Saving babies (or something like that)

I had a relatively eventful morning, as far as mornings in Mali go. My friend Fatimata came over again, this time bringing her one-year-old baby boy. She had come yesterday and said that he was sick, so I told her to make oral rehydration salts and to come see me if he wasn’t better the next day. He wasn’t better. I packed them up on the back of my motorcycle and took them to the health clinic in town to get him checked out. He had a fever and diarrhea, and while I figured that it might just pass on its own, I wouldn’t forgive myself if anything happened, so it was better to just go to the doctor.

We waited for a while in unimaginable heat (today is awful), surrounded by other patients waiting their turn. I was afraid I would catch consumption there—people hacking, spitting, a young man with blood seeping from a pussy burn wound on his face. Malian streets are often horrific enough, so to condense the worst of the worst in one place had a nightmarish feel. Finally the doctor checked out the little boy and told us to get a malaria test. In the meantime, we bought paracetamol and anti-microbial syrups. All of that came to about $5. When I paid the 1000 CFA ($2) for the consultation, Fatimata was like, “Oh my my, this is so expensive.” It nearly broke my heart.

We went back to my house to wait for the test results. Ashley had come over in the meantime for me to take her to my tailor, which I did. When we came back, Fatimata had bought grilled meat and frozen sachets of ginger juice to thank me for all of my help. It was sweet.

She and I went back to the hospital a couple of hours later, as directed. Indeed, the child had malaria. We took the results to a doctor to get an anti-malarial prescription. I was shocked at how rude he was to Fatimata. First of all, a lot of the doctors there speak French and Bambara, but no Fulfulde, which is the major language of the area, so often I had to play translator between two Malians who couldn’t understand each other (and I barely speak Fulfulde!). But I was asking this doctor if we should continue the other syrup treatments we’d gotten that morning, and Fatimata presumably was asking the same thing, and the doctor snapped at Fatimata, in French, “I’m writing a prescription now! If you don’t understand what’s going on, you should just be quiet!” I wanted to hit him. It’s a problem here—people get educated and get nice jobs then think they are the boss of everyone else. Totally unprofessional.

Altogether, I spent maybe $12 on the treatment. Fatimata couldn’t stop thanking me. I certainly hope her little one gets better with these drugs.