by Aaron Barlow
Just before Na died, Wuura had rented a car, he explained carefully, and taken Na all the way to the capital city of Dakar, looking for better medical care. These new doctors echoed what the Kolda doctors had already said: Na was simply old, and his heart had decided to let go. There was nothing they could do.
It was Na’s first time to the big city, an exhausting twelve-hour car ride away from the only home he had ever known. I cannot imagine what jarring pain the bumpy and dusty journey must have caused his worn and fragile body. On the other hand, I can imagine the amazement his still-sharp mind must have registered on entering the city, those eyes I remember so well taking in high rises, smoke-choked traffic and the manicured lawns of the Place de Indépendance.
Interestingly, Wuura also told me of his decision to defer his right as chief to an uncle I had never met. I remembered stories of Alasan: He lived richly in Nigeria, had travelled to Mecca, and was regarded as worldly and full of broad intelligence. Wuura assured me that the decision had been his alone, and expressed his strong intent to become chief when he felt ready to carry such responsibility. Had I been there in person, he would have read the disappointment on my face. Instead, I voiced my support of his decision, as a younger sister in his culture should.
Wuura was also the proud bearer of good news: Wopa gave birth to their third daughter, Sadjio, and my younger brother Daoda and his wife had their firstborn, a son named Aliou. Nowhere has the ever-occurring cycle of life and death been more evident to me, blunt and numbed with reality, than in Saare Foode.
Betsy Polhemus, a PCV in Senegal from 2001-03, lives in Hawaii with her husband, Johnny Dyer, RPCV Zimbabwe 2001, Senegal 2002-04. She is, for the most part, jam tan.
For Lack of a Quarter...
Irene G. Brammertz
Death never lacks its ironies, especially avoidable death.
She was lying, half propped up against her husband, on the bench in the back of the Land Cruiser. It was the only transportation they had found since she had fallen ill two weeks ago. Tata Daniel had yielded to pressure to give them a ride when on an errand delivering a message.
All eyes were on Lusadusu, who had just examined the woman. “She is very ill,” he explained to me, the PCV along on the trip. “She has a liver abscess from years of suffering from malarial and other parasites: It has made her extremely anemic.
“Mama Irene,” he requested, “we have to transport this patient with us to the hospital. There is no medicine or equipment here. Can you sit in the front between the driver and me?”
I looked at the stricken woman: She does not appear very old, maybe late twenties. “But of course, no problem, I’ll squeeze in the front with you and Tata Daniel.” My mind wandered, remembering: These trips are always dramatic. Last time we transported a woman who was in labor, and I thought she was going to have the baby right there in the back of the truck. I suppose we have to bring this one, too, in spite of the rules.
“All packed up and ready,” Tata Daniel, the driver assured himself of this by looking in the rear-view mirror. He started to back the truck up the narrow path and toward the dusty road. He worried aloud: “I hope we make it all the way to Kimpese without a hitch, or I’ll get blamed again, since I took it upon myself to accept this ailing woman passenger.”
While still backing, there was shouting from the rear: “Stop, stop, she is having a seizure!” Nurse Lusadusu got out and walked around to to re-examine the patient. Lusadusu now yelled for a blood pressure gauge, the most high-tech item available. As usual, excitement caused him to stutter. After a couple of minutes, he explained, “Irene, we cannot take this woman to Kimpese to die.” Then he turned to the village nurse and commanded: “Send one of your helpers to the Seventh Day Adventist clinic and see if they have an IV and some fluid. It would be embarrassing to lose a patient with the villagers watching.”
Just then the woman had another convulsion. Lusadusu asked the nurses’ aides to carry her into the mud-brick Health Center. Besides my co-workers—Nketani and Matumona and me—a crowd of curious villagers had gathered. Just as the aides were passing, carrying the woman by her feet and shoulders, her body went limp, releasing her fluids. I looked at the wet trail on the red earth. Oh, my God, the poor woman just died, right in front of my eyes. She is so young. Life isn’t fair! These people suffer so much. Damn politics! Damn these people for being so complacent. They die for lack of a quarter...the fare for a trip to the hospital. Life is too cheap here, worth less than a quarter....
