shotty observations, poorley transitioned from previous blog

Its difficult to call the Malian approach to hygiene an approach, accepting rather that a skirting or diversionary effort would be a more apt description. including myself amongst the population, I say that WE live in villages clogged with sewage, animal waste, and other such unsavory detritus and that WE live comfortably amongst these things because WE don’t know better. The discrepancies between what a Malian considers ritually hygienic, and acceptable in terms of care, and disposal of waste are vast. This is a group of people that wash themselves regularly, stopping at seemingly any and all occasion to poor water on their feet, and hands out of small, plastic, tea kettle-like pots called salidaka’s. swishing water in their mouth and spitting to finalize the gesture ( and all Malians are excellent spitters) they perform this act seemingly 5 or 6 or more times a day in addition to a full bucket bath taken before dinner. The behavior borders on idiosyncratic, almost quirky. No trip on public transport would be complete, it seems, without the driver stopping to wash and swish at any opportune time. This isn’t a behavior limited by any class, or gender stipulations, men women and children all do it, and all with the grace of the seasoned performer as though it were a survival trait, a line well rehearsed to the point of being inseparable from other biological process. Assuming, as they say, that cleanliness IS in fact next to godliness, than Malians are scrambeling to rent a time share in the big man’s neighboorhood. They wash so compulsively it almost seems a subconscious resignation to the fact that while there skin may stay damp and anointed, there terrestrial realm is in shambles. I mean no degradation by simply pointing out that the sanitation services we enjoy at home and almost come to take for granted, aren’t even fleeting notions here, they are completely absent and unacknowledged. I have only been here for 6 months, granted, but I have never, not even once, seen a Malian pick up a piece of trash in any feigning effort at cleanliness or beautification. I suppose that’s not to say it doesn’t happen but there’s no precedent to do so. It becomes easier at this point to start to make a lot of connections relating to the presumed stagnation or ennui inherent in the capacity to want for change here. Rural Malians live by the notion that subsistence farming and Allah’s divine intervention are really the only necessities in their lives, and not necessarily in that order. It is true and noble, the efforts which Malians put into their own survival, indomindable spirits all, though Imagine what you or someone like you would do if you found a small child, three or four years old, wandering un-attended around the streets of your town playing with an empty pesticide pump or a used dropper syringe, yet that’s a familiar site in a rural village. Substitute the aforementioned garbage with any other of the myriad varieties of garbage that one might find on the ground and that’s a typical and readily ignored scenario in the country. How then do Malians avoid what you would assume would be a rampant and constant influx of disease. It’s not necessarily true that they do. Figures ARE misleading as to the average life span. It is low in Mali but saying simply that, at 28, I am roughly middle aged here isn’t quite accurate. The average Malian woman has 7 children. For a morbid, yet oddly practical reason they do so because the infant death rate here is so high. This is a fact largly responsible for skewing the figures on average life span which I believe stands at 53. Allah of course wills that a child be taken from a mother, usually because of poor nutrition or disease, with disturbing frequency. There is in fact a tradition of not naming a baby until 7 full days, presumably to justify the effort. There is also the thought here that of course the more kids you have the more help you’ll have in the fields. Like I said, morbid, yet oddly practical or at least adapted to the stark reality of their situation. In strange similarities, the functionality of the Malian health care infrastructure mirrors our own in America.it seems each in our own ways, we are making health care difficult and almost nonexistent for the poorest amongst us. A staggering majority of Malians will sooner visit an herbal, natural healer before seeing a ‘’modern doctor’’. The primary motivating factor there is the cost, that and possibly a misguided or ornery assumption that the expenditure isn’t worth it if Allah has willed otherwise. This being the case, many people, specifically women and children, go untreated because the husband refuses to pay for treatment, weather he’s nodding to gods will or simply not willing. These aren’t unusual cases, though it should be noted that those with the money or the foresight do seek western style medicine if they can. I think it’s worth noting as well, that I am aware of only one case of malaria in my village. ( accepting that there could be many more) the odd thing about this particular case is that the child who has contracted the disease lives in one of the villages richest families, a family that can afford med’s though rarely are the right meds given. Headache pills, expectorants, stomach medicine, pain relievers all meted out, all seemingly as a cure-all for those with the money to buy in. Most average sized villages have a ‘’medical unit’’, with a ‘’doctor’’ though the medical training of many Malian doctors in dubious at best. As well, every week at the average market you can find the medicine man, or multiple men, with carts or tables full of off brand….very off brand, medicines that people can buy. pills, powders, syrups and creams, The packaging is usually comically bad with limited instruction on how to use the medicine, and I know that the instructions are limited because they are often in English, a difficult language for the average rural Malian to read, or understand! I am unsure of how many illnesses have been perpetuated by bad packaging or general lack of information, but I have personally been offered Ben-gay to both eat and put on an open wound, and I have been asked what a desiccant package was and whether or not one was to eat it. These were western meds left behind in my village by visitors and I have no Idea how long they were being misused before I was approached. I was approached by a traditional healer with these meds, pleased at having acquired something exotic, and obviously foreign. Traditional healing in Mali IS generously acknowledged by the government, with money being put into researching both the actual healing properties of the plants used, and the proliferation of the medicine’s produced, making them more available to the average Malian, in fact, the average malian goes first for herbal, natural drugs, nearly 80% of the time over western style meds, and mostly out of neccessity . In Bamako, and regiona capitals, there are gonernment funded labs devoted to the research and usage of these plants, and a concerted effort id being made to amiliorate the practive of using herbal meds. This is a relatively progressive effort by the government, when you stop to imagine a time in which the US government would explore the validity of herbs over pharmaceuticals. Having yet to get a lot of solid information about what plants are actually being used, and not recognizing any myself, I have had several concoctions, teas mostly, made from boiled plants, sugar is always added, and they are usually tasty, most seemingly aimed at some variety of stomach ailment. I have seen traditional healing take on an even more ritualistic and hypothetical tone. I have seen sick children brought to my host father, a healer, and smeared in a loose grid pattern, with shea butter, all the while the healer’s mouth making tiny patting, or puffing motions, as if to expel the illness or draw it into himself. With no verification as to whether there was any subsequent change in the child, I am left to simply assume on blind faith that what’s practiced, works. This position I think, is the only position that most Malians can comfortablly take. Faith based medicine. Faith as medicine or a culture of practiced faith, with a faith in cultural practice. Malians do most things out of neccesity first, and personal care is no exception.