written 27 June 2008
Yesterday my sister came into my hut and told me her almost-two-year-old baby had stuck a peanut in his ear. I grabbed a flashlight and aimed it at his ear, and sure enough, there was something in his ear. Way, way down in his ear, so far it looked like it was in the middle of his head. Definitely not something we were going to be able to get out ourselves. So I told her she had to take him to the health post in Dialacoto. She agreed, but there was a problem: she doesn't know how to ride a bike, and rainy/farming season has started, so everyone's out working in the fields, so a donkey cart is out of the question. So she asked me if I would take him. I said sure, no problem, thinking he could ride on the luggage rack on the back of my bike (I've taken him on short joy rides around the village that way, which he loves, so I know he's old enough to hold on). But my sister said no, the ride to Dialacoto is too far, he will fall asleep and fall off the bike. He has to be carried tied onto someone's back, traditional style. So I said okay, fine. My sister of course didn't think a toubab could handle carrying a baby African-style that far, so she insisted on my 15-year-old sister (who does know how to ride a bike) going along as a backup baby carrier.
So we tied the baby (who was being very quiet rather than screaming his head off, as I'd been afraid he would – Alhamdoulilah!) onto my back, and we were off, ten kilometers in the middle of a hot African day to the Dialacoto health post.
When we got there, the nurse looked at the baby almost right away, but he said that the peanut was too far down in the baby's head for him to get it out – he was afraid of puncturing his ear drum. We'd have to take him to the hospital in Tamba, where they'd have more equipment and could anesthetize him if necessary.
Tamba is far. And anesthesia is probably really expensive. And we'd have to go back to the village and get his mom, and then get her out to the road somehow (on the back of my bike? I'm not sure I'm strong enough to carry an adult over the mountain to the main road on my bike). I did not want to have to do that.
So I asked the nurse if they might be able to help him at Kinkeliba, the private French hospital about 15 kilometers up the road. This was somewhat of a risky question, because the nurse is essentially in competition with the hospital, and I've heard that he doesn't take it very kindly when his patients go there. But I really did not want to have to take the baby to Tamba, and I figured hopefully he couldn't get too mad, since I'd come to him first and we were going to have to go somewhere else for care regardless. Luckily, he didn't seem offended, and just said, sure, give it a shot.
While I was at the health post, the two other volunteers in Dialacoto region, Fonsa and new volunteer Hawa, happened by, and I was able to talk them into coming with me to Kinkeliba (officially so that we could all learn more about health services available in the area, but really just to keep me company). And I got even luckier in that there was an Africare (an American NGO) car heading that way, so we were able to hitch a ride.
My back-up baby carrier of a sister, however, punked out on me, not wanting to go to Kinkeliba because it would be a long bike ride back. So I told her fine, I could just meet her back in my village. But she said she was scared to bike back to the village by herself (because there could be bandits on the road), so she made me promise to come all the way back to Dialacoto, which is several kilometers past the turn-off to my village, to pick her up after we were finished at Kinkeliba.
So a few minutes later we arrived at the hospital, which didn't seem to have any other patients so we were able to see a doctor right away. He shot water into the baby's ear with a little pump to try to squirt the peanut out. It wasn't successful, but it did make the peanut move enough so that he was then able to get it out with some tweezers. And it turned out to be a rock rather than a peanut, which is probably a good thing because that means there won't be any crumbs left in his ear to cause an infection. So the baby was once again good as new, and it only cost me $2.
It was about 1:30 by then, hot as the surface of the sun, so I was not about to bike the 20 kilometers back to Dialacoto, and then another 10 kilometers to my village, with a baby on my back, just yet. So Fonsa and Hawa and I bought lunch from the hospital canteen (rice with vegetables), and relaxed in the shade while the baby took a nap. Then at about 4:30 we biked (with the baby tied on my back) back to Dialacoto, where my friends left me to go home to their own villages, and where I discovered that my punk of a sister, who I had been counting on to carry the baby the last ten kilometers home, had left and gone home without me. So I had to carry the baby the rest of the way home. Did I mention that this baby weighs nine kilos and that it was hot out?
But eventually I made it back with both me and the baby still in one piece (or rather two pieces, one each), and his mom was waiting for us right at the edge of the village and was so happy to have her baby back minus foreign objects in his head.
So it turned out to be a good day: baby cured, I earned lots of points with my host family for taking care of him, the baby didn't cry all day long (he also didn't talk, as he usually does – he seemed a little shell-shocked, but he's since back to his usual self), and I definitely win the Peace Corps hard-coreness competition for biking with a baby on my back for 35 kilometers.
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