Lusadusu came out from the room where they had taken the body. Apprehensive, he made an announcement. His mind was busy looking for the right words, but there were none. “Everybody must think I am incompetent. I must save face. How do they expect me to do this job—an IV could have stabilized her to get her to the hospital in Kimpese.” He looked up and, instead of commenting on what had just happened, said to his crew: “Let’s reload the truck; we must get home.”
Daniel, Matumona, and Nketani, were talking on the side of the path.
“Lusadusu, this wasn’t your fault; it’s the system. They should have tried to find a ride on a produce lorry two weeks ago to take her to the hospital. They didn’t want to spend the money for the ride on the lorry. They waited too long to get help. There is nothing you could have done to saver her.”
The woman’s husband huddled in the dust beside the path, next to a neat little pile consisting of their cooking pots, reed mats, and other meager belongings. He covered his face with his large calloused hands, trying to hide the tears. “How will I get her body back to my village now?” he pondered. “She deserves a decent burial in the ancestral cemetery. How will I justify these additional expenses to my other wives? I should never have brought her here. I would not be faced with this dilemma now.”
Irene Brammertz immigrated to the United States from Switzerland in 1964. After her children were grown, she served in the Peace Corps in Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) in the Public Health Program from 1988-1990. Her service in the Peace Corps was the catalyst that inspired her to further her education. She holds a master’s degree in Public Health, International Health Management, from the University of South Florida in Tampa.
Crazy Cat Lady
Michelle Stoner
Bridging the gap on wounded paws.
An impressively sealed package arrived at my house with the Peace Corps logo neatly printed in the upper left corner. The anticipation of finding out where I would spend the next two-odd years of my life had grown so high that I almost couldn’t open it. My roommates and I rushed inside; as they huddled around me, I broke the seal.
Niger. Niger? Where on Earth is Niger? I had spent the last year studying Sub-Saharan Africa, starring at a map of the continent, wondering where I’d be going. Somehow I skipped over Niger. Puzzled, we discovered a landlocked country right in the heart of the Sahara Desert.
When I envisioned myself in Africa, I fantasized about living along the coast in an animist culture, dancing around fires next to the ocean, praying to the wind for rain, wealth, and fertility. I imagined staying up late at weddings and naming ceremonies, dancing with the women until our feet blistered and the sun came up.
When the plane landed in Niamey, I was mortified. This was an Africa I knew nothing about, a vast, endless sea of chalky rust-colored sand, speckled with low and pokey shrubs and twisted knobby trees. I could feel the temperature rise as the plane hit the ground, fearing the dreaded hot season, where temperatures reach 140 degrees Fahrenheit. The mystery of the desert and its boundlessness could swallow me whole.
Settling in, I saw my dreams of dancing barefoot with African women shift. After two months of intensive training, I was delivered to my assigned village. Kiota. Niger is 99 percent Muslim, and Kiota is the most religious town in the western part of the country. An influential Sheik, or Caliph, resides in the town. People make pilgrimages from all over West Afri
ca and the world to be blessed by this Sheik, who soon became my “father,” as he came to refer to me as his daughter, or sheikizo.
Making a home for myself in Kiota, I unknowingly dipped into a world I knew nothing about and actually feared as an American. Instead of being in an animist culture, I was amongst some of the most devout Muslims in Niger. The Sheik attracted Nigeriens from diverse ethnic groups, who then installed themselves in different sections of the town. The cultivating Zarmas, the Hausas. The nomadic Tuaregs migrated in and out of the town, bringing their camels to the bush during the planting season. The pastoralist Fulani lived on the outskirts with their animals in tiny round mud huts covered in straw. I loved watching the young Fulani men come to town on market day with their ghetto-blasters blaring muffled Nigerien music, their stylish top hats, colorful necklaces of red, yellow, and blue, and coveted plastic sandals that didn’t quite fit.
