Pecadom Plus day 3: Wait, Are We In Mali?!

Ah yes, day 3 of Pecadom, I remember it like it was yesterday.  So basically the plan was for the seven of us to drive to the village of Daloto where the poste de santé is. Here's a map:

Seriously though, did I go to Mali?

 It was a pretty uneventful ride through the sarayan bush (it’s like a savannah woodlands over there).  It only took like 2 hours.

typical Saraya

 When we got there Anne gave a causerie to the dsdoms talking about the sweeps and what their role was and what our role was.  I was pretty bored at the meeting because I don’t speak Malinke, so my eyes wandered around to the faces of all the dsdoms.  Wait a second, is that kid a dsdom?!  Seriously, the dude is like 15 years old, he must be the son of one of the dsdoms… nope, he was wearing the hat and everything.  As I perplexed over the wisdom of ordaining a 15 year old a dsdom, Anne finished her causerie.  Apparently a few people were to ride their bikes from Daloto, while me, Janelle, Chrissie, Chad, and Taylor, would continue on to a new village where we would bike from.

Ok, now we’ve got that all settled, it’s time for lunch!  Guess what’s for lunch?!  ITS MORE CEEB!!!!!!  Yeah!!!

CEEB!!!!!!!!!

As we waited for them to finish the ceeb a bunch of Senegalese children came up to look at the gaggle of toubabs (I think the collective term for toubabs is a “gag
gle”).  There was one little girl who came over to Chad and was hanging out.  Sometimes they like to just stand around toubabs, they don’t really say anything, they just kind of sit there.  Anyway, she turned around to look at her friend, and as she was looking two more of us toubabs walked up and started talking to Chad.  The little girl turned back around to see three toubabs where there was once one.  She gave a quizzical look, but then turned back to her friend.  This was when I walked up to talk with Chad (he’s a popular dude).  The little girl now turns around to look at four toubabs.  The look of sheer panic I can’t get out of my head. 

TOUBABS!!!!!!

I could just imagine her thinking “THEYRE MULTIPLYING!!!! ABORT!! ABORT!! ABORT!!”, and she starts booking it away as fast as possible.  This is nothing new, little kids are often terrified of white people.  What was hilarious though was while she was running she’d every now and then turn her head back around to look over her shoulder as if to make sure that we crazy toubabs weren’t chasing after her or something.  And she wouldn’t stop running.  I lost sight of her as she had made it all the way to the other side of town still running in sheer terror.  I am convinced that to this day she is still running away, every now and then looking back to make sure we’re not hot on her trails.

With lunch over we piled into the car and drove off to the village where we’d be splitting up.  Now I’d been told that I’d have a 9 kilometer bike ride after we’d arrived at the village.  However, when we get there Tidiane informs me that he thinks it’s a little further and that he’d be driving me.  This is good news because I wasn’t looking forward to riding my bike.  Well, we spend like an hour and a half in the car, it was definitely much further than 9k.  It was great having some quality time with Tidiane, he’s a really cool guy and speaks like a billion different languages.  Oh, I forgot, the dsdom was with us in the car.  Now the dsdom is convinced that we can’t make it all the way to Moussala, his village, in the car.  Tidiane had other ideas. 

We truck through some rough terrain and bad roads until we get to a river.  Well, it was more like a stream.  It wasn’t too deep, but the slope on the other side was nearly sheer.  Not only that, but it had really loose gravel, bad traction. This is what it looked like:

One does not simply drive into Moussala

I was convinced that the car wouldn’t be able to make it.  Tidiane said we’d try anyway.  Tidiane is a boss, ‘nough said.  We all get out of the car as he guns it up the hill and… it loses traction and slides back down.  We then reconsider the path we should take and throw down logs over the more loose sections.  He once again books it and barely makes it over.  I’m still impressed that he tried, and more impressed that he made it.  We finally make it to Moussala, which by the way is right across the river from Mali.  It was like “wait, am I in Mali?!” 

