An Ode To MAM(Mothers Artists Makers) on her 5th Birthday

It was Nollaig na mBan, 2016, just after #Wakingthefeminists. I went to a gig in Neachtains organised by some fantastic Galway theatremakers. It was such an amazing evening, but that familiar sinking feeling crept in with the pints and I found myself looking at these women; these, talented, fabulous women and thinking “ I used to be like them, but that’s over for me”. I crept out the door, tail between my legs…it was time to relieve the babysitter anyway. My precious night out, so rare for me as a single parent, felt totally sabotaged by this creeping sense of .…I don’t know, still, the right word for it but it’s some unholy mess of Not Good Enough+ I love my child SO much but I miss my career + There’s No Way I Can Go Back Anyway to Night Shows and missing bedtimes + General Sense of Worthlessness/Aloneness.

I don’t quite remember the moment-I sincerely wish I did- but a few weeks later  I was scrolling through social media when I saw the photo of Tara Derrington holding THAT sign. “ Where are the lost mothers of theatre now? At the school gates”. Was that it? You wonder afterwards how such lifechanging moment isn’t etched in perfect HD quality into your brain!! There are others like me?!? I mean, of course there are but…I guess, well, I just thought everyone else made a CHOICE to be a mother, to give it all up and be happy and content and look back on a theatre career with fondness, nostalgia but 0 regrets….

I got pregnant, by accident, when I was in the middle of doing an MA in Theatre and Media for Development. 5 years post drama school, working on and off professionally since I was 16, and after a really bad breakup with a fellow actor, I was questioning was the Industry for me. Years of auditioning in London and LA, not getting parts as “You don’t LOOK Irish” ( don’t get me started on THAT one!), generally being terrible at auditioning etc…I felt it was time for a change and to follow this passion down another, more altruistic track. A few weeks before I found out I was going to be a mom, I had absolutely, categorically, decided I missed Theatre SO much; my love for it renewed in the waste ground 3,000 strong audiences that ALWAYS showed up in Kibera, in gaffering exposed wires to run electricity into shacks to shoot docu-dramas, in making shows for the stalls of the elegant old lady that is Nairobi’s National Theatre. I wanted to go back, I wanted to act, and I wanted to Direct. Thank you Kenya.

I could tell you about all the years in between. I “kept my hand in”, I guess, on the fringes anyway. And that was ok, I WANTED to raise my baby. The first day I went back to work on my MA thesis project, when he was 10 months old, I missed his first steps. His Dad tried to soften it with “he missed you so much, he tried to walk after you”…it just made it worse. I knew that I didn’t want to miss those moments.

And I knew this too; I couldn’t give up my work.

People who work in theatre don’t do it for the money. Or the Glamour. Or the excellent working conditions. They certainly don’t do it for reliability or stability, or sanity.

They do it out of pure love. Maybe addiction. And other reasons too, I’m sure.

I am extraordinarily lucky. Not just lucky, I’m also a hard worker. A grafter. I moved back to Galway with my 2 year old , and his Dad followed us, just for year ( anyone want to hear a story about 7 years of fighting for a visa? Not right now? Cool, it’s pretty lonnngggg anyway..)

I volunteered for theatre festivals. I joined a troupe in the Macnas parade, just a few weeks after moving back. I took a job at an accountants firm. I met people, I chatted. I didn’t have an agenda, at that stage, I didn’t know what end was up, I was just Surviving. Barely.

And then people started to ask me to do things. I got a couple of gigs with Macnas. At first, I very much hid the fact that I had a small boy at home. But it’s a small town, and I got braver. I remember the first time I HAD to bring him into a rehearsal and I was met with “ sure of course, no bother”.

But you know what, I still “hid” him. Years of being conditioned to believe you had to be available as a performer 24/7 was still very much at the forefront. I remember my agent calling me , very soon after I left drama school, telling me an actor had got sick who was playing the lead in Duchess of Malfi and they wanted me…the director had seen me in a drama school show. I turned it down, I was on my way to Oz with my boyfriend(yep, the same fella) and after that my relationship with my agent was never the same. I was terrified that any hint of me being less than available cos I was a mother, and worse still, now a SINGLE mother…

5 years ago, I worked as an AD to Rob Ashford (Frozen, Sunset Boulevard in production) on a brand new show for Chichester. My son went to his Dad in Kenya for 4 months and I worked literally 7 days a week on that show. We were hoping it would transfer to the West End. On the back of that, I had an interview with Kenneth Branagh to assist him and Rob on a full season at the Garrick. I felt like I was, once again, at the brink of a huge milestone in my career. I didn’t get the job. And you know what? I was SO relieved. Gutted, but relieved. There is not a single chance in HELL I could’ve done that job and the full time job I had already had; being a Mother.