I was torn out of sleep every morning at 5:15 a.m. for the first call to prayer from the loudspeaker at the mosque. The usual calling, “Allahu Akbar,” was followed by the voice of a man, ancient enough to have seen Niger when it was covered in water, singing. I could hear the entire town awakening: the crow of roosters, the screaming of children on their way to school, the banging of pots and pans from women beginning the long process of making meals, the sound of men getting water to perform their morning ablutions, washing their feet, hands, arms, necks, and face to pray. I rolled over, feeling like an alien looking perplexedly in on this culture, wondering how it all revolved around a mosque in the center of town.
Who would have known that 80 percent of my job as a Peace Corps Volunteer would be socializing, which was more exhausting than it sounds? All of a sudden, I had celebrity status, making half of my village curious admirers and the other half criticizing paparazzi. I made routines for myself, circling the village from different directions, ducking into random households to greet people. I usually got stuck with the kids, was fed interesting food, and would end up sleeping or staring at people, exhausted from the heat and unable to converse in the language.
As time went by, I began feeling more comfortable and less like an outsider. There were times when I forgot I lived in a rural bush town in West Africa, until catastrophic events happened and I needed Western conveniences or concepts—such as a veterinarian.
One morning I awoke in a funk, frustrated at the slow progress I was making. I decided to release some steam on a bike ride. At six in the morning, before the sun had unleashed its flames, I rode the farthest I had ever gone, passing sleepy villages just on the verge of waking.
My senses swelled as I took in my surroundings. A rainbow of bright colors slowly appeared on the horizon, a moving line of yellow, blue, and red flags swaying lightly against a rust orange world. A band of women was making the early morning trek up to my village to sell crafts and food, calabashes atop their heads overflowing with guavas, milk, and millet stalks. As I approached, we exchanged greetings, they laughing at the white girl with a weird hat and pants on who could somehow speak their language, me admiring their vibrancy and the little babies attached to their backs, asleep through their mothers’ laughter.
My favorite part of the ride was dashing through a eucalyptus grove, enveloped by the healing smell. As I rode, little frogs jumped from under my wheels, seeking refuge in a rainy season lake. The sound of the swish of my tires against their plopping in water made my inner child laugh aloud.
On my way home, I passed through a village I knew, trying not to be seen by anyone, avoiding engaging in a stream of greetings. Nigeriens take greeting very seriously; one can get stuck on anything from the weather to being single and sleeping alone. One of my favorite greetings was “Matte ndunya gorey,” which literally translates “How is sitting in the world,” or “How is existing?” Sometimes greeting could be a sport, each party firing off greetings and responses, but other times it was exhausting for me. It always seemed someone called out when I tried to rush on by on American time.
An elderly Fulani woman called at me, “Charifa!” and asked me to sit with her and her family. We chatted and she lavished me with blessings from God and begged me to take her daughter to America to receive an education. I left her house with an uplifted but equally heavy heart and six guinea-fowl eggs in my pocket. Glorious! I would go home and boil some eggs. I pedaled gleefully, swishing and splashing through puddles with eggs on my mind.
Excited and exhausted, I opened my house to find it covered in blood. Confused, I searched around only to find my cat, Percy, lying pathetically inside, bleeding profusely from his front and back paws. He was cut so deeply that I saw bone, his tendons and muscles pouring out of the wound. Gagging in disgust and panic, I wrapped him in a blanket and washed his cuts with warm water and salt. I bolted outside to consult the blacksmith, Afoulan, who had become a father, brother, and best friend in my year living next to him. He had always been terrified of my “huge” cat, but he was my confidante.
Most Nigeriens couldn’t understand the concept of caring for pets. Some people can barely feed their households; having a pet is a luxury. Pets in Niger are kept for practical purposes; storeowners owns cat to rid their stores of mice.
