Ndioum

There is nothing in the district of Podor—there are huts made of sticks and pale yellow grass plopped sporadically across the desert. There is one health center for the entire district, and the regional hospital covers an unreasonably large geographical area. My ride comes to pick me up in the morning, and it’s an ambulance! Not just any ambulance—it’s a rioded up four by four ambulance with huge tires for the dirt terrain. I tell the driver that I feel guilty using an ambulance as my transport when he probably has more important things to attend to. “No problem,” he assures me cheerfully. I guess few people actually call the ambulance—they live so far away that it’s futile—plus, most cannot afford it, and many don’t have telephones. At the health center in Podor, they send emervency cases to the hospital in Ndioum, a bumpy 40-45 minute ride. I’ve luckily never ridden in an ambulance before, and I can’t help but enjoy myself because it’s one of the most comfortable vehicles that I’ve been in so far. The driver offers me something he called “tseep tseep”—that’s probably ot how it’s spelled. It’s a type of berry from a baobab tree. The fruit is grainy, bitter, and slightly sweet—with a gigantic pit in the middle. I really wanted to like it since it’s so exotic, but alas, I ended up spitting it out when the driver wasn’t looking. He meanwhile, eats them by the handful, spitting out pits like bullets. He offers me more, but I politely decline. The people here are so nice, and go out of their way to make me feel comfortable. At the hospital, everyone takes time to answer all my questions, despite the fact that they are overworked and underpaid. Doctors here have to take on so many different roles—they have to be doctors, but they also have to act as advocats, social workers, psychiatrists, pharmacists—same with the nurses. People just do what needs to be done.
The auberge that I’m staying at is owned by a little French man. He is happy and grouchy at the same time, laughing easily, but also expressing strong opinions about many things. We talk about Dakar, and he says, “I hate Dakar. It’s the worst capital city, it is the only capital city where there is nothing to see.” I mention that is has Goree Island and Lac Rose, but apparently they don’t count because they are not in the city center. I tell him that I want to go to St. Louis and he says, “I hate St. Louis. I’m never going there again in my life, it’s just terrible.” He hates public transportation, and often watches programs on TV about horrible things that happen all over the world. We talk about traditional healers and he throws his hands up and says, “they cause so many problems!!” Actually, he is right about that—traditional healers are the bane of modern doctors because they delay diagnosis. Doctors are frustrated when a child dies from a snake bite, or has to get his leg amputated from a fracture—problems easily treated in a hospital, but are aggravated  because people went to traditional healers instead. The marabous, as they are called, try to treat everything, from a fever to HIV, to cancer, to fistulas. They are far cheaper than the hospitals, and are also more familiar to the community. One doctor said that the marabous are the psychiatrists of the rural community—they offer comfort and hope. Where a doctor will say, “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, maybe you can be cured,” a marabou will say, “you will be fine, I can cure you.” The latter message is far more confident and reassuring, and when it also comes at a cheaper price, the choice seems obvious to many.