We filed outside for dancing and feasting. Women served riz gras (a tasty combination of rice, tomatoes and spices) and home-brewed tchapka, or millet beer, until we could eat and drink no more. Then everyone danced for hours, stamping their feet in unison to the deep beat of the tam-tams. Children played on the perimeter of the festivities, often imitating their elders and sneaking wily glances in my direction. A few brave children sneaked into the circle and danced along with the adults, until one of them danced off-beat and got whacked on the head. All the brave ones would then scatter back to the outskirts, and the entire charade repeated itself. Infants, swaddled in a pagne in the small of their mothers' bouncing backs, slept, breast-fed or moved to the music as they heard it.
I tested my dancing shoes after observing for long enough to recognize an underlying beat. Thummpa, thummpa, thummpa. Although my dancing proved awkward compared to their practiced ensemble, they loved my participation. So we danced. We danced until I didn't trust my legs to support my body. I sat down to rest and instantly the crowd dispersed to prepare for the market.
Our day began Thursday with a trek to two small villages to administer polio vaccinations. I personally vaccinated more than 100 children, and Samarou probably doubled that amount. Every move I made was scrutinized by several onlookers. Numerous children saw me and ran in the opposite direction, believing me to be a ghost who had come to collect and take them to the nether world. I can only imagine their genuine terror, caused by stories of witches eating the souls of children to fortify their evil powers. Plus, this particular ghost fed other children horrible-tasting, slimy liquid, undoubtedly instantly eating their souls and thus eventually killing them. No wonder they were terrified.
The whole time, I analyzed the lack of health care in such a remote area. Even the simplest public health concepts proved foreign. I knew I had to work with these villages to broaden their knowledge quickly and effectively, and hopefully save a few lives in the process — or at least improve their quality of life. But I couldn't help but wonder — how?
After a relaxing siesta, I pensively headed to Samarou's house for dinner and drinks. A small crowd was forming outside his courtyard, observing Samarou talk with a distraught woman. Apparently she had brought her ill child to the health clinic, found no one there and proceeded to Samarou's house. She was now waiting for the matron, although both Aimee and Samarou had already told her it was too late to help her child in Katchamba. They needed to go to the hospital in Guérin-Kouka, with its better facilities and medicine — a mere 30 kilometers away. The woman had neither the transportation nor the funds to take her child to the hospital.
