November Blog

Sometimes it becomes a little too easy to sit back and view the grand picture. Where will Africa be in ten years? What is the impact of my projects? What are the current statistics on infant mortality? Future projected numbers? What is the true impact of AIDs or aid in sub-saharan Africa? It becomes reassuring to encompass yourself in the potential of tomorrow via comparison to today's situation. Impacts can be measured over long durations so the thousands of errors or obstacles today have less weight and cause less worry. Then you put faces to statistics and the whole becomes hazier.

A few weeks ago, I came riding up after class and Husseini (my closest neighbor and friend) told me his son, Adama, was sick. This is hardly news. Most kids are sick from time to time and Husseini always keeps me filled in. A day later and things are back to normal. Sometimes it's three days. When it hit five days, Husseini's voice hit harder in my ears. No food. Hardly anything to drink. Diarrhea. Vomiting. Fever. Five days of hell for a child of a year and a half.

There is a gambit of 'medicine" that is run. Between charms and sacrifices to antibiotics. Adama had anything they could think of. Thus, on that fifth day, I could see the plea in Husseini's eyes. Before I could get off my bike, he was beckoning me into his courtyard. Look at my son. The worry was evident but what really shocked me was his pleading manner. He kept reminding me of how I was smart and white, as if by these two attributes I had some special medical knowledge or healing power. Come, hold his hand. What can we do? His words were stones. Heavy. Shattering. What do I know of medicine? Here the man is desperate and turning my way. What can I say but to see the clinic doctor (which he has already done)? How is my hand touching Adama's going to heal him?

A note on Adama: he was the only baby not scared of white skin. He would never shriek and turn from me as I approached. Instead he would call my name at night until his mother lifted him beyond the wall to shake my hand. He smiled and giggled as if happiness was the only disposition worthy of his time.

Sitting on top of a bowl, supported by his mother, and smiling was Adama. He was weak. You could see it in the dark circles beneath his eyes and the sagging skin on his bones. All of his charm still pulled through those small brown eyes but the body was grieving for itself, a huddled mass of fatigue. With help, he reached out and put his hand in mine without the strength to grab hold. I held his small fingers and palm. Fragile and anemic. I wanted him to pull from my hand the strength to stand and eat. Both nothing flowed.

Later, Husseini explained he could no longer walk because of the antibiotic shots to his legs. The doctor was losing ground with no improvements. Husseini would not ask so I asked him. What can I do? What do you need? He mumbled about not knowing himself what to do, what else to try. I asked him about medical bills. Could he afford them? He said it was expensive but they had found ways to make it work. What power did being white give me? None. But I did have more monetary resources at my disposal. Throwing money at a problem is never a solution but it can help. As was, it was all I could do. I was here to help and was powerless to truly do so.

Adama entered the clinic that night to receive an IV. On my way to school the next morning, Husseini informed me that they tried more than six times to find a vein but could not. His blood was too thick and dry, he said, to take the IV. After class, Husseini was pacing, staring at the ground. It was more than a father's worry. It was grief.

Adama died.

Burkinabe do not cry. They hardly show emotion beyond pleasantries. Tears are hidden. Husseini's eyes were swollen. His face was lost in the dirt beneath his worn sandals. He turned and asked if this happens where I come from. How could I tell him 'no, not really. perhaps rarely'? How could I express that because he lost the lottery of birth, his son is now dead? That, though he will bike 300 km and back to mine gold during the year to feed his family, his work will not gain him what would be easily found in America. I could not directly answer his question. Instead, I made up a story. I said that God had decided he wanted the best company for dinner tonight. Someone that was the best of all those on earth. And when that is decided, no one can change that fact. So, for that day, he had chosen Adama to sit and talk to, the best of all of us. It was his honor to be God's guest. It was a fake story for an unbearable truth. But you could see pride in his eyes for his son. His desire to believe out weighed his need for reality. Somehow I couldn't help believing the story myself.

That afternoon, after the students came back from class, I found Abdoulaye in my courtyard. Alaye is one of my favorites, always a comedian but still a good student. He's my dog walker and burkinabe-cultural guide. He is never without words. But there, facing the wall of my house, he was silent. Tears were hidden in his lowered face, reflecting so many of his father's mannerisms. It was more than I could bear but life hadn't given me a choice. Funny that in those moments, your sense of self is laid down and forgotten. Never have I felt more the teacher. We talked and drank orange juice. He stayed until late in the night beneath my hangar.

The funeral was quick, only a day later. There was a burial and silence broken only by a few prayers. It was the community resting without word in show of solidarity.

A bit over a week later and Fango has started. The work in the village is over. For nine days, the villagers will meet around the market and dance in lines for hours on end. They dance for the coming year and in thanks of all that they have gained from the previous. Drums fire long into the night while heads bob up and down. There is not drama, not cinematic, not even 'authentic'. It is routine. Another part of life here.

Just before the first day of the festival, Husseini hands me a chicken. Chickens are not free, though they run loose around the compound. They are not cheap though you constantly see one beneath your feet. It was a present. He explained to me how happy he was with me, how happy his family was with me. I felt a fraud. Anything I had done to help his family seemed unimportant given the events of weeks past. I was more powerless than helpful but here was gratitude undeserved in the form of a squawking bird.

Alaye and I killed, plucked and gutted the chicken. He gladly took all the best parts (those I wished not to eat anyway) such as the head, liver, etc. Then I fried the rest, southern style. Completely unheard of here. Husseini viewed his fried drumstick with slight concern but the smile rose when the crispy, greasy skin flaked off with his bite. Undoubtedly, we will fry another (though this time I am buying the bird).

So, people constantly tell me how great it is that I am helping out in such a poor country. It is not for modesty that I shy away from such compliments. I shy away because I know what I do here is about shared experience, sharing and relating life between myself and my neighbors. I have no great power to 'heal the world' or save the Africans, poor or downtrodden. But I can share what I have found as true and receive the same in return. It is the basis of all good relationships, mutually beneficial experiences.

My heart will always wrench over the loss of Adama. I will always feel that powerlessness. But those are shared feelings. They have helped solidify the bond between his father and me. A reminder of our humanity and commonality.