25.03.06 - 16:37

A calm happy day. I had spent the morning attending the opening of an NGO promoting a nutrition product called Cereamine. Echoes of the Cereamine rap song (graciously lip-synced by two visored young Rap Starz) still reverberated through my calm brain. "Cere - A - Mine! Pour les en-fants! Pleine de vi-ta-mines!" Now I was at Espoir et Vie, waiting for the weekly meeting to start.

Each employee filed into the office and sat down. The president ruffled his papers. "Thanks for coming. Now as for our agenda..."

There was a knock at the door. In came a mousy little man.

After the obligatory greetings and introductions, which took a good 10 minutes, we got down to the matter at hand.

Abu, the mousy little man, looked at each of us in turn, then dropped his proverbial bombshell. "I can completely cure AIDS!!!"

"Oh," said Hussein. "Do you have proof?"

"No," said Abu.

"Well, when you have some, come back and we'll talk!" said Hussein amiably. He and Abu shook hands and Abu left. We finished our meeting in half an hour, and all went home. THE END.

Well, at least that's what happened in the darkest American recesses of my mind, where we have the idea that time is precious and that BS artists should be called out and dealt with forcefully and resolutely.

BUT NO!!!!!!!!!!

Abu, the mousy little man, looked at each of us in turn, then dropped his proverbial bombshell. "I can completely cure AIDS!!!"

"Oh," said Hussein. "Do you have proof?"

"Well, I can tell you about two cases of people who have been completely cured. One..."

"I'm sorry, do you mean to say that after the treatment, he was completely HIV negative?"

"Well, that's the problem, see..."

"Do you have proof? Yes or no?"

"Well, that's the problem, see..."

"Do you have proof? Yes or no?"

"Well, that's the problem, see..."

Hussein gave up and just let him continue. What follows is a synopsis of Abu's fascinating tale.

He was working as an interpreter for some German tourists in the Adrar region. They were studying traditional medicine. Their names were Thierry and Albert, but he doesn't remember their last name. (This convenient memory lapse was dismissed with the wave of a hand.) The Germans left some of their documents with Abu. (But not all. Again, wave of the hand.) They did leave 300-400 photos of medicinal plants. So Abu, naturally, made a potion out of an aquatic plant and poured it down the throat of a man suffering from AIDS. The man had been unable to eat or sleep and had a raging fever. But after the potion, he was well! How did this miracle occur? Let me translate straight from Abu: "After treatment, the virus goes out of the flesh. Of course, it is very small, so it stays in little places, like in the bones. That is why it is undetectable."

Unfortunately, Abu ran into some problems here. Seems Hussein had actually financed this man's hospital stay, and was there at the time in question. The man had been suffering from thrush, diarrhea, and fever. After treatment, he was indeed better. However, Hussein was more apt to believe that the man's miraculous recovery had more to do with the anti-retrovirals, IV drip, and antibiotics than with an aquatic potion. At this juncture, we also realized that Abu had a hearing loss, so we had to scream everything at him so he could hear. Hussein, who tends to speak in a dramatic whisper, kept forgetting this. So he would intone a couple sentences at the volume of a funeral director, then have to yell the exact same sentences at the volume of an American who figures that the natives will understand his English if he just hollers loud enough.

"May I continue?" Abu asked in response to Hussein's points, once he understood them. He was completely unperturbed.

NO!!!! My mind shrieked. SNAKE OIL! SNAKE OIL!

"By all means," Hussein responded.

Well, Abu also gave this magic potion [YES. He actually used those words. "Le potion magique."] to another man. Can we talk to him? Well, no, because unfortunately he died in Senegal from hepatitis C. Why did he have Hep C? Because he drank too much alcohol.

At this point, while Hussein and the others nodded their heads cautiously, I rolled my eyes so far into my head that I almost fell backward out of my chair.

"But do you have proof?" Finally, 45 minutes into the presentation, we could fend Abu off. Of course, we first had to explain scientific process to him. Hussein advised him to "find an HIV+ person, tell him that you have a potion that can cure AIDS forever, and see if the potion works."

