Palm trees, banana trees and a pool

I’m sitting by the pool at Sylvaine and Axel Von Mende’s villa in Bamako, Mali. It is 4pm in the afternoon, I’m sipping my coffee and writing my blog. I am in the shade of huge palm trees and I’ve eaten a few bananas right off the banana tree. Can life get any better? Muddy the family cat, flicks her tail, brushing away a fly as she takes in the afternoon sun, squinting her brown eyes. She still hasn’t figured me out but I keep talking to her and attempting to pet her. At least now she actually sits close to me. She is slowly taming me. She does not let anyone got close to her…she’s had a traumatic childhood, or is it kittyhood?! Sylvaine picked her up one evening, after she had been used as a soccer ball by the neighbourhood teens. Axel and Sylvaine nursed the kitty back to health, with drops of milk and medicine. Now Muddy is a healthy 9 month cat who walks around with attitude (don’t all female cats?) and is the princess of this little place in paradise.

I am so grateful for Sylvaine and Axel for their invitation to their tropical paradise here in Bamako. I too like Muddy have nursed myself back to health, rested well and gained a fresh perspective on our situation in Conakry. Discovering another African country was also interesting as Bamako is quite charming and dare I say “liveable”. My sense of Mali is that it is organized, peaceful and clean. This is after 6 days of observing daily life. Of course I only saw Bamako and not the surrounding areas, so I got a narrow window of life in Mali . There is still poverty but you can’t get away from that in Africa. Africa equals poverty.

I’ve been impressed with Sylvaine who works 10-12 hour days at this humongous literacy project that involves thousands of people. This one woman source of energy is taking on the immense task of reforming the public educational system of Mali. What an undertaking! She is a catalyst to change. She has shown us the several offices where she works---there were posters, photocopies everywhere, radio programs being revised and piled outside over 8,000 fabric kits ready to be assembled with cassettes, books, pre-tests and post-tests ready to be used by the teachers everywhere in Mali. Sylvaine is the master mind behind this immense project. She has written songs, fables, radio scripts and created wooden alphabet to help support the new curriculum geared for elementary students in the public system. The goal: teaching children to read and write.

As for Axel, he is the Good Samaritan. He is a retired metal worker and he is enjoying his new Malian lifestyle. For Axel, every day brings something new: new friends, new experiences and new ways to support people. Everyone in the neighbourhood knows Axel. He pays prescriptions for the young man just struck with malaria, brings cold water to families, helps pay school fees for a child and takes time to have tea with the toothless widow down the street. He brings leftover food to the divorced woman struggling to feed her 3 kids. Axel does these daily acts of kindness throughout the day unassumingly and humbly. He knows the sad life stories of many of his friends. One of them we met. Her name is Mea and her mother died in childbirth when Mea was a young 16 year old. She had to quit school and help her father raise all her siblings. Now at age 30, she works in a real estate/notary office barely making ends meet as she continues to provide for her siblings. Axel helps Mea financially when he sees that she is struggling. Axel was also our driver, tour guide and an amazing chef during our visit here. He was constantly at our service. Every supper he prepared with tender loving care and we could not even offer help. The four of us sat at the table, enjoying a warm meal every evening and the lively discussions. Their house had revolving doors either of students from Simon Fraser University here for a 5 week practicum, some neighbours, the gardener, the pool attendant and the house helper. At times, it was busy as a bee hive and Sylvaine and Axel opened their hearts and their home to whomever would drop in.

Together Axel and Sylvaine are a power couple both giving and contributing to African people in need. Sylvaine helps teachers, principals and children in the education sector. Axel helps his neighbours on a daily basis providing food, friendship, laughter and a few francs. These two humanitarians extend love and goodness to everyone around them. This is Love at work. How awesome to be witness to this! How awesome to have them as friends.

M is for... malaria

Malaria is the word that sends shudders through the expatriate community. We worry about, discuss about and gather information about malaria on a regular basis. Stories about malaria stricken friends circulate. Before our departure, we had read everything we needed to read about this threatening disease, consulted with our family doctor and were briefed at the Travellers Vaccine and Medicine Centre. There is no vaccine that exists against malaria and the reason being is that there are many types of malaria. So we did what every health conscious traveller does; we armed ourselves with lists of do's and do'nt's and brought preventitive medicines, sprays and Deet cream.

So here I am newly arrived in Kenya, full of anticipation for a holiday from the intense life in Conakry and hopeful for a rejuvenating educators' conference. For the first two days, Raymond attends the administrators' sessions and I lounge around by the pool, read and relax. Not a bad life at all, I think to myself. On my second night in Nairobi, I start to shiver violently, so much that I wrap myself cocoon-like in a big blanket. Thirty minutes later, the shivering has stopped and a high fever kicks in. I wonder if I have malaria but I also think this may be a 24 hour flu, after all I have had symptoms like this before. I take 2 Advil and go to sleep. It is a restless night, interrupted by vivid dreams, a pounding headache and profuse sweating.

