There are two things that I will now always associate with Sydney: low-flying planes and bats. Let's talk about the planes first. If you live in the inner-west (inconveniently where all the cool suburbs are) you will be plagued by noisy planes that seem to just skim the tops of the buildings. Oh the joys of living sort of near the airport. In my first week I found the noise intolerable. It woke me up in the early morning and interrupted TV and conversations during the evening. I hardly hear it now, except of course when I'm out walking and a plane flies right over the top of me. I'm not yet at the ignoring stage yet though, I still have this need to look up and see which airline it is. Damn you Qantas, so many planes!

Right, bats. If you've visited Sydney then you've for sure visited the beautiful Botanic Gardens, located right next door to the Opera House. And the bats hanging in the trees in their hundreds in the gardens are a popular attraction. I'm not sure why. I can't think of anything worse than such a high concentration of such a creepy animal. *shudder* I like bats in cartoons and when they're far above me winging their way from tree to tree, but nothing closer, thank you. Why am I talking about bats? Well, my walking route to work is currently marred by a dead bat. *double shudder* A poor bat is hanging electrocuted from the power lines above the pavement I usually walk along. It's been hanging there dead for nearly 2 weeks now, how much longer before it decomposes and falls down? I know I am slightly on the neurotic side, but I think I am pretty justified in being freaked out by the idea of this, and the knowledge that it's only a matter of time before the bat body falls of and goes splat on the pavement. (Sorry, I should have posted a grossness warning at the start of this story. I hope you're not eating anything while you're reading this.) Anyway, so I'm convinced that the bat is going to fall on me if I walk on that side of the road, and it's all that I can think about every time I walk along there, even when I'm on the other side of the road. I have to force myself to think about something else so that my eyes don't stray up there and see that poor bat. Now, I know what you're thinking: just walk another way to work! Simple! Yes, well, that would be an option, except that my alternate route also has a dead bat! In the gutter! Maybe I should call the council.

Okay, serious business time. As you know, I'm currently working for Doctors without Borders for 6-8 weeks, possibly longer. I'm doing very boring but necessary stuff: processing donations. It gets tedious, and it's easy to forgot how important the donations are and where the money is going. One of our biggest campaigns in on maternal health, a topic I know lots about given that my masters thesis was on women's sexual and reproductive health rights and how important it is that these rights are recognised, not only because they're human rights, but because by guaranteeing these rights, every single one of the Millenium Development Goals can be more easily reached. I belong to several UN and CEDAW mailing lists, which mean I get frequent reports in my mailbox about how important maternal health rights are, and I read them, but it is easy to just read and not absorb. The statistics are frightening, but they don't always hit home, and it's easy to get blasé about a topic you read a lot about. But every now and then, something comes along that blindsides you, that shocks you profoundly. I had a moment like that today. A kind donor had attached an article from the current Time magazine, a photo-essay about maternal health in Sierre Leone. The essay told the story of Mamma. 'Story' feels like the wrong word to use though, it doesn't seem like a powerful enough word. The first photo shows her in labour, she has already given birth to one twin and the second is the way. Of course, I don't need to remind you (but I will!) that the facilities are rudimentary. A couple photos later we see her surrounded by nurses, she has extensive bleeding and her blood pressure is dangerously low. There's blood on the floor and still no doctor. Not because no one has called one, but because there is only one doctor in the hospital. We then see Mamma unconscious on her bed, the two nurses have trundled her rickety bed to the one doctor. They wait half an hour to be seen. By the time the doctor gets to her, Mamma is dead and two babies are motherless.
I've read countless stories like this, the situation shouldn't be surprising to me. I guess this one affected me so much because it's told in pictures. At the start we see Maria waiting to give birth, she is alive. And the last photo shows her family with her wrapped up body ready for burial.
I sat at my desk shell-shocked. This is 2010 and women in a suprising number of countries still don't have adequate pre, peri and postnatal care. I've written about that issue before though, so I'll stop ranting. I hope I've at least given you something to think about. Here's the link if you'd like to see Mamma's story.
Without sounding flippant, there is at least a little more hope for the women of Sierre Leone now: earlier this year the government made all maternal health care free. Good, yes, but these women still need hospitals and doctors to be there so that they can take advantage of the free care.