On October 3, 2003 in the village of Goundaga, Senegal,
the night was the most beautiful that I have seen in my
entire life. I mean the sky was crystal clear, the stars
were twinkling and it included a half-moon. It was starting to
change from the rainy season to the dry season. During the
rainy season it was quite rare to get a cloudless sky and in
fact we didn't see the stars a whole lot.
Usually every night I eat in the back of my hut with
my village counterpart (named - Demba Balde) at about
9 o'clock. What I usually do is place my plastic chairs
out in the back an hour earlier and just sit back and
watch the sky and listen to the sounds of the village.
Like usual Demba arrives and we sit and start talking.
About 15 minutes later Demba's wife (Fatumata)
arrives and says that the child of the next door family
is sick and needs medicine. We don't have much other
than antibiotics, bandages ... etc. But we head over
there and we see this 3 week old baby being held by
this matron from the other village. We can
see that the baby has a fever (and they had the baby
covered in a quilted blanket) and is breathing a little
labored. So the lady opens the blanket and I almost
dropped as all I saw on the baby was a covering of
these little pus spots and I mean covered. Ok ... what
do you do with bandages and antibiotic cream? Well,
we knew to uncover the baby to cool him off. So we do
that ... tell them to give the baby water (even though it is
not recommended here because the baby could get
diarrhea ... etc.) but the baby wasn't nursing. So ... we
leave to get treated water ( I have some in my hut ).
As we walk out I tell Demba "let's go to the health
clinic I have money we can buy whatever we need".
He says that it is Friday night and that the nurse that
is the only one capable, is not there. Also that there is
no way to get a vehicle up there at this time of the
night (it is almost impossible in the day time as the
road has been washed out by the rains). If we took
a charrette it would take about 2 hours and still ...
no one would be there. We could go to the big hospital
but that would be about a 6 to 7 hour journey.
Also, we would have to override the village matron,
which may have big ramifications later on.
So Demba says all we can do is wait till tomorrow
and we can see what we can do. But in the meantime,
we bring the treated water back and the matron gives
him (named Boubacar also) a tablespoon of water. A
minute later the baby made a little better than subtle
convulsive move and I knew that wasn't good. After the
drink the matron moved the baby to lay him down and
as she did his head just dropped back like there was
no life and his big black eyes were vacant. I will always
remember those eyes. So we leave ... as there is nothing
more that we know to do.
As I walked away I just thought - Lord ... gives us this
one night ... give us a chance. It was a numbing period
before I went to sleep.
The next morning at 7 a.m. Demba comes to the door and
says that at 1 p.m. little Boubacar died. We just sat
silently in my hut for a half hour and I have to say that it
was the first time in my life I had not one thought.
What we did was go to the village/city (1000 people)
and had to cancel a soccer game that we had scheduled
for that day. I then went to Tom's (Peace Corps Volunteer)
village to talk. But before that I gave Demba some
money to buy some good food for the family. Like meat, onions,
rice (meat is a rare thing) oh yeah ... also beans.
I was really taking my time going back to the village as
I felt like I needed to chill a little. But at about 2 in the
afternoon I return. I am not feeling any better than in the
morning when I left. As I get back in the village I see that
life is just going along ... I am like devastated and the
people are just going on with life. I had to think a little
... why is it like this? And I came up with this ...
The people in the village only know that children die
and people die of malaria and that there isn't a lot
of money to go to the doctors or if they have a little
they keep it for food.
And in there lies the reason why I was so affected
by little Boubacar's death. I know different ... I know there
is a such thing as 911 ... I know that there are staffed
hospitals and health coverage and all the other things
that made seeing little Boubacar die so frustrating.
It is hard to live in a moment of helplessness.
Yes, there are many things that probably could have
been done and things that should have been done earlier.
But when the resources aren't quite there and the money
and the education and the feeling that there is something
that can actually be done .... ?????
So ... during the day Boubacar's father comes to thank
me for giving the food and he came with someone else
because he couldn't speak and the other guy says that
the father wanted to say thank you. Also another thing
that I have held off to mention is that 2 months ago, this
same father's 2 yr old son died of malaria.
I had a hard time looking him in the eye as I felt that
as me being from the developed world ... I felt guilty that
people there have a lot and the people here don't have
quite as much.
But my opinion of that night was that it was too
beautiful a night to die ... for anyone to die for that
matter. I know that the world doesn't stop ... but I know
that the mind can be a powerful thing and I don't want
to believe that there was the death of a little child from
Africa on that beautiful night.
So instead ... I am going to think this ...
Little Boubacar did what any curious child would
do ... he left to touch the stars and walk hand in
hand with Mr. Moon and that he just lost his way
back home.
Paul
Senegal
West Africa
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