I would choose my child. Every Single Time. Every time.

My question is, why? Why do I have to choose? Why do WE have to choose.

I have 26 years experience in this industry as a performer, director, writer, devisor, venue manager . I am not the exception, I am the NORM. What industry in their right mind allows its most experience workers to leave? Or normalises choosing career over motherhood? Who should have to make that choice; life or work?

The majority of my colleagues in Galway are female. Many- most- that are working regularly don’t have kids. I don’t know their individual reasons, of course. But I can bet that many of them didn’t have kids because they knew they couldn’t have both.

Up to very recently , there was a BIG part of me that just accepted that was the case. You gotta choose, girl, that’s just life. Is it though? Or is it just an outdated model that frankly doesn’t serve a single one of us, in my opinion.

If you haven’t stopped reading yet, maybe the word Patriarchy will be the nail in the coffin.

It’s a dirty word. It holds up a culture in the theatre where we normalise burnout, unsustainable hours, adrenaline, bad diets, alcoholism and stress. There isn’t any space for a family life , much less raising small children. And it forces women in our industry to choose between motherhood and career. And men too, maybe not in the same way, but who can be an engaged, active father when you’re doing a tech week as we currently do them?!?

It’s so insidious, so powerful that we all become complicit in it.

I’m tired of it. I’m tired of putting up and shutting up. I’m tired of an industry that enforces hierarchies of power where artists new to the field are at the mercy of funding pots and cronyism; and at the other end women in their prime are funnelled off, like deformed chicks in a battery farm, on conveyor belts to the waste bin as soon as they become pregnant.

I’m in delight of companies like Macnas, like Baboró, like Moonfish and Róisín Stack that not only accept me as a parenting artist, but welcome my child into the room when I need to bring him. I am lucky in that I live in a creative, vibrant town where it is a small pool and I am able to move back into the industry that I love. It hasn’t been easy; it ISN’T easy. While working on my last show with Róisín Stack, I had to leave THREE TIMES unexpectedly during rehearsal to collect my son from school after falls, and for a burst appendix. Even now, as I write that, I wonder is it wise? Will it give a potential director or collaborator pause and reason to rethink working with me? Does it make me “difficult” to work with?

Yes, there are potentially pitfalls when working with a parenting artist. My son is at that awkward age now where he is too old for a babysitter, but too young to be fully capable of looking after himself. I don’t have childcare in place; we live a mile from the school so on days when I’m in rehearsal he comes home himself. So when things go wrong-rarely, but like soldiers they seem to come not in single spies- I DO have to drop and run. And that can be very difficult for colleagues. Over the years I’ve had live in childcare, friends, family all give me a digout. But there are times when he just needs Mammy.

But let me tell you what else you get when you work with/employ/collaborate with a parenting artist. And this list is my no means exhaustive…I’m just editing a script, cooking dinner and learning lines while I write this so probably missing a few out:

• Incredible multitasking abilities.
• Tireless, endless ability to work
• Master negotiators/collaborators
• Can whip up a costume for you if your budget is tight etc etc

I’m being silly with some of this, and half way through I thought “there I go again! Feeling the need to SELL mothers as a good bet…to PROVE that we are good enough to take a risk on”.

Enough.

MAMs, enough. Through this group, I have found my support, found my tribe. Our needs aren’t all the same, neither are our career histories, the jobs we do or who we are. We are united in being part of an industry that refuses to include us, refuses to value us. Refuses, still, to tell our stories.

I’ve had enough. We need to remember…No, MAM has reminded me  that we ARE the Industry. We ARE Theatre. And our children are future audiences, and maybe even Theatremakers.

So in the words of a recent script, via JFK, I ask you. If not US, who? If not now, When?

Meet you at midnight to storm the barricades, MAMs. Happy 5^th Birthday.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1103503609710744

I’m awake and I’m prowling. I have no idea why..we live in utter suburbia, the biggest threat is our neighbour having a few too many on Saturday and waking the baby when he stumbles home from the pub at midnight, singing. But I feel…under threat, like I need to be doing something, protecting something. Him. Them.

