Saturday, December 5, I drove with four other people connected with the school, Tod (6th grade teacher) and Randi (a nurse with the peace corps) who are my neighbors in my apartment building, Colin who is the head of the PTA and has a son at ISD, and Jodi, also a nurse and a parent of two children and on the school board, and our guide, friend and translator Almamy to visit a marabout who is a healer. It took almost four hours to get there and more to return, because of traffic. Colin drove the whole way, in his Kia SUV. I thought he was an amazing driver. He said he enjoys it!!! He was raised in south Africa, was a truck driver in UK, and is now married to a Belgian woman who works for the UN High Commission on Refugees. Colin has led convoys with relief supplies in Chad and Bosnia. He thought this drive was easy.
We drove pass fields dotted with baobab trees, as in the first photo above. As is typical of just about everything here, the roads were the extremes from excellent to horrendous. There was one stretch of road with terrible potholes and the vehicles were weaving back and forth the two lane pavement trying to avoid them. I wondered what caused the potholes, it could not have been frost heaves. I was told the water table is high and the moisture gets under the pavement and breaks up the road surface.
The day trip took us to the village of Koumbal (located about 30 minutes south of Kaolack). Kaolack is on Google Earth but not Koumbal The aim of the trip was to visit with the 84 year old traditional marabout, Yorro, and his family. Tod had met Yorro for the first time last fall, through Almamy, and has had several long conversations with him about health and medicine. Almamy has been seeing Yorro for about 4 years, after traditional medicine didn't help him.
We arrived about 10:30 to Koumbal, a traditional West African village, all one room houses with stucco walls and thatched roofs. Our car was surrounded immediately by children, greeting us by shaking our hands and calling "bonjour". We were led over to the Yorro's house. The children followed and continued to peek through the doors. They would disappear briefly when Yorro would shoo them away--then they would returning and continue to stare in until finally Yorro pulled a long switch from behind his bed and waved it at the kids. This time, the children took off permanently.
Chairs were brought into the house so all could sit, including two plastic chairs which had been mended--in fact one of them had a different colored plastic leg grafted onto it. I had not expected it to hold but it did. The room was dominated by the large bed which Yorro alternately sat and laid on.
The room was just about square, the two door on opposite walls. While the day was warm, it was cooler in the house. The dirty walls were painted, a faded turquoise, with several old calendar posted. I guess they weren't all that old--all were from this millennium. In one corner was an old refrigerator, not working, with latches to lock both doors, that is used for storage. There was one electric light bulb hanging over the bed, near one of the doors, with an electrical outlet near the light switch. Yorro stores his medicial herbs in a large metal bowl, kept under the bed.
Each of us were examined by Yorro. The examination consists of his looking at our hands, placing his hand on our neck, on our sides, chest, and running his hand over our head and down the back. Everyone's diagnosis was the same--a problem with the blood. Tod wondered if there was a different meaning to that--more like "chi" or life force. Yorro also said, after my examination, that I could not bend my knees--or I had difficulties with doing that--which I thought was rather amazing since he did not see me walking, not that I think my arthritic knees are very noticeable.
Yorro is very kind and practical. He seems to enjoy a large clientele. Over the three hours we were with him, he saw some other "patients", all women with babies. The first woman who came, with another woman (mother, sister, friend??) and a baby. The color of her hair--it had a reddish or copper sheen to it--Colin said was a sign of malnutrition. I thought the child was about a year, but she was closer to 2. I asked if the child was walking and I understood that she does not yet walk independently. She also had a herniated umbilical cord. Yorro examined both the mother and the child--he said the mother was sicker than the child and gave medicine for both mother and child. After the mother left, Yorro, said he had treated the woman for infertility. She had tried for 4 years to conceive, and finally did after his treatment.
The next mother brought in a two month old girl, also with herniated umbilical cord, who was not sleeping well. This child seemed healthier. The third mother brought in 2 week old baby, male, I do not remember the complaint. The infant was tiny, the mother unwrapped the cloth which seemed to serve as a diaper at one point, and left him bare. She nursed him, he fell asleep, then woke after a while and she nursed him again on the other side. Yorro seemed like a kindly, loving, understanding grandfather towards to women. While he dispensed the same medicine, to all, it was his "bedside" manner that seemed most healing, that is his bedside since I understand that Yorro does not make "house-calls", patients must come to him.
The medicine that Yorro dispenses, as I said, is the same for everyone. There are bundles of twigs and leaves (from eight different plants) that you soak in water--and drink each day for three days, adding more water each day to the twigs and leaves. The other is leaves (from two plants) to make tea that you drink once a week. What makes the medicine different, is that it is prayed or blessed, for each person. In our case, Yorro's son Ousmane, who is learning to be a healer from his father, did the honors "customizing" the medicine. Each time he asked for our full name in order to perform this ritual. We would told to bury the medicine after it was used, other wise, someone might get a hold of it and cause us harm because it "had our name" on it.
Before we left, we were served the tradition little glass of tea--Gunpowder Chinese--with lots of sugar. A tray was brought in with two glasses, as they were finished, the glasses collected, two more servings were brought it. This was repeated until all had been served.
continued on next blog
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