A Maine Midwife in the Congo

A Maine Midwife in the Congo February 5

Linda Robinson, of Bar Harbor, is a nurse midwife who has worked in Samoa, Malawi, and most recently in the Congo, for Doctors Without Borders. She has written a book entitled Sunday Morning, Shamwana: A Midwife’s Letters from the Field. Linda will speak about her unique experiences on Tuesday, February 5 at 7:00 pm, at the Camden Public Library . This event is part of the Community Events of the Camden Conference and is free and open to all.

American nurse-midwife Linda Robinson spent a year working in Shamwana, a small remote village deep in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Sent to Africa by Doctors Without Borders, Linda found herself in a community traumatized by a decade of war and famine. The bleak landscape, once teeming with animals and vegetation, had been stripped bare by people desperate to survive. As she worked to care for women and their families, Linda came to know their extraordinary suffering and their equally extraordinary strength. Her letters home each Sunday morning, written to make sense of the overwhelming challenges she was facing, provide a loving picture of the people who both inspired and depended on her. Robinson gives an eye-opening account of the day-to-day reality of a fieldworker in the African bush, and the trials and triumphs of work with an international organization. Her voice is vivid, quirky, wise, and brave.