify with that country, and have clearly seen an urgent need in Bolivia for health-worker training and midwivery training, especially in all the rural and semi-rural areas of that country.  Bolivia has the second-highest, by far, infant and maternal mortality rate in the Western Hemisphere. Thirdly, I’ve been a wannabe writer since I was 9, sitting in my grandmother’s hot, junk and antique-filled attic at a tiny table at the head of the steep wooden stairs, penning my first novel which was about a nurse, kind of like Cherry Ames. One of my main goals for doing this blog is to try to GET OUT, TO SEE BIRTHED, my true stories, from my childhood in Cameroun and in Congo, and from my adult-hood in the rural and semi-rural provinces and towns of Bolivia throughout the eighties and nineties and continuing. I believe our stories need to be told in some way. A favorite Sue Monk Kidd quote goes, “Stories need to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here.” Writing can be a form of story midwifery.