My daughter wakes me at 7:00 a.m. and I coax her into my bed for 5 minutes. We review the house rules, but it is really my excuse for having an opportunity to make sure I tell her how proud I am to be her mother. She hates it when I am mushy!!!!

I take care of last minute business thing, again call SA Airways and Doris arrives to drive me to Dulles. We look at all of the stuff.  I tell her that I have plans: Plan A—take all of the stuff to the airport and hope for the best; Plan B—take just the 2 bags and 1 bin to the airport and give the other bin to the Haitian refugee relief campaign. Doris quietly says, “Claudia just go on faith, don’t’ get caught up on doubt now.”

At the airport we unload EVERYTHING. We stand there like supplicant elders with copies of the records of my communication with SA Airways requesting  a waiver.  They weigh the bags: 33 lbs, 37 lbs; bins: 50 lbs and 25 lbs; carry-on 23 lbs. Baba OJ was right on the mark!

So SA agreed to allow us to stuff everything in the 2 bags from the bin #2 and remove the excess weight from my carry-on and just pay 1 excess baggage fee of $125.00!

The  SA  Airways Airbus  is one of the biggest commercial planes in the world, but the seats are still designed for leprechauns.

But the movies!!! Being a birth worker, I am on call 24/7, and I rarely get to the movies for fear my phone will vibrate and I will have to leave in the middle of it or I will not feel my phone vibrate and will miss a birth.  But on this plane there are BEAUCOUPS movies and while other passengers sleep I watch almost a year of movies!  I sat back to watch: Public Enemies; Marley and Me; Darjeeling Express; and MJ This Is It twice. Quiet as kept it, I didn’t sing out loud but I did my MJ moves in my seat. When I was  leaving the plane two of the flight attendants commented on them.

Nap time.

The day before the trip my inner village of women showed up to complete the millions of tasks left undone.  Chinyere, Doris and Kamala each took projects and ran with them.

When I signed up for third trip I began requesting donations of supplies or money to purchase medical supplied for the clinic.  The Universe always works—when you ask you are given. I received enough supplies to fill 3 large 19 gallon bins: gloves (exam and sterile) DeLees; bulb syringes; gauze; specula; infant hats; surgi-lube; alcohol wipes; amnihooks; straight catheters; infant ambu bag masks;  food/snacks;  childbirth education posters; Tylenol/Motrin; plus 25 gorgeous “mommy and infant bags”; just to name a few things.

But South African (SA) Airlines will only allow: 1 carry-on, 2 bags for free and 1 excess bag ($125.00), each weighing 50 lbs or less  I  had written a letter to the SA Airways requesting a waiver of this excess baggage restrictions due to the humanitarian nature of the trip (medical supplies), but in two weeks of persistent calling and e-mails I had gotten no response.

So I called Mother Packers.  Ju Ju took charge to smash/combine all of the critical medical supplies into 2 bins and meet the 50 lbs limit and get the top duct taped on. Maisha, known for the “Drop and Roll” packing style made me drop my clothes amount in half; then she did the old camp roll of the remaining clothes.  The “Mommy and Infant “bags went in with my clothes. We throw everything left in the last bag.

Now Lorrie arrives with dinner (my favorite, ropas viejas and rice) and her skills as a mover and shaker. She prioritizes the supplies and repacks the bag and announces that they all exceed the 50 lb limit.  I do not own a scale so we each guestimate what each bag weighs and agrees with her and prays SA Airways will let the extra bin and extra weight on board.

They leave and shortly Shayla’s husband, “Baba OJ” as I call him arrives to drop off some things. I ask him to guestimate the weight of the bags and bins: bins—50 and 26; bags— 37 and 33. I asked how he knows that and with the confidence of a Natural Born Black Man he stated that his youngest child weighs 44 lbs so he knows that stuff.

I call my Mom to say good bye, take a white bath, say my prayers and go to bed.

About 10 months ago a Midwife-Sista-Healer began talking about her dream—for a group of African Diasporic midwives and midwifery students and apprentices to go work in a clinic in Senegal together. There have been a few such trips to various places in Africa, put on by ICTC and other groups, but not to Senegal. Za”Yn and I dreamed and worked on this idea and found an extraordinary midwife to precept the trip. With the generous cooperation of the African Birth Collective, who has a long term-relationship with clinics in Senegal and providing excellent midwifery care though its program, we were able to to arrange a trip for us Sistas. Yes, Zayan birthed this trip and I got to be the midwife!

So, on January 22 (through February 16) we leave on a trip of a lifetime. Za”Yn Muhammad Manna,  Jessica Johnson and Makeka Kamara, our preceptor, and me. Hopefully Nikki Plaskett will be able to join us for a while. We are headed to work in a small clinic in Kafountine, Casamance, Senegal.

Can you imagine us—who have studied and read of maternal health issues in Africa— having a chance to contribute our hands, minds and hearts to our sisters. To be with Makeda who has lived African midwifery and is a warrior for intra-partum and post-partum women’s care. And UmmSalaamah Sondra Abdullah-Zaimah is in Ghana to explore opportunities for ICTC to have a clinical site.

Makes my heart break into song, “I love being a midwife deep down in my soul…”

I am starting on a very long journey to become a great, caring and well trained midwife; but it begins with this first step.