Anyway, the dsdom says that he needs to get some stuff from the health hut, so we make our way over there.  Bad decision.  As soon as we enter the building people start coming over to see what’s up.  The dsdom asks if we can diagnose these people here at the health hut.  I tell him that this would completely defeat the purpose of pecadom plus, you know, the part where we go around to all the compounds and ask about malaria, not them come to you.  As I’m explaining this one of the girls who was waiting there starts vomiting all over the floor.  Yeah, we should probably check to see if she has malaria.

 Sure enough she did, and vomiting is a symptom of severe malaria which can’t be treated with the ACTs that the dsdoms are given.  We refer her to the health post, but now everyone in line wants to get tested.

Basically we got bogged down in the health hut and weren’t able to actually go around to each individual house because it would be kind of pointless just having this big crowd of people follow us around.  I try not to be skeptical or jaded, but it’s hard at times.  I mean, these people in this village see that there is a free malaria test being given, why not go over and see if you have malaria?  The problem is that there aren’t enough tests for everyone, so only people who present signs of malaria are given the test.  So let me give you example of some of the conversations I had (I’m copyrighting this dialogue in case I try to turn it into a one-man play):

Danfakha: I think I have malaria.

Chris: Oh, what signs or symptoms of malaria do you have.

Danfakha: You know, malaria signs.

Chris: malaria isn’t a symptom of malaria. (right?)

Danfakha: Well then, I have a back-ache.

Chris: That’s not a symptom of malaria, I’m sorry, but unless you have signs or symptoms, we don’t have enough tests to give everyone.

Exit Danfakha stage right.  Enter Danssokho stage left

Chris: How may we help you?

Danssokho: I think I have malaria.

Chris: what symptoms?

Danssokho: I’m not sure, I just feel like I have malaria.

Chris:  wait, do you have aches in your left leg and sneeze if you look at the sun?!

Danssokho: Yeah!  Both of those!

Chris: Those aren’t signs or symptoms of malaria, I’m sorry, we can’t treat you.

[Disclaimer: This literally happened.]

End of scene I: intermission

Scene I, Act 1,

Setting: Me still in the health hut, the sky getting darker as a storm approaches.  Enter old woman stage left

Old Woman: I have malaria!

Chris: What signs or symptoms?

Old Woman: I have aches in my joints and I get cold at night

Chris:  Those aren’t signs or symptoms of malaria, those are signs of being old.  Massa.

Ok, but really this is just a snapshot of my day.  It got really frustrating because I wanted to help people and if we could I’d give the test to everyone, but we just didn’t have the resources to do so.  Does that make me skeptical or jaded?  I’ll let you decide.  Whatever your choice, I am convinced that all Danfakhas are hypochondriacs.  It does make sense though.  These people are
concerned about their health.  They have aches and pains and coughs and why not see if it’s malaria if it’s free?  I don’t know how to address this problem.

Anyway, as we diagnosed and tested people, the sky above got darker and darker.  The dsdom kept insisting that we hurry or we would get stuck here when the rain came.  I went and consulted Tidiane, and we both agreed that we would have to cut it short because the rains were coming and the river would get too high for the car to pass through.  As we drove back the rain began.  We luckily were able to make it through the river, only submerging the car to the wheel-axel.
 

When we arrived at the village we’d set off from we found Chad and Janelle (they were soaked because whereas I was in a car when it started raining, they were out in the open).  Apparently they too had to cut theirs short because when they were in a compound a little kid came out with a spoonful of mercury and rock ore getting ready to burn it to extract gold.  Yeah, they shut it down after that.  They didn’t want to end up like this:

Seriously though, burning mercury to process gold is a serious problem and shouldn't be taken lightly.  It's a serious issue

So we rode in the car back from our separate adventures.  Back at the Linn Inn we talked about how frustrating the day was and how we weren’t able to finish.  The consensus was that we had sampled enough to make it representative and the approaches would be similar to the actual Pecadom project, since these were the control towns and we were just trying to establish a baseline.  For dinner I had petit-pois.  It was tasty.  I went to bed that night still frustrated, hoping the next day would end up better.  Would it?  Would Chris’ French be sufficient in the next village to actually be able to understand what is going on?  What whacky adventures would he get in next?  Tune in next time to find out!