25. Desert doctors

The “king” of the Tuareg, as Ali calls him, has made an empty warehouse available for us to use as a clinic. Today is the day for appointments with the sick.

The “king” himself gets his eyes, damaged by the winds and the sand, treated by Ali who uses drops made from some trees and mother of pearl from the shells of the Niger River.

About ten sick women and children arrive, but they tell us that not all of them were able to come because they could not walk. Therefore, after having treated them all, we decide to ask Ibrahim for a car to go and find those in their tents who had not been able to come. The sick told us that the place was nearby and we loaded everyone into the car ready to go.

“Close” does not mean the same for a Tuareg as it does for us. It is like when here in Timbuktu when the word “immediately” means at least half an hour. The word “soon” instead means one to two hours of waiting. In short, the Tuareg tents were at least 6km away.

Ali’s massages with his hippo oil on the Tuareg elders always relieves them of pain in a spectacular way. Ali takes care of this head of the family while the sick are called from the other tents in the area.

We are soon surrounded by a number of women and children with colds, fevers, skin diseases, joint pains, etc. We teach women that bathing babies is at the basis of their health, but when water is so rare what is there to to do? We can only hope that our well will give abundant water.

They tell us that if our well produces water in quantity, they will move there and also build earth houses instead of tents. They are here because the nearby well quenches the thirst of their animals, but they have to go to another distant well for the water to drink because this one produces bad water. Therefore, they bring water to drink every day with the camels.

Ali soon ran out of all his medications and the women turn to me for treatment.

For the little ones who have colds, I use the Lavender essence and for the fever the essence of ginger on the feet. For the older ones, I replace lavender with the much more balsamic “Mental-sport”.

For toothache, the essence of cloves.

It is the pain in her lower limbs that prevented this elderly woman from coming to the appointment.

At the end of the day we are tired and happy. We have worked well. Taking care of people as we do it, without making them pay, gives us a satisfaction that I have never known before, even more than when I once earned a lot of money in one day.

It is a happiness without exaltation, very stable and profound. Ali had already spoken to me about this, but only once I had accompanied him did I understand what he meant.

This first experience with the weekly appointment allowed us to understand that it is not sufficient to wait for patients in the desert clinic. Many women, children and the elderly cannot travel long distances or leave their tents for several hours.

We must go to them by car.

Since in this story all the pieces come together on their own pieces of a puzzle, I recognize the hand of Allah who directs everything; a few days ago, without having asked him for anything, a rich friend of mine from Timbuktu proposed to lend his new Nissan to Ali for our travels as “Desert Doctors”. We wouldn’t even have to think about the fuel, he would look after that.

When I announced this to Ali, he smiled, “Your friend has taken up the flag.”