Africa 2006

Segou is a relaxing city on the Niger River, with a population of about 100 000, although it feels much smaller. It was once the main city for the Bambara Empire and the old Segou town, 17 kilometres away, still houses the city’s oldest mud mosque.

I am staying at the Auberge, a Lebanese-run facility with – luxury of luxuries – a swimming pool!

I arrived on Friday afternoon and met two other foreigners at the hotel: Bart, a Dutch tour guide taking a day off before collecting his next group in Bamako, and Joumana, a Montrealer on vacation who used to live near Segou. They invited me to go dancing with them later that evening and I happily accepted – when I’m travelling alone I don’t usually go out at night!

But shortly before supper, I started feeling a bit unwell – general malaise, headaches, aches and pains, chilliness. It got worse after dinner and I decided to cancel the evening out in favour of trying to get a good night’s sleep. Ever paranoid about getting a serious illness, I looked up the symptoms for malaria in my guidebook. I had all of them, except the most important – a fever. The guide said to see a doctor promptly if there was a fever over 38C. So instead I slept.

The next day I felt no better, but I did a day of sightseeing with a guide Bart had recommended (named Gaston, and I recommend him too for anyone visiting this way!). We visited the old Segou town and then took a break for lunch (during which I managed a few spoonfuls of soup and slept for an hour). In the afternoon we took a pinasse (a long covered boat) on the Niger River to a town where women create beautiful pottery (one gave me a small plate as a present) and to a Bozo fishing village.

We returned at sunset and I did not feel well at all. Just to make sure, I asked the hotel management for a thermometer to check my temperature – turns out it was 39.3 (guess it’s hard to tell in the warm climate!). Even though I have not been in Africa very long, and have been taking anti-malarials and preventative measures, I thought best to be on the safe side and so we called a doctor.

Dr. Zoumana Traore arrived promptly within 15 minutes to examine me. He first checked to see if I had appendicitis (NOT something I would like to get here!) but after I explained everything he prescribed me Coartem as a malaria treatment, explaining that the clinic to test for malaria would not be open until Monday and it was better to treat rapidly than to wait. If it wasn’t malaria, then the drugs do no harm anyway. Dr. Traore assured me that I should be feeling better overnight – “inshallah”.

I’m happy to report that I do feel much better today – my fever and headache are gone, and I’m just a little tired. I’ll probably never know whether this was malaria or not (the doctor said I don’t need to be tested now unless the symptoms return) but if I’m feeling better then it doesn’t matter! (it strikes me that it must be unlikely since I haven’t been here very long and took all the precautions; on the other hand, I have never been ill with these symptoms before when travelling).

Off to Sevare tomorrow and then on a three-day trek through Dogon Country. Stay tuned!