He’s just so tiny. In a frightening way..and I feel so…helpless I guess. And angry…I’ve no idea why. It’s like I’m anticipating the first time someone is going to threaten him in some way. I play out scenarios in my head where we are in the playground, and a bigger kid pushes him in the sandpit , and I go full Hulk on him, ripping the child limb from limb til he’s just a writhing torso…I mean, that’s not fucking normal is it? Is it? They don’t tell you shit like that in the prenatal classes, and they fucking should! You know, they say you might feel helpless when she’s giving birth, or whatever, but they don’t mention this psychopathic FEAR when you see this thing..this tiny person who looks like ME..who needs ME, who I’m the fucking FATHER to! It’s like this constant state of overwhelm..I’m in love, I’m terrified, I’m exhausted…just one never ending fairground ride of extreme feeling. I fucking hate it

And her..what happened to her? To us..we were good. So good. we were falling in love, and ya, we didn’t expect this to happen but it did, and I thought it would be good but…I can’t do anything right. The way  I touch her, the way I don’t touch her…the way I hold him. She wants me to wake up at night when she’s feeding, but then she’s irritated when I do, like I’m interrupting some secret club she has with him. I can’t even make a bottle without her checking that I’ve put the exact ratio of water to powder..like I’m a total fucking idiot who secretly wants to kill our son cos I’m jealous he gets to suck her tits now and not me..fuck, maybe I am…I don’t know, I just don’t know how to FIT into this thing that is a triangle that feels like it just wants to be a pair.

Nollaig na mBan 06/01/2016

I left Neachtains on Nollaig na mBan feeling, despite the dawning flu that was driving me home early, deeply inspired. Hopeful.

I also felt a little overawed, under talented. Amazed by the extent of the artistic ability in our tiny town, excited by these women, may of whom I have had the pleasure to work with through Macnas, or Improv lab, through Baboro and all the other amazing, women-driven theatrical feasts that happen in Galway.

But the emotion that has stayed with me, what is still gnawing at my mind and heart these 5 days later, is cowardice.

I didn’t speak up. I mean, leave aside the fact that the night had been planned, and I hadn’t asked to speak , and I was a bit sick, and I’m still a bit of a blow in….I left, not having been brave enough to voice my voice; and that has lingered with me.

A few days after this amazing movement started, I was invited to a discussion on theatre via Twitter. Inspired by all that was going on, I tweeted back that I would love to go, but couldn’t arrange childcare at such short notice.

I am a Mother. Currently a parent parenting alone as my son’s Dad lives abroad. I also happen to be a performer, a director, a facilitator….though it feels harder and harder to call myself these things since I became a mom.

Cue 10 minutes of elation; the air punching, self congratulating kind. I had stood up for myself, nay, not just myself but all the mammies in theatre!! Where was the consideration for childcare?Where was the notice and recognition that parents need time to plan?Hell, where was the offer of childcare provided at the meeting?!

As soon as it came, it went, replaced by crushing, horrified doubt. I had just scuppered any chance of whoever it was who had invited me ever inviting me to anything ever again. I had just labelled myself as difficult and demanding, on Twitter! Imagine mentioning about childcare, much less making reference that THEY could have thought about it?! Am I insane?!They didn’t know I was a mom, it wasn’t their fault…out and out panic and visions of being an outcasted pariah played with me the rest of the day.

We make theatre for people, but to make a person…well, then you’re out of this gang. Say adios to your career baby, this world ain’t for mammies. Especially of the single variety.

It was only after having my beautiful son, and moving back to Ireland a few years ago, that it really dawned on me how difficult it is to do this with a child. Almost every woman I know struggles with the transition back to work after children. But to come back to the theatre is almost impossible, in my humble opinion. As an actor, how can you commit to missing bedtimes every night during a run? Where do you find the headspace, much less the hours, to obsess as a director over every tiny detail when you’ve got bedtime stories, play-dates and homework to deal with? The biggest thing for me in the last few years as I make tentative steps back in, was feeling just totally alone in my experience. I am surrounded by wonderful theatre makers who could decide to stay in rehearsal an extra 3 hours when we were in the zone, when I always have to go. Staying in the zone when the goddess of creativity visits just isn’t an option for me anymore, school lets out at 2.30 sharp.

