Pre-holiday in the hospital

Before heading off for our holiday in Dogon country, we were in Segou for a training Thomas was co-facilitating for the members of the shea butter cooperatives of the Segou and Kemeni regions. Seeing as part of my mandate with CECI includes working with the other Uniterra Mali partners to see where they are in terms of their knowledge/understanding of gender equality, I decided to accompany Thomas on this mission with the purpose of observing and seeing how the women (most of whom don’t speak a word of French and are barely literate in Bambara) learn. I also wanted to see how the two male facilitators interact with the women and incorporate/take their needs into account throughout the days of training.

So getting back to the topic of HOLIDAYS…..24 hours before we were supposed to leave Segou for our holiday, I seriously didn’t think we’d be heading anywhere except for back to Bamako with the project driver. If you’ve read Thomas’ posting, you know we took a little trip to the hospital in Segou. Thomas is NEVER sick and even when he IS sick, he says he isn’t. So when he told me he absolutely needed to go to the hospital, I internally freaked out (as to not freak him out even more!) A doctor quickly saw him and immediately tested him for malaria. Although we were never told that vomiting is a symptom of malaria, we’ve learned here in Mali that it can be a sign. Three of the other CECI cooperants have it and vomiting and nausea were their first symptoms.
The hospital we went to is the main one in Segou. Having visited hospitals in Rwanda and in Malawi, I thought we’d be in Emerg forever! Surprisingly (and thankfully!) we were in and out in just over an hour. We were told that mornings are always insanely busy with people traveling all night from surrounding villages to get there. Afternoons and evenings are apparently much quieter. Like the hospitals I’ve been to in East Africa, this one was set up like a village. As you walk in, there are little street signs which lead to Radiology, Emergency, Paediatrics, the Lab, the Pharmacy, the Morgue, etc. I thought there would be women outside cooking for their sick family members as this tends to be the norm but nobody was in sight.

In the end, we travelled to Mopti on Saturday- a whole other adventure (which was quite costly!) which we’ll soon tell you about. Thomas spent 2 days not feeling great and spent his birthday in bed. Poor guy! We did end up hiking for 3 days and will tell you more and show you pictures soon enough....