Doctor!

I followed Pippi Isatou to the hospital because the day before I’d said I would. She wanted medicine and I wanted something to do. I told her I would just go with her, but she wants me to get medicine too, for my throat.

“Did you bring five dalasis?” she asks me, “For medicine?”

“Yes.” I guess for five dalasis I might as well get some medicine.

The hospital is surprisingly empty, I guess because rainy season is over. We go looking for Pippi’s aunt, who works as a nurse. Pippi says her aunt will give her the medicine for free. We walk around the corner to the place that would be a waiting room if it were enclosed by walls. We turn around when we see that no one is there. That is when we notice the men whom we’d failed to notice before.

“What do you want? You walked over there, did not greet anyone--! Not greeting people—you will think we are not here. What do you want?”

“I want my aunt.”

“Who is your aunt.”

“…My aunt…[Pippi says her aunt’s name].

“She hasn’t come yet.”

I turn to Pippi and say, “Let’s go and greet Ami. Neene said she was at the hospital.”

We start to walk towards one of the bed-filled rooms when Pippi notices that Ami is sitting outside with some of the children, distributing NesCafé from a thermos and dividing up bean sandwiches. We greet her and she tells us to sit, so we sit and I assume that maybe she intends to give us a bite of bean sandwich or a sip of NesCafé. When I see that this is not what she intends to do, I say “Okay, we’re going,” because I didn’t want to wait around until she’d finished distributing breakfast and we’d have been noticeably passed over.

As we’re about to leave the hospital Pippi asks, “Don’t you want medicine? I will return later, if my aunt is here.”

“Okay.”

Unfortunately, this decision means we must return to the Ungreeted Man and his silent friend, as they are the only official-looking people we see. We are reminded that we did not greet them earlier. Instead of apologizing, I decide to lay the blame on the eleven-year-old and explain that I was just following Pippi.

“But aren’t you her elder? You should not be following her. She should be following you.”

“Yes, but…” And I don’t have the energy for a better explanation and I still haven’t thought to just say “sorry” and I really don’t even want to be here because I don’t need medicine, I’ll just take some Vitamin C and drink some hot tea and take a long nap.

“What do you want?”

“Medicine for my throat.”

“Your throat hurts?”

“Yes. You don’t hear?” (my voice is scratchy and barely there).

“Have you been eating only coos?”

“No.”

“What do you eat?”

“Rice. And coos. But not only coos.”

“And you drink milk?”

“Yes.” I laugh at his joke, it seems unwise not to. He directs us to a room, and we are followed inside by a man who might be a doctor. We sit down in front of a table covered with bottles of pills. The Maybe Doctor asks what I want. I repeat that my throat is hurting. He mumbles, “Let me see if there is any erythromycin” and walks away.

Pippi and I are sitting alone, silently.

I say, “There is a lot of medicine.”

”Yes, but do not be afraid.”

Levi, who had followed us to the hospital, walks into the room. The Ungreeted Man, who has been standing just outside the room, asks, “Who owns this dog?”

“Me.”

I try to shoo Levi out of the examining room.

“No, no, let him be.”

I am confused, but this is not the first time Levi’s been told to remain in a room I would place a NO DOGS sign in front of—a similar situation once happened at the school library.

“Should I give him a shot?” the Ungreeted Man asks.

I laugh—it’s a joke. “No, no.”

The Maybe Doctor returns with two papers filled with pills and rolled up like old-fashioned candy. He’s marked each roll with lines indicating the number of pills I’m to take at each time of the day, morning afternoon night. I wait for him to tell me what medicine I have been given. He does not tell me.

?

???

On our way out of the room, we are stopped by the Ungreeted Man. He asks, “Didn’t you pay him?”

I turn to the Maybe Doctor and ask, “How much?”

The Maybe Doctor doesn’t answer, but the Ungreeted Man does, “200 dalasis.”

I say, “200 dalasis??” and laugh—it’s a joke. Although in America, of course, seven dollars and fourteen cents would not be at all unreasonable for a week’s worth of medicine.

I make to leave again but the Ungreeted Man repeats, “Didn’t you pay him?”

So I again ask the Maybe Doctor, “How much?”

He again refuses to reply.

