Molecular biology students says her trip to West Africa was the experience of a lifetime

By Melissa C. Nelson Special to the Argus”Bonsoir tubabu !!!” I heard those words frequently from children during my trip to Mali, West Africa. They mean “white stranger”. “Stranger” because I was American, and “white” because to the kids, my skin complexion looked almost white. In the summer of 2003, the University of Maryland’s School of Medicine selected me to participate in a program called the Mali Training Program. It is a program designed for minority students who are interested in the area of tropical and infectious diseases. For those of you who may not be familiar with Mali, it is the largest country in West Africa. The official language is French, but most of the people speak Bambara. In Bamako, at the University of Mali, my training and research was based on the topic of malaria, one of the deadliest diseases located in the tropics! It is carried by the Anopheles mosquito and is responsible for over 1 million deaths in sub-Saharan Africa. When bitten by an infected mosquito, the malaria parasite is injected into the body eventually invading the red blood cell. When the blood cell ruptures, the person becomes sick with fever, headache, diarrhea, severe body ache, chills, and anemia. Throughout my eight weeks of training, my first four weeks were spent assisting with anti-malarial drug resistance research in the city of Bamako. After I gained a strong background in that area, I decided to do my fieldwork in the village of Kollé by collecting blood samples and helping to provide medical care. Electricity and running water were not necessary. I had everything I needed, well water, food, clothes, and lots of love and attention from my Malian friends in Kollé. I was intrigued by how warm and friendly the people of Mali were towards me. My friends in Mali understood that I was an American, and as often as unknowingly offended them, they continually forgave me. I remember the first time we ate dinner. We sat down in a circle in small lawn chairs with a big metal bowl full of rice and a thick green sauce that was delicious! (My favorite meal was chicken and plantains but we often ate rice with sauce, and goat, beef, or chicken). No one ever told me that when you eat, you always use your right hand to scoop up your food; you never use your left hand because it’s considered an insult! When I put my left hand in the bowl to eat, everyone started yelling at me in Bambara. I looked at them baffled with hurt feelings because I didn’t understand what I did wrong. One of the Malians politely explained what I did wrong and softly told me to just be mindful of it the next time I eat. Many patients were seen on a daily basis and there are a few that I will never forget. One night around 7:45 pm, we were contacted to come to the clinic for a severe case of malaria. A lifeless, four year old girl was lying on the bed, waiting for us. She was in the clinic for almost three days before we sent her to Bamako for further treatment. We were afraid that she was not going to survive because her body was so limp and she was not responding to any of the medication we had given her. Fortunately, after a few days, she was allowed to return home. When we went to check on her, she was sound asleep, and her mother’s smile reassured us that she was doing just fine. My dream is to go back to Mali and work as a physician, not only because they need the health care, but because I loved helping to provide it! The experience in Mali was phenomenal and cannot be compared to anything else, mainly because it gave me the ability to be a part of a research project and know that what my colleagues, and I were doing will benefit the lives of millions of people.