In the morning, I feel weak and thirsty. I decide to have a light breakfast of fresh fruits but I can barely eat. I feel so weak and dizzy that I head back to my room and spend the day reading and sleeping on and off. My head feels very heavy, my body feels very weak and I continue taking Advils throughout the day, numbing the pain somewhat. When Raymond arrives from the conference, we decide to have a bite to eat and meet up at the pool side restaurant with friends.

I explain my symptoms and everyone around the table says I may have malaria and to get to a doctor asap. I feel fine at this time so I feel a little confused as to the reason for getting a doctor. I wonder what to do next but as the evening wears on, I know I will call a doctor first thing in the morning.

Monday morning arrives, this is the first day of the teachers' sessions and I still have a pounding headache. Maybe a shower will help me but I barely make it to the washroom, extremely dizzy, nauseous and the headache has increased to a pounding pain. I crawl back to bed and Raymond says that I need to get a doctor. With the help of the hotel staff, an hour later, I am wheeled into a van and driven to the Aga Khan University Hospital.

M is for .....motion

Raymond carries me inside the van and by this time, I cannot keep my eyes open because the pain in my head is excrutiating and I am hyper-ventilating, every breath becoming shallower. I can barely murmur to Raymond...hurry, hurry! The ride to the hospital seems interminable and I can feel all the bumps in the road, exacerbating the pounding in my head. My throat is dry yet I can barely quench my thirst with the tiny sips of water I manage to drink. Finally the van stops in the emergency area and I am wheeled in, brought into a holding room and layed down on a bed. Finally I'm at the right place and someone will diagnose me and treat me.

M is for...... medical attention

What happens in the next few hours is hazy. All I can remember is that the pounding headache increases as if someone is hitting my head with a hammer and then an image of a vice grip with my head being squeezed in. At this point I also get electric shock pain in my ears, which surprise me by their intensity. I am given fluids intraveneously which relieves me because I know I am dehydrating by the minute. Blood tests, blood pressure and temperature are taken and the doctor questions me and Raymond fills in all necessary information. The doctor checks my ears and tells me that my ears are bleeding from the inside which explains the electric shock pains I have felt. I remember thinking...this can t be just an earache, though I remember suffering severely from swimmers ear as a teenager and a few other times in my adult life (until I figured out I ALWAYS HAD to wear earplugs whenever I swam).

Of course, I am worried about my one and only kidney and I tell the doctor. He asks me why I only have one kidney and I tell him “’I was a donor 4 years ago”’. The doctor looks at me with the kindest eyes, whispers oh and our eyes lock for a few seconds. I smile as he looks deep into my eyes. I know that he knows what this means. He asks me if I gave to someone in my family to which I answer that I gave to a man from my church. I am given pain reliever through the IV and the doctor converses with Raymond asking how long we have been in Nairobi and where have we come from. Raymond explains that we have been living in Guinee since mid-July and the doctor nods as if he makes a mental connection. He explains that I may have malaria and that Guinee has a different type of malaria. Different? Like how different, I wonder. The results of the blood tests confirm that I have malaria and I start receiving more aggressive treatment. Finally, after 6 hours in the emergency ward, they wheel me up to the only ward that had an available room, the maternity ward.

M is for......mothers

Being on the maternity ward was a joy. I had a small room that I shared the first night with a young woman that I never saw. She was very quiet and I guessed that she had a miscarriage. From the other rooms, I could hear women practicing deep breathing. At other times, I heard the heartbeats of the babies on the machines that record those lovely pre-natal sounds. The second night I spoke a bit to my room mate Nancy and found she was admitted for a Ceasaran scheduled for the next morning. Again the machine recorded the swooshing noise and the rapid heartbeat of this unborn baby. How wonderful all this new life around me!

Meanwhile, my pain was constant, even with all the strong medications I was given. The worst was the pounding headache that did not want to let up. I wanted to get a shot in the head at one point, thinking that if I received an injection exactly at the site of the excruciating pain, somehow I would feel better. Of course, this did not happen, but it just goes to show that I would have done just about anything to get the pain out of my body.

M is for .......marvelous!

The treatment and care from the staff at Aga Khan University Hospital was out standing. The nurses, especially the male nurses were compassionate and kind beyond words. Every time they give me a shot or changed the medication in my intravenous, they sympathically said “’sorry, sorry”’ and all of them did that! This was amazing to me! I had never had any nurse or doctor ever say they were sorry for my pain. It is probably cultural to treat patients with this degree of care but it sure had a very positive impact on me. I noticed that the staff would speak in the same way to all the local patients also. So I did not get special treatment because I was white. I liked that.

