It usually starts out with a local we know getting a call from someone he knows out in the bush. I personally don’t know how this call happens because I have never gotten reception way out of town but somehow it happens anyway. The local then calls one of my teammates because they own a car that could get to the sick or injured person quicker than a donkey, camel, or horse-drawn cart. The driver then assembles the appropriate people to come along with him. For example, in the case of a burn patient, I am the lucky passenger. Well, one of the lucky passengers. It is always hard to say how many people are actually gonna end up in the car. A person who knows where to go is always key, and there are usually a few people who simply want a ride out to the village and always bring a lot of stuff with them.
After everyone is assembled we finally start heading out to the bush.
The ride to wherever we’re going can take anywhere from 15min to one hour one way and you never know which it’s gonna be until you get there.
Now everything in the bush/desert looks the same to me, but our navigator occasionally points in a certain direction, and the driver turns to head that way. Since it’s rainy season right now, at times we have to stop the vehicle and someone walks out to see how deep an area of water is and if we can make it across. No one wants to dig a car out of the mud...but let’s face it, it’s been done here multiple times.
We finally get to our destination, which is three nomad tents this time.
Three tents in the middle of nowhere! My hat is off to the great navigation. We all get out and assess the situation. We decide that this particular patient needs to come in for treatment so people start packing up supplies and putting then in the back of the vehicle. Before we leave, the nomads offer us some warm milk. It was very friendly of them, but warm milk isn’t the first thing I want to drink in the middle of a 90 plus degree-day. My teammate and I are taking turns downing the bowl of milk. This process gets harder when I start to drink chunks of something along with the milk…I know…it gave me chills too.
We’re ready to leave and there are way more people in the vehicle than when we started…it’s gonna be a fun hour long ride back. We have to stop several times along the way to greet people because some of them wanted medicine (which we didn’t have), or some of them just wanted to simply greet us. I know all the stopping should have been avoided since we had a really sick patient in the back, but we were at the mercy of our navigator and he had pointed to go greet the people so what were we to do? After a long ride, we finally make it back to town, drop everyone off and head to the clinic…until the next phone call.
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