Bandiagara Day 6 (21/07/09)

Today we began with rounds at the hospital, but when we got there we learned that the doctors are on strike (apparently other government paid workers got a raise, but healthcare workers didn’t). Despite that, rounds commenced with the nurses and the medical students (Dembele was in the lead). We saw more snake bites and fortunately the little boy from the other day was doing better. However I was not; again I managed to feel a little dizzy (and now I know exactly why: orthostatic hypotension) and headed back to the office before rounds were over (though I couldn’t hear anything anyways, so I guess I didn’t miss much). Dr Kone identified my problem and told me when it happens I just need to sit down, however it’s been a bit difficult to convince others that my problem isn’t from seeing blood or anything (I saw plenty of that growing up with two rather accident prone brothers). Anyways, after round we continued in the clinic and saw patients with various complaints (food poisoning, a baby with a cold, ears clogged with wax, etc) as well as two children with severe malaria who we then escorted to the hospital and observed the staff starting the IVs (I made sure to keep flexing my leg muscles this time to keep the blood moving).
When we returned to the clinic we were joined by a French medical student who is just finishing a short internship here, but who had nothing to do today with the hospital doctors being on strike. It was a bit helpful having them because he was very good at translating the French to English for us (I still find the French system of starting medical school right after high school a bit odd though). By about 11am there were no more patients and the French student left. Liz and I stayed at the clinic and talked to Dembele and Tolo about a whole gamete of topics. We talked about why they think it’s good that men here can marry more than one woman (though they didn’t manage to sway me), we talked about how kids in America are more independent and often live on their own before their married (they were surprised that my parents “allow” me to live with my boyfriend). We also somehow wound up on the topic of homosexuality and I was a little disappointed with the fact that they think it’s a mental disease and goes against nature. Liz and I tried to convince them that it was just another way to live, but they didn’t seem to see it that way (it was interesting because later in the afternoon I was reading an article on Time.com about how the AIDS epidemic in Africa is perpetuated by homophobia since that demographic is not being targeted for treatment of education campaigns; here’s a link to the article in case you have too much time on your hands: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1911757,00.html ). After coming to no resolution about or differing opinions we returned to the house for lunch (rice and sauce of course).
We stayed at the house for a bit to watch the tour de France (I don’t think they’ve every really paid attention to it before because somehow I was an expert on it and was doing a lot of explaining (thanks Nathan)). After the end of the stagxe we headed back to the clinic, but there wasn’t much to do except use the internet and look at pictures. As we were sitting in the office we began to hear a lot of wind and we could see everything blowing very hard outside. A storm perhaps (we thought)? It seems that rain does not come here easily. It has to be blown in on a fierce wind. I’m beginning to think that each rain is preceded by a mini dust/sand storm. The winds died down for a bit and in popped Fredrick (our entomologist friend from Chez Gwadz). He’s in Bandiagara with his sister and niece to visit Dogon country (he invited us to join them tomorrow and I think we might). After catching up with him he left during a lull in the rain (a second wave came through, though not as long as the first). I think people here will be very happy with the rains (they’ve been late this year and so the people haven’t been able to plant their crops).