Ousmane Dodo, doctor of the desert
Tonight on the international French TV (TV5) a reportage by Claudia and Günther Wallbrecht about a Tuareg doctor.
I was fascinated by the similarities and differences.
Many customers tols us Tazzarine and the desert around the Oasis (specially Serdrar) looks like Mauritania. I've never been there, but tonight I recognized it for true. The colors are very similar, the dark tones of the stones, that give a strange athmosphere to the landscape. Sand in yellow-ochre, but the light is somehow dimmed by the black reflection of all these stones. From place to place, a solitary tree, which is good enough to provide a small shadow shelter in the deep heat of the day.
Ousmane Dodo is a doctor who turns around this desert 10 months a year, spending very rare times with his own family. He can be up to three or four days alone, and needs to use his inherited knowledge of the desert to be able to direct himself. He went with caravans also when he was young, before being trapped in school (which is compulsory there, and nomad children are boarded in cities), and knows the real hardships and condition of life of the nomads, who trust him because he is one of them. A nomad of another kind, not looking for grazing fields for his cattle, looking for people to cure and help.
His patients don't know how to read, so he has to explain the drugs, and be simple. He often receives tablets from european people, and when he doesn't know what they are for, he looks at the latin names of the ingredients to understand the composition. He relies on drugs as well on traditionnal medecine, specially because most of the drugs, even the low priced one are too expensive. The average monthly earning in Agadez is of 30 euros per month...
Life is hard, the drought is important, and families have to move more and more to find places where they can stay a few days, maybe one week or two. Ousmane meets a clan where a young mother has lost her child, born too early, at seven month. No chance to survive for the baby, and the mother is worn out, because the family could not wait. No water anymore, and the day after they had to move again.
One child out of four, born in the desert, will die before reaching his fifth birthday...
But not everything is dark in this life.
Ousmane attends a traditionnal celebration, before the salt caravans leave for a 1200 kms over one month trip through Tenere. This is similar to moussems in Morocco, and I would love to see in Goulmine a camel beauty pageant as in Mauretania. The beasts are splendid, the men honour them, the place is out of time. Some Targui, in their best traditionnal clothes, protect themselves from the sun under modern coloured umbrellas, there is nothing but sand and rugs in the "center", nothing... but also micro, loud-speakers and an electric guitar to play the traditionnal sounds. I'm suddenly thrown back in Morocco, the orchestra of five young women singing traditionnal songs is so similar to Awach and other Berber rythms we here in the Draa valley... the rythm, the way they danse with the music, and even the voice, high and regular !
Words are different, Tamasheq is difficult to understand for a Amazight like Bilal, of a Chleuh (south of Morocco), and personnally I can't grab a word. Nevertheless, it sounds familiar. Names of places are familiar, Agadez, Aguelmane could be in Morocco.
Women are free. Women are not veiled, they can talk with men, Ousmane even explains how he met his wife : "I saw her, and I asked her if whe would accept to marry me, and then we discussed the whole night. And I was coming back and we where discussing tthe entire night, and we were making love, and I married her". Even if Muslim, women and men can have relationship before the wedding, and Targis are usually monogamist.
Two things I would retain, more than anything, because they really show how different our worlds are. Ousmane discusses with one of his friend who went to Europe "Over there, you have to pay for everything, you take the bus, you pay, and even when you park you caar you have to pay."
And his joy, before the celebration, when he can bath in the pool made by the cascade in Aguelmane. Because that happens to him only once a year to find a place with so much water. His few minutes in the water are his yearly treat....
I was fascinated by the similarities and differences.
Many customers tols us Tazzarine and the desert around the Oasis (specially Serdrar) looks like Mauritania. I've never been there, but tonight I recognized it for true. The colors are very similar, the dark tones of the stones, that give a strange athmosphere to the landscape. Sand in yellow-ochre, but the light is somehow dimmed by the black reflection of all these stones. From place to place, a solitary tree, which is good enough to provide a small shadow shelter in the deep heat of the day.
Ousmane Dodo is a doctor who turns around this desert 10 months a year, spending very rare times with his own family. He can be up to three or four days alone, and needs to use his inherited knowledge of the desert to be able to direct himself. He went with caravans also when he was young, before being trapped in school (which is compulsory there, and nomad children are boarded in cities), and knows the real hardships and condition of life of the nomads, who trust him because he is one of them. A nomad of another kind, not looking for grazing fields for his cattle, looking for people to cure and help.
His patients don't know how to read, so he has to explain the drugs, and be simple. He often receives tablets from european people, and when he doesn't know what they are for, he looks at the latin names of the ingredients to understand the composition. He relies on drugs as well on traditionnal medecine, specially because most of the drugs, even the low priced one are too expensive. The average monthly earning in Agadez is of 30 euros per month...
Life is hard, the drought is important, and families have to move more and more to find places where they can stay a few days, maybe one week or two. Ousmane meets a clan where a young mother has lost her child, born too early, at seven month. No chance to survive for the baby, and the mother is worn out, because the family could not wait. No water anymore, and the day after they had to move again.
One child out of four, born in the desert, will die before reaching his fifth birthday...
But not everything is dark in this life.
Ousmane attends a traditionnal celebration, before the salt caravans leave for a 1200 kms over one month trip through Tenere. This is similar to moussems in Morocco, and I would love to see in Goulmine a camel beauty pageant as in Mauretania. The beasts are splendid, the men honour them, the place is out of time. Some Targui, in their best traditionnal clothes, protect themselves from the sun under modern coloured umbrellas, there is nothing but sand and rugs in the "center", nothing... but also micro, loud-speakers and an electric guitar to play the traditionnal sounds. I'm suddenly thrown back in Morocco, the orchestra of five young women singing traditionnal songs is so similar to Awach and other Berber rythms we here in the Draa valley... the rythm, the way they danse with the music, and even the voice, high and regular !
Words are different, Tamasheq is difficult to understand for a Amazight like Bilal, of a Chleuh (south of Morocco), and personnally I can't grab a word. Nevertheless, it sounds familiar. Names of places are familiar, Agadez, Aguelmane could be in Morocco.
Women are free. Women are not veiled, they can talk with men, Ousmane even explains how he met his wife : "I saw her, and I asked her if whe would accept to marry me, and then we discussed the whole night. And I was coming back and we where discussing tthe entire night, and we were making love, and I married her". Even if Muslim, women and men can have relationship before the wedding, and Targis are usually monogamist.
Two things I would retain, more than anything, because they really show how different our worlds are. Ousmane discusses with one of his friend who went to Europe "Over there, you have to pay for everything, you take the bus, you pay, and even when you park you caar you have to pay."
And his joy, before the celebration, when he can bath in the pool made by the cascade in Aguelmane. Because that happens to him only once a year to find a place with so much water. His few minutes in the water are his yearly treat....
Labels: cooperation, desert, Niger, Tazzarine, Tuareg
posted by Marie-Aude @ 1:29 PM
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