The places inbetween

 Blo and his family
 Looking down from Ngomi into Sikoro

I had the great honor of working with someone today who deserves the highest of praises. Though I may have met several prestigious people who control health policy and sit in nice leather chairs through Annie, though each of these men and women are smart and dedicated to their work, none of them has impressed me more than Blo. Blo is a peer-educator for GAIA’s TB Bolo program and a Malian equivalent of a Nurse practitioner and he really rocks the boat.

He met us as 7:30am at the local clinic (the CSCOM), after having spent the night on call at the local hospital (the CSREF) and the day before that giving out vaccinations. He then offered to walk with us up to his village Ngomi instead of driving so that we could see the scenery. And what a scenery it was! We started walking out of the valley, up the hills behind Bamako. I must admit, but I did not think that Mali was going to be this green! We walk up into the hills, over one of Bamako’s trash repositories (why the dump is upstream of Sikoro I do not know) toward Ngomi—the last ‘Cartier’ (i.e. district) of Sikoro.

Once above, our, or rather Blo’s work began. He was doing a special one-on-one TB Bolo outing with us. He proceeded to bring us around to all the TB houses and suspected TB houses in the village. I just can’t sing Blo’s praises enough, and not to sound too much like a Kristof column, he and one other woman were this village’s only direct link to medicine as we know it. He knew each of the houses; he knew everyone and took care of them.

When we visited one old woman with Blo, I nearly lost it and broke down in tears. Well that’s not true, in retelling her story I nearly lost it and broke down in tears. She had been given a ticket by Blo to go down to the CSCOM for a TB test after coughing for years. Since she couldn’t afford the 450 CFA round trip on the public-transport (about 1$) she decided to walk to the clinic. On the way, she got so tired and couldn’t stop coughing that she nearly died on the side of the road. Since Blo was not around, she had a traditional healer come and help her back up to Ngomi.

           

            We all talk about access to care issues, but that adds a whole new level to the conversation.

 

            Despite that though, there was still hope. Blo gave her another ticket, and said that this time he would be the one to take her down on his motorcycle to the local clinic for testing. He was so calm and self-assured and just well caring. He told us later that in every action you do, do it with courage—and I must say he follows his own advice.

            Then we began the descent back to Sikoro, and what a descent it was. We stepped into a Sotrama—think an old VW bus with the interior carved out—and held on .  My first impression of being in a Sotrama was that I was going to die. It was a bit like being on a make-shift roller coaster at summer fairs, except there were no seat belts, and it was real. With each second that passed coming down the hill I remained amazed that the back half hadn’t fallen off yet.

           

            Back in town though, we walked. We walk a lot here, though Malians don’t and think we are kind of weird for walking. Besides the fact that we don’t have a car/ motorcycle/bike to get around in and we don’t feel like emptying our pockets for taxicabs for each instant, we walk because we feel so much more ‘in it.’ There are so many interactions you can just miss by driving. Today, for example, in walking home we just said hello to two women on the side of the road. It turns out that the two women are Griots and the next thing we know they started singing us a song of welcome!

 

Kambe,

 

Fatimata (Lauren)