Mercy Lung’aho - The Meaning of a Bean

 

Growing up in Kenya, I had the story of my birth many, many, many times. And that's because when my mother was pregnant with me, she had anemia. As a result, I was born too early, at 32 weeks, weighing barely a pound, anemic myself. The doctors gave me 72 hours to live. No doctor was willing to waste an incubator on a dying baby, so my mom paid double. She paid for the incubator and she bribed the doctor to give me a fighting chance. I was her miracle and she never let me forget it. [audience laughter] I used to think she was overly dramatic when she would make me stand up in the middle of a room full of family and friends to tell the story, until I met the woman who delivered me.

 

I was 14 at the time, I was with my mom, we were walking downtown when we met this woman in a beautiful white nurse's uniform. When I was introduced to Sister Margaret, she threw her hands into the air in public and started to pray loudly, thanking God for her little preemie who had grown up into a tall young woman. I didn't know what to do with this moment, [audience laughter] but I remember saying to myself, Mercy, maybe it's not enough to be a miracle. You have to do something with this life. You have to make your mother proud. You have to make this life count. 

 

From then on, my relationship with my mom became about me making her proud. As a young teenager, I resented it. In Africa, if you want to have an impact, you have a choice of three careers. You can either be a doctor, an architect or an engineer. I had grades for all three, but I didn't want to be an engineer. I would have loved to be an architect, but I couldn't draw. So, I was happy to join med school. But nobody told me that I wasn't cut out to be a doctor. I wanted to be a pediatrician. But each time I went to see the sick children, they made me sick. [audience laughter] When they threw up, I threw up. [audience laughter] 

 

So, the school asked me to move to nutrition. It was the closest thing to medicine. That news crushed my world. It broke my heart. I remember the day that my mother received the letter that I was joining med school, she had told the whole world that her daughter was going to be a doctor. In fact, from that time, she had referred to me as daktari, Swahili for doctor. So, I couldn't imagine how I was going to break this news to her. I remember the weekend I had to go home and tell her that I was going to be a nutritionist. She wasn't expecting me, so when she opened the door, she asked, "Daktari, what's wrong?" 

 

It was a cold evening like today. It was drizzling. I stood there in the night, in the cold and told her the truth. I remember the look on my mother's face. It was the first time I felt like a total failure in my mother's eyes. That weekend, we spoke very little. When Monday came, I decided, I'll go back to school and make the best of the situation. But I loved what I was learning in nutrition. It gave me hope, hope that I could use what I was learning to help the communities that I saw in Kenya. 

 

So, when I got the opportunity to move to America and do a PhD in nutrition, I grabbed it. I was in Cornell for five years. When I was done, to please my mother, [audience laughter] I started to look for a job in Kenya. But I took up this job in Rwanda, because it was an extension of what I did at Cornell. You see, I was in a lab where we produced a bean with more iron. So, my job in Rwanda was to figure out if eating this bean with more iron would help women resolve anemia. Well, there were only four students who had done any work, any such work.

 

My mother was not impressed, but it got me the job, so I took it. In this study, there were 200 university women aged 18 to 27. I had 135 days to get the evidence, but it wasn't easy. You see, I had this iron biofortified bean and a normal bean that looked exactly the same. I didn't know which girls were taking which beans, so we couldn't cheat. We had to allow the science to work. Did I mention that this study had failed before? At that time, I was a year behind schedule. In fact, a friend of mine had called me to say, "Mercy, you're going to get fired." [audience laughter] I called my mom, looking for comfort, and she said, "Baby, you should have listened to me, [audience laughter] but you signed up for this, so you better do it." I was screwed.

 

This was a Hail Mary on so many levels that I really needed this to work. I wanted it to work. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was early evening, and as usual, I was setting up for dinner and I was watching the sunset, the girls were streaming in. I saw her from the corner of my eye, this one girl. She was usually very bubbly, but today, she looked upset and she was whispering to her friends. I wanted in on this conversation, so I inched on closer to eavesdrop. She was talking about her monthly period, how it had become regular, consistent and on time. I mean, I could relate. These things can be an inconvenience in a young woman's life. But wait, why were they talking about this? And it hit me.

 

You see, when a woman has anemia, her brain tells her body to stop the monthly period to reserve iron. But when a woman who is anemic receives enough iron and the anemia resolves, then the brain tells her body to resume the monthly cycle. This was huge. I wanted to call my mother and say, “Mommy, I think this is going to work”. Way before we collected all the data, wrote the papers, published them, I had an inkling that this was going to work. But this moment brought me more than I could ever hope for. My mom was delighted, and I finally understood her. 

 

I remember calling her and talking about the study and going on and on and on. When I paused to catch my breath, she said to me, "Baby, watching you fight for your life convinced me that you could do anything you put your mind to. This is what I was trying to tell you your whole life." I remember the relief in her voice as she said, "Daktari, I'm proud of you. When you're done, come home." It was a wonderful moment for me. Today, there's no more resentment, just love and gratitude for everyday miracles. Thank you.