I begged Afoulan to come see my cat, and he told me to stop freaking out, that Percy would lick himself better. Keeping his distance, Afoulan took one look at Percy and understood my panic. He told me about a man in the village who treated livestock for a living and who might be able to help Percy.
I hustled around my village, never an easy task considering the importance of stopping to greet people and the slow pace of life in the village. Hustle, Charifa, hustle! Just don’t make eye contact! First stop: Cancel my Arabic lesson. I walked into my teacher’s house, a studied, highly religious man from Chad who lived amongst a group of other single male teachers who came to Kiota to teach school. Hassimi was very modern for being so religious and he often had rap videos or explicit videos showing on his TV/DVD. I got pressured into watching the video, all the while my heart beating pounding with worry over my poor cat! It is custom to stay for three rounds of tea, but I excused myself after the first.
The livestock man was tall and kind-faced with a beard and a mustache, which is uncommon for Nigeriens. He looked like he belonged in the 1950s in his clean, navy blue pressed suit. He seemed peaceful and dignified and was holding an equally peaceful baby, who didn’t make a sound. I told him all about my problem. He listened with a confused expression, and I wasn’t surprised when it turned out he had never worked on a cat. He reluctantly agreed to meet me at my house to assess the situation.
I ran to the doctor’s office to ask for some cotton to clean the cat’s wounds. The women who worked at the hospital always joked with me. When I came rushing in hysterical, demanding medicine for my cat, it caused quite a riot. The women asked me for an exorbitant sum of money for the cotton balls and then told me to kill my cat and get a new one. I stomped out with tears of frustration in my eyes.
I bought some meat on the way home to feed to Percy. The livestock doctor came over. When he saw Percy’s wounds, he said he definitely needed stitches and that his front paw might be broken. What happened to the cat? He said kids may have tortured it or, since it’s so fat, maybe some other cat attacked it and it couldn’t run away, which I thought highly unlikely. Should I put Percy on a bush taxi and travel two to twelve hours with him to get to a regional capital and see a real vet or should I let this livestock doctor operate on him?
We explored options and decided to go ahead with cat surgery in the village. The next obstacle was finding out how we would hold the cat down while the doctor stitched him up. It was decided I couldn’t do it; I wasn’t strong enough and “pitied the cat too much.”
Afoulan refused, saying he’d have nightmares. We found one guy who seemed overly excited. He was pacing back and forth, yelling about how we’d tie Percy’s four legs between two trees. He almost seemed mad an
d his aggression toward the cat was unsettling, but he was the only volunteer we had. He grabbed Percy’s legs and tried tying them in rope, which didn’t work. I held Percy, who was struggling and scratching me, delirious and exhausted. I finally recruited two strong young men to hold Percy down while the doctor stitched him with string. I didn’t even know if I wanted to go through with this! What if Percy got infected or he died from pain? Did this guy really know what he was doing?
It was two in the afternoon. This had been going on for hours. Luckily there was a prayer call; everyone left my concession before I broke down. I started bawling and had a meltdown.
As I was crying, one of my little friends, Barham, entered my concession and looked at me in terror. Nigeriens don’t cry, ever. In the face of suffering or misery, the mentality is, Kala Suuru, or “Have patience”; everything that happens was intended by God. Barham distracted me by asking about my mango tree and instructed me on how to water my other trees. He scolded me because I didn’t add enough manure to my garden and I had to laugh at the fact that I was being schooled by a seven year old. I was humbled by his successful attempt at calming me.
After prayer, everyone came back and I decided it was time to stop discussing and stitch him up. We were already all exhausted from running back and fourth, recruiting people, and exploring options. I sterilized the doctor’s equipment and fed everyone crystallized ginger so our stomach’s wouldn’t turn. The surgery was one of the most gruesome and brutal things I had ever witnessed, the three of us holding Percy down while he was crying and jerking.