Overheard conversation

Roommate 1: What percentage of women here do you think are lactating at this current moment?

Roommate 2 (without pausing to think about it): At least 93.5% At least.

It´s extraordinary. The women here breastfeed while walking down the street, while riding sidesaddle on a motorcycle. While shopping for chickens. While waiting for aerobics class to begin. While in labor with their next child.

I think it´s fantastic, one, that women are breastfeeding only (rates of diarrhea and malnutrition here in the under-two set are close to zero!) and two, that this society allows women to be women and doesn´t shame them into closets and under blankets and into public restroom stalls. Well, American issues are another subject for another time.

But the one that does get to me here is the insistence on latching the babies on right before I vaccinate them. It just seems like an invitation for disaster. No nipple amputations have been witnessed yet, but it makes me cringe a little every time.