I turn to the Ungreeted Man with shrugged shoulders and a ? expression on my face. The Ungreeted Man, with the voice of someone doing a Good Deed says, “Don’t pay, I will give it to you. You are a teacher.”

I thank him very much and Pippi and I think we will finally be able to leave. But—Pippi’s aunt appears. Pippi greets her and explains that she is sick and has come for medicine. Her aunt feels her forehead. “Isatou, you are hot!” The aunt walks into the examining room, folds up some pills in a paper and hands them to Pippi, saying she’ll send more medicine with her grandma tomorrow. (Isatou’s grandma works at the hospital cleaning floors and things, but isn’t coming to work this particular Tuesday because of a naming ceremony).

On the walk home from hospital, Pippi wants me to open up my paper-wrapped pills so she can see what kind of medicine I got; she wants to see if he gave me “parastamo.” I open one of the larger cones—we peek inside and see lots of small red and white pills. “Oh, my grandma has those. Open that one too,” Pippi says. I open the second one to reveal some large, white tablets. “Yes,” Pippi gives a knowing nod, things are as expected, “Parastamo. That is what I have.”

We have reached the fork in the road before our respective compounds, so we say goodbye until later and she goes left and I go right. Back in my hut, I pull out Where There is No Doctor and turn to the glossary of medicines in an attempt to identify what I’ve been given. I’m not about to swallow unidentified medicine. The red and white pills have CLOXA printed on the red half and 250 on the white. I decide it is Cloxacilin and turn to page 351. I learn Cloxacilin is a form of penicillin.

I decide to look up “parastemo,” which is a medicine I’ve been curious about for awhile, since Neene frequently requests that someone go and buy “parastemo” when her knees are paining her. I assumed it was aspirin, but the pills are labeled with a P and 500. The only other name aspirin goes by is “acetylsalicylic acid,” which also starts with an A, and it usually comes in tablets of 350 mg, not 500 mg. Under the listings for P in the glossary, the most likely candidate is Paracetamol. I turn to page 380 and learn this is an alternative name for acetaminophen. Additionally, I learn it often comes in 500 mg tablets. Finally! The secret identity of “parastemo” revealed!

Then I decide to look up what I should actually be taking for my sore throats, because I’m pretty sure antibiotics are not it. Under the heading COLDS AND THE FLU the book says, “Do not use penicillin, tetracycline, or other antiobiotics as they will not help at all and may cause harm.” That was the book using a bold font, not me. I’m instead told to gargle with warm salt water and take acetaminophen or aspirin for the pain. So the Maybe Doctor got fifty percent of the prescription correct—not bad for a maybe-doctor. And, if I’d had strep throat, he would have one-hundred percent correct. But did the Maybe Doctor ask if my sore throat began suddenly and was severe? (it didn’t and wasn’t). Did he take my temperature or ask if I had a high fever? (I had no fever at all). Did he fail to notice that I had both signs of a cold and a cough? (not present with strep throat). Nope, nope, yup.

I put the Cloxacilin aside but take some acetaminophen throughout the day. I might as well. In America I never took medicine so casually, but in America, medicine was rarely given gratis. Throughout the day, I get various other advice, from Definitely-Not -Doctors about how to treat my sore throat:

• Pippi tells me that later, if I have money, I can go to Maimuna’s bitik and buy the black candy or the green candy and suck on it and my throat will not hurt. I tell her I think I have something like that, like the green candy. I show her the pastilles I bought in Basse (I bought them because I liked the box they came in, not because I predicted I’d end up with a sore throat. I actually didn’t know what was inside the box as all the writing was in French). The pastilles are small, green, and gum-drop-like in shape. According to the list of ingredients, they are composed of “Gomme arabique, Sucre, Glucose, Menthol, Eucalyptol, Colorant: E102, E133.” I give Pippi one to try. “Yes, this is it. It is bitter. You will think it is hot pepper.”
• Fatou Sowe’s Musa gives me a list of remedies to try, but the only one I clearly understood and remembered was “Lick sugar.”
• Amadou reminds me of the medicine I had last year. “The wanjo?” “Yes, the wanjo.” Wanjo juice comes from hibiscus flowers and, according to the internet, actually has some chemical or other that helps with sore throats.

Dried wanjo.

Wanjo juice.