M is for......my friend

My friend Laurel from Saskatchewan, via Saudi via Ethiopia was giving a workshop at the conference and she came to visit one night. I thought I was dreaming. She really helped me gain more energy as I was in my healing process. I felt better after her visit. We connected as if we had only seen each other the night before, yet it had been 4 years since we had last seen each other, on one of our many road trips to Winnipeg, stopping thru in Saskatchewan one summer. Laurel was a breath of fresh air and I only wished I could have been in better shape to talk with her. I've always admired Laurel and her husband Kirby for the wonderful act of adopting 3 girls from Lithunia while we were living in Saudi Arabia. Of course, we caught up on all the girls activities. It was great seeing Laurel again!

M is for ....Mali

I stayed 4 days and 3 nights at the hospital. I was discharged on Thursday and we were flying out to Mali. I am presently recuperating at Sylvaine's little paradise in Bamako, Mali. I am feeling better and better all the time. What an ordeal I have been through in the past week. I am so relieved and grateful to be here and to be healthy again!

Emotionally charged week!

 

What a week it has been! From electricity failures to a visit at the Rescue Centre-Orphanage to a huge monsoon storm, this week was more intense than any other week as far as my life in Guinee is concerned.  To add to this, our TV stopped working suddenly (this being our connection to the outside world and our only source of entertainment, it was pretty serious!) water leaked again making for slippery, dangerous bathroom floors and my usual patience and positive outlook took a serious nose-dive in a dark, negative place inside of me. I was in a slump!

 

When I rewind the events of my difficult week, the bright light in it was a visit to the Rescue Centre-Orphanage. All the other frustrations fell by the wayside. The Rescue Centre-Orphanage is called Espoir de Vie, Centre Eve.  This Centre was opened two years ago by this wonderful Canadian woman Colette Beaudais, seen on the picture with me.  She is an amazing humanitarian who has loads of energy and creative ideas by the dozen pouring out of her head and heart! She is an inspiration, a human angel with wings folded on her back, authentic, generous and wrapped up in gentle humility. 

 

On Wednesday, I brought my Middle School students to visit the Centre. It was an eye opening experience for them.  My students played with the toddlers, held them and fed them milk.  The children at Espoir de Vie are under the age of 3 and today there were 16 in all! It was a busy, noisy place. The orphans do not get visitors very often so when the door opened with my 9 students, the toddlers squealed with laughter. My students spontaneously knew what to do. The briefing on the  do’s and don’ts of Middle School student behaviour slipped out of their consciousness and they immediately played with the toddlers, held them and fed them milk.  Children are brought at the centre by caring, conscious people and children are adopted from the centre by dedicated, loving people.  Many of these children have very sad stories. The baby I am holding was a no-name baby, only 4 days old. He was found under a bridge, by a river, abandoned, naked and alone.  When I held him,  I struggled with feelings of anger towards the person that abandoned this tiny little Being and feelings of compassion for a person who must have been living  deep despair. Eventually, my pendulum swing of emotions balanced itself out as I  looked down  at this vulnerable, peaceful baby. I told him he was a survivor and that he was now in good hands.  His life at the Centre was a new beginning. Simultaneously,  I couldn’t help wonder how this experience of abandonment would affect him for the rest of his life.  It is imprinted in all his minuscule cells, I am sure.

 

I took my eyes off the baby,  observed my students for a moment, and  thought this was the most precious education I could offer them.  If I don’t succeed in teaching them reading and writing during this year, I know that giving them the experience of the Centre an hour a week will be an education far surpassing any other kind of education.  Nothing else mattered at that moment.

 

The woman-manager of the Centre appeared at the door and in the customary Guinean way she seemed to float in as  the layers of coloured cotton draped her small frame, enveloped her and trailed around her. It always amazes me to see the Guinean women  dressed so beautifully even in the most mundane places.  They go about their daily work of  scrubbing floors, gutting fish or washing laundry calmly and steadfastly. To be dressed like this would stifle me and  prevent me from working. The manager looked at me, smiled and said “bonjour”. She bent down and whispered to Colette.  After a few minutes, Colette looked up and announced that the no-name baby would have a name. She said that since the baby was in the arms of a man for the  first time since his arrival at the Centre, he would be named Raymond.  We were both very touched by this gesture. We glanced at each other teary-eyed. We both knew we had adopted baby Raymond in our hearts and that we would be looking out for him from now on.  Maybe we would even find parents that would love to love him.