Last week, my counterpart who is also the head of our health post invited me to come along with the Saraya hospital car to a village 30k into the bush from Nafadji to give children vaccinations and give general check-ups to sick people in the community. Our health post serves the surrounding villages of Nafadji, many of which are small and difficult to access by anything but a moto. This clearly becomes problematic, oh when someone is sick and cannot write a moto or bicycle…
Anyways, we head out in the land rover ambulance, me riding on the bench in the back to Buraya. Now this got me thinking about my experience talking about different levels of “the bush” that people speak of here in Senegal:
The Dakar Level: During my little stint in Dakar, anytime I told anyone I live in Kedougou the reactions would be “my god you live in the bush! In the middle of nowhere! It’s real hot there! They don’t have anything!” Come on Dakar snobs, Kedougou itself is a real town; there are roads, electricity, internet, places to buy ice cream. I mean, tourists come here! Come on!
The Kedougou Level: When I am in Kedougou and tell people I live in Saraya, they have the reaction of the Dakaroise. “Oh Sarayaaaa, that is so far, you are going into the bush now? See you never!” Again, Saraya has electricity for seven hours of the day, a hospital, a radio station, a new restaurant and cold beverages!
The Saraya Level: When I tell people in Saraya I live in Nafadji, they have even more of a reaction “Oh see you later Mbamoussa, going into the bush!” Ok, Saraya, Nafadji is 1. 30k away from Saraya 2. There are cars that go there 3. You live in a hut too! Who are you calling en brousse? 3. I know you have a restaurant and think you are so cool, but we are cool too, I have a TV in my house and we have better cell phone service than you.
Now Buraya, real far. I call this “en brousse.” Driving through three rivers to get to a place, now that was intense. My thoughts went between these three things in the car on the way there:
- I am in a car full of health-care providers
- Thank goodness I wore a bra today
- Thank goodness I live in Nafadji and not this place where we were going
- This driver should drive stunt cars in movies, he’s real good!
But after lots of bumps and comments such as “Oh Mbamoussa, you are going to sleep well tonight” and “Mbamoussa, you are so brave!” we made it there. I mean yeah I slept well that night, but everyone else did more work to get there than I did, like oh the driver for example? I forgot what it was like to be the new white person in a place where not many white people go, sort of like my first day in Nafadji where people were so interested and confused as to why I was speaking to them in Malinke. And children were crying at the very sight of me.
We spent the day giving out mostly malaria medication, and a lot of iron pills to women. It was interesting to be in a new place and also to think more about the health infrastructure here in Senegal, in this district specifically. We brought a lot of medication with us, but my counterpart cannot anticipate exactly what he will need to bring to these places every time, and many times people need to somehow get to Nafadji or Saraya to find the medication they need. And a lot of the time, people are not going to do that. I have trouble trying to get people in Nafadji to go get free malaria medication when they live five meters away from the health post. And here lies the meeting of lack of infrastructure and the need for behavior change. We have our work cut out for us here now don’t we?
Also ankle update. Officially back on the bike. Wearing a helmet, wearing the ankle brace. But I’ve been putting on the Busta Rhymes and biking my way all over this place.