Last year, I was lucky enough to work as assistant director on a new musical. It was an amazing opportunity to work with an incredible creative team in a great theatre, and I jumped at the chance. My son’s dad and I decided it was best for Noah to go live with him for the duration and leave me free to work.

I spent 12 weeks away from my son. It was hell. I cried myself to sleep 3/4 nights a week. And I did really well. All the skills of multitasking, negotiating, sympathizing, organizing 300 things at the same time; all the stuff I had learned since becoming a mom, came to my aid when dealing with scriptwriters, distraught actors, producers etc etc.

There were 75 plus people involved in that show. And only 4 moms. 4. Only 2 with small children. So for that 3 months, I barely mentioned my son. Now, maybe I’m wrong, maybe everyone would have been happy for me to talk about him, share how much I was missing him etc, but I don’t think so. I was so afraid as coming across as being sentimental, emotional, potentially unreliable in my missing that I pretty much acted like I was just another theatre maker, sans enfants.

The realization for me in the last few days was this; post show, post tweet, post Neachtains, I felt the same emotion that I am burying and disguising and calling my own inadequacy-Shame. I feel ashamed. That somehow, my choice to have a child means I have given up my right to be part of this world anymore. I didn’t have the willpower/ drive to sacrifice what was expected of me in order to succeed in this industry; motherhood. I wanted it all, and that just ain’t possible, kid! Didn’t you read the small print?!? It’s the paragraph after ‘Can’t be a fat actress unless you want to be a character actress’, and before ‘You must still offer to make/collect the tea if you are a woman no matter how many shows you have worked on’.

Many amazing theatre makers go into Children’s theatre post children. On one hand, this is completely natural, your interest shifts and this becomes more current and relevant to you, to make beautiful things for your beautiful babies.Don’t get me wrong, I adore children’s theatre.In the 4 years working on Baboro, I have seen at least 2 of the best shows of my life, and I firmly believe children’s theatre is the most important art form there is. But I want to make magical theatre for big people too! Having my son has not taken away my desire to engage with the world creatively, it has enhanced it. It is more important now for me to reflect things of beautiful through art. And even more so to explore the dark parts of our nature, to question things, to hold up and shine light and ask and ask and ask, because my son deserves to live in a world when we are questioning right and wrong all the time.Plus, I don’t think 4 year olds would appreciate my take on racism in Ireland, and besides, they don’t need it.

I had two wonderful female theatremakers stay with me recently from the UK, while the were doing r&d for their new show. Two incredible women who started and successfully run an award winning theatre company that I had the pleasure to work with. They excitedly told me, both having recently married, that they had planned to take some time off together and get pregnant. They would then pick up the company again when they were both ready to come back to it. I wanted to be totally, 100% delighted and supportive of them. And I was delighted. But deep down, I really wanted to tell them both how hard it is to come back into this industry with a child. How the supports just aren’t there. How, much as you think you’ll be able to, it’s impossible to deal with the unsociable hours when you have a little one with early hours and regular routine. How, and maybe this IS just me, no one really wants you to burden them with limitations in this industry.

Maybe they are there. I have no doubt they are. The women who have come back into this industry with small children, and thrived. If so, contact me, please! I need inspiration. I need someone else to dream into the utopia of childcare in theatres, in ways to manage sick days and missed bedtimes. Much as I am so blessed with the circle of creative people around me, I always feel I am the one putting restrictions on what we can do.

I have had many occasions where I have had to bring my son to work. And people have been great about it. I think maybe even having a small boy there when we are having a day about play, or looking at ideas for children’s theatre, really helped. But there is still that gnawing sense of..yes, it is ugly Shame again, that it is not ok to bring your son to work. That I should have sorted something out. I don’t believe I am experiencing that externally per se, so when did I start believing that story, and where did it come from?Again, many of my female friends in other industries feel something similar. That there is something wrong with asking for time off for child related things. That they will be seen as unreliable etc. In becoming a mother, that you suddenly become a wobbly cog in the machine that has to work extra hard to prove she is not going to mess up the whole thing.

A few years ago we went as a family to a conference in Sweden that my son’s Dad was presenting at. We had planned to go exploring etc while he was at the conference, and meet him in the evenings. But to our pleasant surprise, our 4 year old and 1 were included in every moment. Either the kids were in the room where the presentations were going on, or there was childcare provided next door, through a window so you could see your child. Everything was relaxed, and inclusive.

