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12. The Steppes
Mental Health work in Chad brings you into contact with all walks of life; everybody can show the signs of strain under difficult circumstances. Some people who have heard about our services have walked up to 20km from neighbouring towns for treatment.In the past weeks, I’ve seen an 80 year-old man with obsessive-compulsive disorder, severe autism in 9 and 10 year-old siblings, three cases of sexual violence, post-partum depression, two persons with schizophrenia, and anxiety and depression manifesting in so many forms. The incidence of trauma is high, and stories of near-unthinkable trauma are shockingly common. Each person has a story to tell, and given that family members sit down with our patients at the assessment, we often hear their stories, too.It is meaningful work and while endlessly stimulating it is taxing at times, too.
After a heavy day with the mobile clinic last week, Jochen, Christian and I decided to take a walk towards the foothills.Exercise is hard to do here with our schedule and curfews, but it’s important in maintaining a modicum of sanity, so we jetted off from the Arkoum camp toward the nearby hills.
Nothing tells you more about a place than having its earth between your toes.The language of people is translated in so many ways through this neo-cortical helmet, but the messages of the land whisper to you from your blood.“The land teaches us how to live,” I was once told by an Inuit man in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. The soil here is dry and chalky, and although you find the occasional patch of red and yellow ochres, it is a crusty light brown that pervades.
Walking over the scrub brush and gulleys has a meditative and primal quality. This is where we’re from, really. All of us. Somewhere in the savannahs and steppes of sub-Saharan Africa humans evolved that which makes us who we are: our brains got bigger, we developed language, started walking upright on two legs, and organized social and institutional structures that can loosely be called “civilization.” We fashioned tools, told stories about hunts and herbs, made fires (probably here, but it could have been later in China), and started to sweat. This last development is the unsung hero of human evolution, as far as I’m concerned. It was the sweat gland that allowed us to hunt and forage during the day while the other large predators were sitting under a tree panting like mad in the heat. Humans ruled the noontime, and probably hung out in trees at night for safety. Below is a picture of a copse of mango trees lining a dried-up riverbed.
Some have theorized that language developed while we were hanging out in trees. You could transmit information about danger to your clan along the row of trees lining the riverbed. Statements like “big danger, left river-bed, twenty unhappy-looking jackals” could have been the rather bland start of it all. We had to wait a long time before we were sophisticated enough to ask “does this jacket come in seersucker?” or “would you like to come up and see my frescoes?” And some people say that there’s no such thing as progress.
March 14th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Dear Steve,
Thanks for the stories of Fatna and Ibrahim. Your photos of everything are really beautiful despite the tragedies all around.
Keep up the great work. Nick and I spoke on the phone this week – we talked about your mission and I’m thrilled to continue to read your blog.
Warmest,
Raghu
March 16th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
I seesaw between romanticizing your escapade, aching at the stories and simply wincing at the state of the stove. No bleach or oven cleaner, huh?
Studies of maternal mitochondrial DNA place us all from Africa, with the DNA sequence dubbed “Lara” as one of the oldest – likely Kenya or Ethiopia (Sykes, 2001). My guess is that her brain had a section devoted to choosing which tree to give birth under…again.
My brain has a section devoted to elaborating which magical power I would rather have in any given situation.
March 17th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Grinned when glimpsing these photographed super-styling kids who seriously know how to co-ordinate their clothes with their surroundings! Lovin’ stone brown and khaki earth tones myself, these little ones are an inspiration on choosing colour hues totally congruent with the land! Watch out world- here comes the Chadian runway version of ‘Devil Wears Prada’! These kids rule!
…And what if we’d love to, but can’t take up the invite to check out these tree house plans!? Is there any other way to get a look-see at the top secret blue prints…?
March 20th, 2008 at 9:16 am
It looks to me like you’ve discovered the benefits of meditative exercise…
March 28th, 2008 at 5:47 am
Steve, your blog is a true masterpeice with pictures to look at when my brain gets to fried to read. I am so glad you talk a more artistic approach to treating patients. I feel humanitarian focuses on numberic data, morbitality, and the visible signs of suffering not taking into account people’s must fundemental need to function. Malnutrition and livelyhood seem to be less of an issue of food availability and NFI distribution… People need self worth and motivation to recover from one of largest insults someone could suffer- the loss of everything. As MSF works in Sudan with many constraints due to secutrity, it is reassuring to see the population we have worked with getting some of the care they deserve in all aspects of health.
March 30th, 2008 at 12:13 am
Hey
I was the log for Farchana and Hadjer Hadid 2006/2007. I recognise lots of the places and faces in your photos and wondered if you could pass on a general ‘ca va?’ ou ‘kef?’ to the staff for me. Particularly the excellent team of drivers, assuming they’re still mostly the same ones
cheers, Anna
April 10th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Hallo Steven,
I just read about you in Chad (and your blog) from a feature Waldimar Pelser did for Beeld newspaper. And, then too read you were born in SA, really? Where? At what age did you leave? Apart from Chad, where are you based? Too many questions…
We have Prinitha Pillay’s blog, hosted by MSF Canada as well; she’s doctor in Serif Umra, Darfur. Could we put your blog on our website too? And call it “a SA-born doctor in Chad”? This way we have Printha sharing from Darfur, and you from Chad… Suné, from the MSF-SA office.