Quick Pic Post 7

Let's look at where you all poop! Now let's follow it to the river...

Bonus Picture: Can you tell what's going on here?

Life as a TV Show*

Khossanto's Health Post on a slow day

Ever since IST (In Service Training) when Spence asked, "Do you ever feel like Peace Corps is just playing with you?" He asked this both in general and to me specifically. It seemed like up to that point in my service I was always either the most isolated volunteer - Announcement of everyone's IST home stays: "... and David, you're off somewhere by yourself..." Hannah's response: "story of his life." - or somehow overlooked - the language seminar when I was in the hospital. - I've toyed with the idea of my life as a TV show ever since.

Lately I've taken a liking to thinking of the different Health Centers, Posts, Huts, and hospitals throughout the Region of Kedougou as different medical TV shows. Originally I liked my village, Khossanto as Scrubs - a bunch of young new doctors just getting started, fun times ensue. Saraya I thought would be Grey's Anatomy - more of a hospital with those complications, and according to Leah, "some drama and pretty people." Kedougou was E.R. just because it's the big regional hospital and I don't know much about it. I thought Ninifescha could be House... it's a bizarrely placed awesome new hospital that smells like an America hospital and probably gets some weird things even though no one really uses that facility. So there's Fongolimbi and Salemata left and I don't know much about either; and the only TV show I can think of now is MASH and nowhere is a combat zone.

Anyway, Saraya and Khossanto switched roles the past couple weeks. In Scrubs form the Saraya Health Center had yet to hire a new cook for their health workers so they all took turns cooking. Obviously Leah volunteered for her own day. Lunch was Peanut Sauce (Maffé) and for dinner an Alfredo Pasta. Apparently she wont be having any troubles finding a husband now. I told her to set up a bracket... I don't think she's going to.

Not to be left without a show; the youthful, pretty health workers of Khossanto ramped up the drama yesterday to bring it into Grey's territory. As an additional disclaimer here I'm just telling what I know to point out some complications in the system not to call anyone out. My opinion is everyone made some mistakes, and it's tricky because I consider myself friends with everyone involved and hope to not be caught in the middle - bottom line, no judgments.

A villager's child is sick, so he brings the infant to the health post on a Saturday. The doctor (not actually a doctor, but that's how the village refers to him. I think he's maybe somewhere around the level of nurse?), who lives at the Health Post, says, "It's the weekend, I'm tired, come back on Monday." The villager is of the opinion that the infant is urgently sick and insists with no results, so he goes to the PCR (local government guy) for some help. He apparently manages to get the okay to be seen by the doctor.

Now the doctors are busy... constantly... these guys are working at least 12 hour days most of the time and even on weekends they have to take all injuries, and there are a lot with all the artisanal mining around, and try to turn away sicknesses unless they are urgent. The logic is that if the person is sick on the weekend to the point that they think they need to come in that they were probably sick enough that they should have came in sooner. Basically these guys are on-call literally all the time. Overworked is an understatement in my opinion; treating things as black and white, like the injury vs. sickness rule, can lead to issues no matter who you are.

The villager apparently never bought his ticket to be seen (it's unclear if there was anyone there selling tickets) so the infant was never seen. After "a few hours" of waiting he went to the doctor to see what was up. Things are blurry here, I think it's because everyone realizes they made mistakes so details aren't shared. The rumor is that at some point things escalated to something physical. Someone described the villager as having the doctor in something like a headlock... I'm guessing it was something more along the lines of an angry hand on the shoulder. This particular villager is a massive man and that would be TERRIFYING with emotions running high. A few children also suggested that rock throwing happened, but that's kind of an angry child's go-to when they are angry so they could just be filling in gaps with what they would do.

At this point the doctor goes and reports this to the Gendarme (think police) in a nearby village to file a report. The villager may or may not have had to go there to resolve that, either way things calmed down... except that it's all that anyone can talk about. Nobody loves hopping on a soapbox more than my host father... shouting... outside my door while I'm trying to nap through the part of the day that is over 105º. I'm kind of sick of hearing about it frankly, I'm not hearing anyone learn any lessons. The teachers are trying to get people to understand that the villager assaulted a government worker; villagers insist that the doctors are there for the entire village's health needs... all day any day.

Anyway, this morning the doctor was instructed to head to Saraya (the Health Center) to deal with whatever reporting needed to happen there. Meanwhile the remaining doctor (still not actually a doctor), who is actually paid by one of the commercial mines to do things in villages they affect, has to deal with all the injuries that come in (and soapbox standing villagers) on his own. Frankly, after the whole assault thing the doctors aren't really sympathetic to the situation anymore and the infant's need to see a doctor was kind of forgotten... that is until sometime this afternoon when the infant succumb to whatever illness it had.

That evening the second doctor was asked to go to Saraya. I think this was both to answer more questions for the Health Center and for his own safety... but now we have no one at the Health Post in Khossanto. I'm hoping this will get the village to see that you can only push so hard until you break something, what I think they are mostly seeing is that when things get complicated the doctors will just "run away." Unfortunately for the first doctor, if this isn't handled well he's not going to be able to work in Khossanto again, or anywhere in the region really the way news like this can travel. I don't know what's going to happen, and that's kind of scary. Like I said before, I consider everyone involved a friend - hopefully I'll seem them all again.