At this moment, I cannot even imagine what supporting mothers in this industry would look like. But the call before Nollaig na mBan from this movement was to talk, to dream and share. So I dream…that mother would be supported and welcomed back to this industry with open arms. That their skills , finely honed on the battlefield of feeding, pooping and the torture of no sleep would be celebrated, recognised, sought after. That theatres would provide the possibility of childcare…There is more, but the first step for me is to step over that big block of shame, wherever the hell it came from, and recognise that I haven’t reneged my right to create theatre. Quite the opposite, that my new role has added more colour, more knowledge and insight to my artist’s heart. So, deep breath, here I am. A mother. A theatremaker. My voice is important, and relevant, and I want to hear others. Where are we, and how do we create beautiful, questioning, relevant theatre that speaks to the hearts of all those other baby makers out there? In the same way our women’s voice has been silenced, by ourselves and others, we need to unmute the voice of the mother, otherwise our society does not reflect the reality of it totality. That’s my dream, and thank you WTF for waking me up from this pile of useless shame to dream it.

Now, who’s in?

What You Know

I was so delighted and honoured to present this speech last year at #APAC16 on behalf of Mothers Artists Makers(MAM). It’s a call to action, a call for change and a cry for recognition for and to all the mothers in theatre.

Mothers Artists Makers Ireland

As part of the 2016 All-Island Performing Arts Conference in Galway on the 15-16 June, an Open Call went out in April for proposals to participate in a concept album talk. Each submission had to select one of fifteen tracks from the concept album Now That’s What I Call #APAC16 and speak on their chosen topic for no longer than the duration of the track and using the song title as inspiration.

The newly formed MAMs Ireland put forward the following text using the song title What You Know by Two Door Cinema Club (3.11 minutes)

Written by Sarah FitzGibbon and Johanne Webb and presented by Johanne Webb on behalf of Mothers Artists Makers

What you know
That she was a theatre artist
That she was good at what she did
That she had trained, is experienced and delivered
That she was pregnant.
What ever happened to her?

What…

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A Call to Mothers of Sons

Mothers, teach your sons to Cry.

Tell them how Manly tears are, how soft hearts are strong and noble,

that they may feel their own wounds as fertile chasms to plant and grow,

not mucky ditches filled with hard fists and twisted weapons

Mothers, show your sons how to Cook

So they feel the potential for their own beautiful creation, the power of nurture, of self care,

and autonomy

Mothers, tell your sons the stories of your Moontime

Your period, your monthly bleed, the messy bloody reality of womanhood

Learn him of this time of deep sensitivity, of wisdom and gentleness

So someday he can be the reassuring arm his partner, lover, sister, friend needs,

the one that tells her she is not a moody cow

but experiencing the greatest mystery of creation and destruction in her own sacred body

Mothers, shower your sons in the tenderest love everyday

Allow them to be gentle boys, wrestling young men,

Grumpy and moody and always loved

Tell them their confusing anger and frustration is as welcome as their inexplicable pain, sorrow and joy.

Teach them where the edge of your Mothers cliff is.

Tell them No.

Mothers, stand and say

No more shall we be complicit in the rage that sends generations of men to War.

No longer will we stand in silent witness to wounds inflicted on boys through the drunken stinging words of the husbands we chose,

the ones we are too sacred will push us out if we speak up

Hold still your bitter rejection that pours spiteful salt of your own fragile heart to sons who carry on,

taught that love is shown through blows of words and fist,

who march on the same, knowing only to love in that way.

Mothers, no longer allow sons of distant lands to be named as the Other.

The Enemy.

Open up the vastness of your mother’s heart to each Son

As if he came from your limbs

Carried, preciously, heavily, and torn from you in fitful labour.

Seek Peace for every Son,

as if he were the same same one you suckled,

worried and dragged to this grown man in front of you.

Mothers.

Stand.

It is time for us to speak.

