Another Wednesday
Today was just another Wednesday for me. But since no two days can ever be the same, I will venture to point out things that were different. Just like all Wednesdays, I knew I would have traditional medicine class today. What makes this day special is that the teacher happens to be what we call a “parent”, meaning that we belong to the same tribe, and come from the same village. People like that are like family, wherever you go! Mr Kimpe brings me a gift on his way to school. Usually a big bag of mangoes, big loaves of bread, a big can of yogurt and such. After breakfast, I went to class and found out the teacher sent students by group in order to collect the plants parts needed to make malaria medicine. I learned the plant names in Dioula, and I can recall a few scientific names for those plants, but I won’t get into that! I witnessed the process from start to finish, and asked many questions along the way. I also saw how they make powdered medicine against dysentery. This only takes three plants, namely, Psidium Guajava (Guava leaves), Euphorbia Hirta, and Annona Senegalensis. From what I know so far, although I suffer with the plant names in Dioula, most of these plants I grew up knowing them either in French or in Lobiri, my mother tongue. The fact that the teacher speaks Lobiri, means that he can translate some of them for me. I understand better.
Packaging powdered malaria medicine into small bags
The story behind this initiation is that i grew up in Ivory Coast in a much wooded area, and my dad used plants to cure people’s diseases. So whatever I am learning right now is something I could have inherited from my dad, had he not passed away when I was so young…
At this rate, I am learning so fast, and enjoying all of this new knowledge so much that I could become a Tradi-practician or a phytotherapist in no time. I am not sure exactly what this new knowledge will serve me, but I know it is a new window of opportunities I will not want to miss out on…
I did not intend this post to be so long, but I also do not want to leave out the fact that I added a new wing to my internship. See? I came here thinking it was a formal school, in which I could serve as a teacher’s assistant. This means that I will spend time researching things about agroforestry that I can teach in class from time to time. But instead, what I found is an informal setting in which most students could barely speak or write French, which is the official language. Most people here speak Dioula, and are learning to write in it, so there is little that I can teach. All of that said, I had my first class today, teaching English to two pastors who would like to improve their spoken English. So this is an evening class that I teach outside of my duty hours, and the first session tonight went great. At this point, only time would tell how much they are really learning from me… Wish me luck!