My jaw dropped. But before I could jump in with questions of ethics, arguments about the mind-body connection, and the cruelty and irresponsibility of telling a dying man that you can save him, just to find out that oops! no! doesn't work and you'll die a horrible death anyway!, Abu and Hussein were on to discussing the particularities of how the potion should be administered during the trial.

I seized upon a snippet of conversation and jumped in. "The subject needs to be young? (jeune) Well..."

"No," they both said, looking at me briefly. "You don't understand. He needs to have fasted. (a jeune, but with accents)" Then turned away and ignored me. So there you go. One French mistake and I'm out of the conversation.

Finally, 20 minutes later, Hussein said, "you know, if you can prove this, you won't need us! You can go straight to global health programs! You'll be so famous that there'll be video cameras in your toilet!"

"Malheuresement, je ne cherche pas de devenir celebre. Je veux seulement de sauver les vies." A direct quote from Abu! "Unfortunately, I'm not looking to become famous. I just want to save lives." And we had a five minute discussion about how NOBLE this sentiment is.

Finally, one hour and fifteen minutes after he came in, Abu was pushed out the door. Immediately, I launched into a tirade about the colossal waste of time, about how damaging his false hope could be, about how we all KNEW he was only trying to trick us out of money, right?

Hussein shook his head at me sadly. "We can't just push him out the door. It's rude. And anyway, we all must have hope. That's why the organization is called ESPOIR et Vie. Hope and life. Without hope, we all die."

And that was that. Molly the American ogre is anti-Hope. None of my sputtering moved anyone.

By that point, our meeting was hopelessly late, so there was no time for my agenda. The last few moments were spent discussing what we NEEDED (please note the word) to have a support group. Know what we need? 20 chairs, 1 large conference table, 1 television, 1 VCR, 10 video tapes, fresh fruit, drinks, air conditioning, 1 blackboard, 1 refrigerator, 1 megaphone, 1 photocopier.

"Actually," I said. "I think all we really need is a locale."

Their eyes lit up. "Write that! Yes! Add that! We need a locale! And an extra room for resting!"

"No," I said. "You misunderstand me. I mean to say that ALL we need is a locale."

They were flabbergasted. What, ask people to come to a place without air-conditioning? They insisted condescendingly that it just wasn't possible. Never mind that none of these people have AC at their homes, or that in villages like Kankossa sick people don't even have the option, yet they manage to have meetings. Without AC and a photocopier, we can't even begin to entertain the notion of having a support group.

Of course, I realize why they have these ideas. It's because they are applying for financing from a certain large internatinal poorly-run agency (formed of several nations who have united themselves into a single entity and wish to fund development. Not that I'm naming names.) who will fund ANYTHING. Got a problem? Let's throw cash or an event at it!

The meeting ended. I couldn't talk about my AIDS quilt, or my wish to provide Cereamine to HIV+ children (a neglected demographic!!), or my efforts to organize an AIDS educational caravan, or my plans to follow up on the condom distribution project.

I did, however, create a new list of lessons I wish to teach my co-workers. In order to afford a modicum of respect for my parents and other Elders, I have deleted all expletives. ("We gave you such an expensive liberal arts college education, Molly! Is this really the only way you can express yourself?" Actually, I've added to my arsennal of swear words. So many situations here demand them.)

1. Time *is* precious in a work environment.
2. If we all agree on something, discussion about it *can* stop.
3. If the subject discussed does not concern us, we don't have to talk about it.
4. Money is precious! People die from lack of it!
5. Need is not the same as Want.
6. Just because it's tradition does *not* make it right.
7. Just because it's tradition does *not* mean we can't change it.
8. Say what you mean and mean what you say.
9. Yet, talk is cheap...
10. So actually get out there and DO SOMETHING.

Now. Are you happy I updated, or are you choking on disgust for an angry, self-righteous upstart?

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