Just for today………

Just for today, be gentle with yourself. You have years of judgements to let go of in this moment-Take it easy. Treat yourself as you would your own precious child. Listen to the workings of your inner being, ask yourself what you need in this moment. Do not judge the response. Lying in bed and playing on a tiny screen may not a guru make, but it may bring you a moment of peace. Listen to the voice that cries out your truth, your rage, your wildness, your anger. It is responding to injustice in the world, do not call it a shameful beast. You are wounded, and bleeding invisibly, internally, for loss.  Your heart has shattered and tried to mend itself with man-made glue. You have discovered the illusion, and now you have uncovered it, you cannot be satisfied. Or lied to, or lie. It is not possible. Journey now towards the death of what was, the perfect image of the self in all it’s dreamt glory. You are perfectly imperfect; human, messy, beautiful, flawed-wonderfully human. Embrace your contradictions, the parts that don’t add up, the bits that fight each other within you for space and voice and air.

On this day, shout to the moon of the dreams of your heart. Tell it of the love you seek; the love that seeks not to complete you but to walk bravely beside you through fire and ice. The heart that sees your own in its imperfect glory and wants to know it exactly as it is. Scream of your quest for justice in this ravaged land, the need for every child to know they are loved, needed, perfect as they are. Feel your heart bound to the earth and all it’s pain; rope bound creation twining together. See yourself in this lady moon, the power of your place on this earth.

Just for today, be with yourself as you would be with the most sensitive, delicate, precious of beings. Pretend, if you must, that you deserve this gentleness, this care. Until the moment when your soul reminds you: The world needs YOU to love yourself in order for it to Be Love . Until you remember who you are.

Genes more popular than jeans,thanks Angie….

It’s a year and a half since I found out I am a BRCA1 carrier.  I guess we all react differently to hearing news like that. I thought it sounded a little bit like a dinosaur, or some sort of crazy alien disease. Arrr, run away, I’m a BRCA1! (It helps that it’s pronounced ‘Bracka1′). The lovely gene doctor(sure there is a posher name than that!) who broke the news to me was a bit bemused by me finding it funny.

Percentages. Disease, death, options. Mastectomies, hysterectomy, ovarian removal(again, insert posher word here).’Once you have completed your family’ is the phrase that I have heard most often since then by health care professionals. It’s a precursor to ‘You can chop off piece X,Y and Z of your body’.Up to now, I have been very comfortable with the decision not to chop off my bits, thank you very much, and just take the 6 monthly screening I was offered. Every six months I get my blood taken, twice, and it is sent to the breast unit, and the gynaecology departs. These, you understand, are totally separate-hence the two lots of blood for the same test. One is a beautiful, purpose built and female friendly building, the other is full of screaming kids and heavily pregnant ladies; grey surroundings, dirty toilets-you get the picture. You can immediately spot the non-pregnant women-the few who are there for cancer scares and gynaecological problems. The ones sitting , looking desperately uncomfortable inside a sea of expectant, radiant faces. Beginning of life and possibility of death rammed together on plastic chairs.

Up to now, as I say, I was happy with this choice. Despite the consultants, registrars and nurses looking at me pityingly, with barely restrained annoyance, and repeatedly telling me’It’s your choice, BUT, we DO recommend preventative surgery as the safest course of action’; I felt like I was making the best choice for me. Honestly, I believe in 50 years time we will seriously question the wisdom of removing parts of our body just in case they might get diseased. In 100 years time , I think our descendants will find it positively barbaric. And yes, I know we are not in the future, and we also don’t have technology which can accurately detect many potentially fatal disease early enough to guarantee cure. Successful early detection of, and recovery from, ovarian cancer particularly has not come very far in the last 25 years since my mother died-worryingly, fatality rate from ovarian cancer is still well over 60% according to many reports.

More worrying than that is the fact that the programme for testing for this gene research was closed at Crumlin, the only place in Ireland where you can get it for free. I read that it is now reopened, but with an 18 month waiting list. 18 months is a significant period of time in the life of a cell, and according to one of my consultants(one of the particularly pro’ chop off the bits’ school of thought) ‘a patient can go from showing no signs of cancer cells to stage 2 in less than six months’.

I am not a doctor, of the gene kind of otherwise. I understand that having surgery to reduce risk of contracting 2 potentially fatal diseases from 60%(ovarian cancer) and 85% (breast cancer) to around 5% makes for very bad odds at the bookies, and good ones for living. I completely understand the decision of Angelina Jolie, and other women to take this decision, and applaud them for their courage and honesty in sharing it with the world. Like I said, up to now, I’ve been very happy with my decision just to continue with screening, and feel blessed that I live in the west where I have access to regular, advanced and free mammograms, MRI’S and scans.

