Marabout or medi-vac

By Leita Kaldi, Senegal 1993-96

    I lay there with my legs akimbo as the Peace Corps doctor in Dakar poked around looking for something he couldn’t find.  
    “Olive!” he called the Irish nurse in. “I can’t find her cervix.”  
    So she peered inside and agreed in her charming brogue, “Odd! Neither can I, doctor.”  
    “Cathy!” he called in the Ghanaian nurse.  
    She, too, had a look, shook her head, and agreed. “Can’t see a thing. There’s something blocking her cervix.”  

    I began to feel somewhat bored by this conference between my legs and called down to the assembly. 
    “Hey, today’s my birthday. While I have your attention, do you think you could all sing ’Happy Birthday’ to me?” 
    Three faces looked up into mine with big smiles, and they broke into song. There was no cake with candles, though, only a reference to the Lebanese clinic across town where they had an MRI and sonogram. So off I went in a taxi, an unaccustomed luxury, except that at every corner the Taliban kids crowded around the car with their tomato cans stuck through the window, asking for alms for their marabout. I shrank into my seat as we crawled from one block to the next until we arrived at the modern building that housed an excellent medical facility. Peace Corps had a contract with the clinic, and I was treated with utmost respect, one reason being that I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in my fifties.     

Leita Kaldi in Senegal, submitted photo

    I spent that night in the Peace Corps’ “health hut,”  then next morning got back on the road to my village. I had no time to waste. I had projects in mid-stream, like women’s markets for tourists, a latrine for the local middle school, classes in small enterprise development. The morning after arriving back in my village of Fimela, in the Delta Sine Saloum, I walked down the sandy paths to see my friend and marabout, Cheikh Diop, an old man who had taught me about animism and Islam, two sides of the same card, and whose family I cherished. I told him I had a health problem, a blockage in my pelvis. His black eyes focused on mine.
    “I can take care of that.”  

    “Maybe you can,” I replied, and thought about it, walking back to my little house. Many people in the village went to him for herbal remedies and magical incantations, but … the die had been cast. A boy came running towards me.  
    “Adjia Sagar! You have a phone call.” He led me to the one central telephone hut in the village. I picked up the phone. It was the Peace Corps doctor.*

    “We just got your tests back. You have a cervical cyst. It might be cancer. You’re being med-evac’d. Pack up your stuff. All your stuff. You probably won’t be coming back. A car will pick you up tomorrow afternoon and bring you to Dakar. You’re flying to Washington.”

    “But … but …” I stammered.  “I can’t leave now. I have work to do. Pack up all my stuff by tomorrow? Are you kidding.”

    “A car will be there. Be ready.” Then, softening his voice, he added, “I’ll be waiting for you in Dakar. You can stay at our house until your flight leaves.”

    I walked away from the phone hut across the sand. Cancer? I stretched my fingers out in front of me and turned around in a circle, as if I were warding off evil. No! Not this time. I am fine.

    But I packed my things into my one big suitcase that evening, went around next morning to say be bennen yoon … until we meet again … not good-bye, to all my neighbors.

    Two days later I was in Washington D.C. I made my way to Peace Corps Headquarters, then was sent for all kinds of exams and to schedule surgery at George Washington University Hospital. I stayed in a hotel across the Potomac where  volunteers with health problems were housed. I learned it had been a notorious CIA spy den in years past, maybe even as I checked in, which gave the building a special allure.  

     I took advantage of my sojourn to explore Washington between medical appointments --  the Smithsonian, the monuments, amazing bus rides. Standing on a sidewalk in front of Peace Corps one day I saw a sign, “Cellular One.” I’d been away so long I thought it was an Italian restaurant. I tried a McDonald’s hamburger, which I found revolting after my quasi-vegetarian diet in Senegal.

    Within a few days I was admitted to George Washington University Hospital. Skipping the gory details, I had a hysterectomy -- no cancer! -- and the best medical care ever. And it didn’t cost me a dime. Thank you, Peace Corps!  

    But I did have a problem when I told the Peace Corps rep I wanted to return to Senegal. 
    “You’re done,” he responded.   
    I pleaded and cajoled, insisted and demanded, assuring him I’d be just fine after a month’s recuperation, until he finally relented and told me I could go back to finish my third year. So I did rest for a month or so, and returned to Senegal, where I talked to our Peace Corps Director who, I was surprised and happy to know, knew nothing of my medical procedure. They were serious about privacy issues but, of course, I told him everything. I returned to my village to resume work on my projects and quickly became exhausted, but I did manage to get a few things done.  

    Within a few days of my return, I met my beloved marabout, and he asked me where I’d been. When I told him about my excavation, he looked quite indignant.  
    “I could have fixed that,” he reprimanded me.  
    I had to smile.  Who knows.  Maybe he could have.  

* Let me take this opportunity to throw accolades at our Peace Corps Medical Office, Olive, Cathy, and Dr. Richard Clattenburg, who really cared, though he abhorred snakes, burrowing parasites, and begged us, shuddering, not to get guinea worm.