2007年11月27日星期二

30 hours in Mali--Yellow Fever

Yellow fever is a viral disease found in parts of Africa and South America. It is transmitted to humans by a mosquito bite.

My boss and I followed our Malien woman 'guide' to the hygiene control counter, actually there was no counter, instead a sign-board.All travelers were showing a yellow card to an old man in grayish white uniform, this bald man seemed to be a medical practitioner.
Knowing that we did not have the yellow card, when back in Hong Kong, i find out that it is the International Certificate of Vaccination, he led us to go into a room next to the passport control counter.
It was just 6sqm large, no windows, with two iron-made giant cupboards, like those at office and an old-styled office desk, which is hard to find at hk nor paris modern office.

He told us that we had to pay for the vaccinations, USD50/head, but finally we settled in French Franc. i thought that we could go, but he took out two jars of the cupboard, that kind of jar you can see in a grocery shop for selling biscuits in mainland china,both of lids were a little bit oxidized. One contained white cotton ball, but the colour was just the same as the uniform of the man, hard to say it was white. Another one contained pale yellowish fluid.

Oh my goodness, he was going to give us injections then. i was shaking, how come i could have it here with such adverse hygiene condition! i would not acquire Yellow Fever but maybe AIDS, Hepatitis B or whatever....
If i have to had it here, what i should do: turned around and took the next flight back to paris, even my boss did not agreed and the client was waiting outside.
What's more important than life!!!!!
Guessing that my boss would accept the vaccination, i was well-prepared to leave Bamako, though i could not persuade him to leave too and i would lose my job, but who cares!

I tried my best to calm down myself, in the least my voice was not shaken, long before he took out the syringe, i explained to him that we would be leaving tomorrow nite at 23h00 and would he be kind enough to let us go and we would still pay for the vaccinations.

at that moment, i didnt know that the vaccination should be taken 10-15 days before it come into effect, if i knew that, i would explain to him, but if he was some kind of medical practitioner, he should have known it.

He stopped his work. Thanks God! He understood my french and accepted our request. He told us that the sole responsibility lied on us.

Then we left the tiny room and procceeded to another room for the application of entry visa. It was rather cheap, just FRF50/head, and i met the french man sitting next to us, he had some problems too. A few minutes later, i saw an acquainted
face, our french client living in Abidjan, had come all the way to pick us up in Bamako. Finally i felt safe.

The woman was still 'looking after' us, ('elle s'occupe de nous') She led us to have our luggages checked and left the sous-douane area, we thanked her and my boss gave her 10000CFA, i.e. franc used in west africa, 1FRF=100CFA, and she was contented with it.

3 則留言:

匿名 說...

Carole -

唉!聽音樂會時講電話,有一次我在文化中心聽鋼琴表演,有人電話響."又派咭片,又話自己搞events", 我知是誰. 所以我說如果他們叫 做咩商業野令他不comfortable,不理他們也罷. 下次都係唔好請So Sir來比較好,我地係幾commercial,又業餘,不想令他不愉快. :P

小貝 說...

哎呀呀呀呀~~~

匿名 說...

pretty cool.

Sa Lone Pikin