The thing that’s changed though, since Ms. Jolie et al, is that instead of having to just listen to the opinion of some doctors every few months, I now have to listen to the entire world’s view on this. Turning on the radio to hear ‘ Jeez, you’d be an idiot not have your breasts removed with those percentages’ is just not helpful( Though frankly, perhaps you’d be more of an idiot to listen to idiots having idiotic opinions). Now, I am in Oz, and the Aussies do like to be blunt about their opinions. Here,  the letters PC still seem to stand for Personal Computer and nothing else. Who cares what the world thinks, right? I don’t, really, But…it adds to the worry, confusion and fear that I was only experiencing every few months when a blood test, mammogram, MRI etc pops up. Instead of looking at my beautiful boy just in those days leading up to tests and thinking I may not be around to see him growing up, it has become a constant worry.  I want to turn 40. 50 even,though the thought of that is vomit-making.I want to see my grandkids. I’ve started putting pressure on my son to hurry up and give me some-I want at least 3-but selfishly he thinks he’s too young to be a Dad at 5 years old. Hasn’t found the right girl yet and blah blah blah.

Seriously though, I am delighted that the world is talking about this, and if it means even one woman at risk gets tested, and therefore hopefully into a screening programme, it will be worth it. At the risk of being told to take my own advise, I wish people would maybe just be a little less opinionated about it.

Only time will tell if I am making the right decision not to opt for preventative surgery. I hope in that time I can continue on my own path to staying healthy, and working on the ancestral, psychological and spiritual blocks I believe lead to disease. I hope I can keep my own brand of courage(although the Aussies among us may think it is idiocy) not to go against what I believe is right for me in the face of a lot of pressure. And if I change my mind, I’ll be sure to do a Jordan on it and go for DD’s.

‘How can we finish this today, I don’t want to come back’

These words, had I uttered them last month when I went to the land office, could have saved us 6,000ksh (about 60 euros) and a 5 hours sit in the sun. Ah..now he tells me. We are trying to sort out our land transfer you see. After 2 years of actually owning the plot, and recent horror stories about land being grabbed, we decided it was about time. So, i duly made the trip 60km up into the hills to Kwale. It is a beautiful tropical landscape, far above the sea and rich in vegetation, mango trees and colour. It is also one of the poorest districts in Kenya, with 64% of the population living below the poverty line.(I often wonder if they count individuals or families for these indicators. I think it must be families, otherwise the figures would be frighteningly higher.I’m also told the poverty indicator is now 2$, not 1$.As the average wage is about 200ksh(2 euro), and some people pay even 150ksh(you know who you are), methinks as average family has only on bread winner, thinks not quite as rosy as 64%.) But i digress, and the digression becoming the story. Back to the Lands Office, which by the way,should you ever wish to go there, is not sign posted and is actually behind the Ministry of Agriculture. Just in case.

I thought i’d been here long enough to be able to discreetly suggest i was willing to play the game, oil the wheels, provide some chai, ‘something small’. Abhorrent as it is to me, more frightening is the prospect of our land being sold without our knowledge. And believe me, it is possible. So, the usual approach, I tell them what I’m there for, they act like this is the strangest request ever and consult 3 other people about what the proceedure is to transfer land. Much examination of papers and discussion about whether they are in order. ‘You have to pay 1,000ksh now, then go to land Board in Msambweni. Now, they are meeting today, you have to hurry!’. As my car had just broken down, and had no idea how I was going to get home, much less the extra 40km to Msambweni,  I said ‘Mzee, is there no way I can avoid going there. It’s really not possible’. He hesitiated, looked at me for a moment. ‘No madam, it is the only way. They meet again next month on 16th.’ ‘Sure?’ I asked. ‘That is too far, Mzee, is there no way I can do it here?’. ‘No, Madam, that is the procedure’.

And so we found ourselves, one month later, waiting in a scorched courtyard, with one bench, for the old men of the land board. Veterans assurred us they had never been known to arrive after 10am, they were supposed to be there by 9. We dozed, we shuffled, we sat, we stood, I went to buy bananas and some half-cake and got ripped off for both. At points, there was sudden bursts of movement towards the office as a rumour of some important board member had arrived. We were told they had all gone to take tea. Eventually, they appeared, long after the promised 10am.Eventually, we were brought into the room and questioned as to why the vendors were not with us. We had our power of attorney documents which most agreed meant we could do what we wanted with land. One mzee disagreed, we were told to wait outside, not go far, we would be needed again urgently. Another hour in the sun. We went back in, sat, they all turned to look at us, smile at me. Benevolent, wise, upright old men. Then they all start talking together, at us, way too fast and too many voices for me to understand. M turns to me and says ‘I’ll give them something small now’, I nod, looking around at the posters and trying to avoid this illicid transaction, trying to remove myself and my conscience from it.’Wait outside and we will see if we can help you or not in this matter’ said the arguing Mzee, his islamic cap most upright and prominent. A dutiful servant of the regime.

