"C'mon... Daddy needs a new solar-powered hammer" Erik English

This has been the fastest internet turn-around ever! Mostly due to the fact that Benjamin came to visit me in Manigri a few days ago and brought his computer- and the internet was working. How technology changes all... 

Here's another solemn blog-post for y'all. 

Three days ago, Mama fell while she was sweeping the dirt outside her house.  Sweeping is a daily ritual, between starting cooking fires and cleaning pots.  I doubt there was anything more than just a streak of light in the sky when she fell.  She landed on the hard, mud-topped well, striking her right arm on its thick edge. 

That morning my neighbor Okounde was sitting in my living room, asking me for my help in finding him an American wife.  He was in the process of explaining to me why he couldn't take an African wife, something to do with the fact that he is estranged from his family (and therefore perhaps he couldn't afford an African wife? I didn't have time to ask many questions), when Papa came in.  He asked me if I had anything to help with sprains.  After digging through my Peace Corps med-kit I found an ace bandage and a bunch of ibuprofen.  Once I saw her though, I was pretty sure that this ace bandage wasn't going to do the trick.

Her arm was very swollen, black and blue, and her fingers were fat.  I looked at her skeptically for a second, noticing how the arm ballooned about five inches from her wrist.  "Mama," I asked. "Can you move your fingers?" She couldn't.  I'm no doctor, I thought, but this arm is definitely broken.  (It should be mentioned I feel as though I am an expert on the subject. I've cracked all four limbs on two separate occasions. I know very well what that limited mobility means.)

They can't afford a doctor, so my Papa called a traditional healer who assured Mama, despite my protests, that it is only a sprain. He touched her bones through her tender skin and reassured her that they're in place.  I pouted.  Maybe they are in place, which no one can know without an x-ray, I argued with Okounde, but that arm is not sprained. Not in the middle of her forearm. I gave up after just a few hours- when I realized that the nearest place to procure an xray is in Djougou, two hours away, and that I don't think even I could afford the procedure.  

If that arm is in fact fractured (factured?), it's going to have to mend itself just like every other thing that breaks here: slowly and grotesquely.  I've been in the process of searching for a secondary project in Manigri. I've made contact with a group of women who want micro-credit so they can grow vegetables for the marche. I've had the idea tossed at me to begin a small emergency medical fund. There are scholarship girls.  There's the school science lab. There is so much need; so many things that are broken.  I don't want to be a splint on an arm that will never heal correctly. I want to practice good medicine.  

The main thing they impress upon you during training (Stage) is that nothing here is easy, and everything takes time. For example, I want to show the Planet Earth documentaries at the community center, using a borrowed projector from the Parakou workstation.  I spoke with my Director (and Chief de Village) about this a few weeks ago.  He needs to speak to a number of other people before I can be permitted to make this showing.  Ideally, this project, which in the States would be a matter of a couple of days, will take a month and a half to be realized.  Everyone that could have something to do with either the school, the community or the parents-teachers association, has to be notified of this. They have to discuss their concerns, if any. They have to make sure that there is a consensus among the many.  If you do not go through these channels, I've been assured time and time again, your project will never have the community support it needs to succeed.  Unfortunately, writing checks is the easy(ier) part.  

So while I'd love to set up some small medical or educational fund in my village to help people when things go awry, as they will, I have no idea how to see that idea through. Who would qualify? How would it work? How can anyone prove eligibility in a place without birth certificates, addresses or phone bills? How would I make sure that this fund would see people through more than the two years I am here? And even if this were to successfully created, who would be in charge of it once I left and my ties to the community diminished? 

It's obvious that development is complicated.  Charity is easy.  If I didn't care about the longevity of my projects I could go build some latrines no one is going to use because they'd be in a place where no one cleaned the land (true story).  Or I could build a well to help some lady farmers who will then fall apart as a coalition because the ownership of the well will become too large a burden (somewhat true story).  Or I could build one of those hundreds of beautiful, empty NGO facilities that run out of funding because someone in local government sucked them dry. 

It doesn't mean that I don't want to throw myself through a window every time one of my neighbors is sick or hurt.  It doesn't mean that I don't think about how I would love to pay for those little girls in the market to go to school.  It definitely doesn't mean that I don't feel a little twinge of guilt every time I see Mama's arm, wrapped in a scarf, bloated as Liza Minelli on a bender.  I think part of living First Class in the Third World is that your mantra is, "I can't help everyone".  Which is true. You can't help everyone. But there's nothing that says you don't have an obligation to try.  At least that way maybe you can help someone. The problem is if you try to do so messily, without proper planning and political support, you in fact help no one.    

"We have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be." Michelle Obama