‘How much did you give them?’ ‘five thousand’. ‘What,Why so much?My god it makes me so angry!What did they say?’ ‘Count how many of us are here, we need to eat. Tell her to wait outside, one of them said. Then another one said, no, she knows what’s going on , it ‘s ok’.

Back in M goes, half an hour later. Much laughing and joking, he is told by Mr.Argumentive that he needs to add something small, just for him. Another 1000ksh note is handed over. Wait outside. Don’t stand too close to the window, we are working here. 5 mins, and our papers are handed back. One stamp on it, he shows me .’Oh, so that cost 6000ksh did it?’ I ask, outraged. He drags me away from the window, scared of reprisal, or how easy it would be for them to come and take our papers back, who knows. We are out of there, and bitterness of so much money just so easily gone, the ever present hand of bribery and corruption, weighs me down. How can anyone afford to live like this? M is jubilant, the land is almost ours in law. For me, it takes time for the morning to slip away. The joy will come once the title deed is in our name.

Ah, yes, I forgot. M tells me one of the other women told him ‘if you just paid 1000ksh extra in Kwale, you could have avoided coming.’But i tried to ask them what I could do there’, I said, annoyed that I am expected to do these things by myself, knowing i do not know the right way around things. ‘You see’,M says,’ you need to tell them that you are willing to pay. That you want to sort it out immediately, and that you won’t be back to cause any problems later. You need to say ‘ How can we finish this today, I don’t want to come back’. He laughs.

Now he tells me.

Does anything work???

I ask this question, silently, regularly, repeatedly. Some days it seems, it doesn’t. Like for instance, the very efficient sounding man who came to check that we have installed a metal box to house our new meter. We will finally get connected to the national grid, you see, rather than very unsafely sucking electricity from our neighbour via some very flimsy looking wires, and paying through the nose for it. Box, check. ‘Where are all your papers madam?”‘Well, I’ve already submitted them’. ‘ah, you see, that was a different department. And before I did my check. Now you have to submit them again’. Strangely, ironically, there was no electricity within a 8 km radius to get a photocopier to copy my papers, again, for the electricity company. After an hour, I returned to first place where they want ed to charge me 20 ksh per copy as it was a ‘printer’ not a photocopier.’ But you’re photocopying, not printing!’ ‘I know Madam, but it is also a printer so we charge   per page’. Ah, all clear now. The man departed., all my precious papers viewed, microscopically and deemed acceptable, now in his briefcase. ‘You’ll be connected by friday’ ‘Wow,’ I said, ‘That’s amazing. I thought it would take ages from now. God KPLC is getting so efficient ( momentarily forgetting the loss of electricity, an bi-daily occurence in my joy), that’s great!”

Still sucking from the neighbours. 3 years, will I ever learn???

I have avoided starting a blog for a long time-

somehow it feels here like too much happens in a day to even begin to describe-but at the ripe ol age of 33 and a day, it somehow feels like the time!On a day when we are watching our local war criminals being celebrated as conquering heroes on their return from ICC, the world feels, as usual, upside down in Kenya. Watching these righteous men fist waving, selfpraising and jubilant in Uhuru Park, I’m reminded of that scene in A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry) where the tailors are put on buses and shipped to a rally which the Prime Minister is holding. It is staged to look like her adoring crowds are these gathered thousands, when they are really slum dwellers promised money and cup pf tea.(If you haven’t read it, do.Most curious tightrope of uplifting despair).I wonder how many of these jubilant Kenyans have been shipped with a promise of chai? In a way, I hope this is the case, and these thousands are not true supporters of the boys. One wonders, well me anyway, how DO they sleep at night, knowing they are directly responsible for the deaths, maimings, rape and displacement of thousands? If I believed it was possible, I would ask some god to have mercy on them, but in this case, not sure he’s watching.