Cholera

Since the cholera outbreak in many villages, our movement has been supporting the volunteers going round talking to people about open defecation, hand washing, boiling or purifying water and washing fruits and vegetables thoroughly before eating. A lot of people have died and relief from the state and local government either takes forever to come or doesn’t come at all. The first time it happened the local government chairman came around with some materials and a lot of cameramen. I thought they would return but it was all a show. Movements like ours and the Dariqas and the Shiites are coming in to help with clean water, drugs and burying the dead.

Sale designed the images which we took to have printed on big polythene sachets with the name of our movement and logo and the logo of Islamic Relief in England, which sends us water purifiers. Sheikh gave me eight hundred thousand naira to fill two thousand sachets with soap, rice and oral rehydration salts. We will add one water purifier and two hundred naira in each sachet. About half of the sachets are for our members and the remaining we will distribute to others. There are also leaflets in Hausa about how to maintain hygiene and what to do when someone starts vomiting or stooling. I don’t know how many people can read Hausa.

Sale is crunching fresh tiger nuts, pouring the chaff on the table. He chews like that prostitute I met behind the tipper garage.

‘Sale, you shouldn’t leave that thing lying there, look at all the flies,’ I tell him.

‘I will pack it,’ he says, his mouth full.

‘No,’ I say, ‘clear it now. I don’t want flies in this place. This is how cholera starts.’

Slowly, he spits out the chaff from his mouth into his hand and puts it in an old polythene bag. Astaghfirullah, but I don’t know why people like him don’t get cholera.

‘Flies will still follow the bag, so tie it.’

He wipes his hand on his clothes and ties the polythene bag. I find that since the day I broke up the fight between Jibril and the driver, no one even tries to challenge me around here. It is interesting that it is not Sheikh saying I am his deputy that has made people respect me but me flogging and slapping two grown people in public. I think that is why Malam Abdul-Nur had so many people following him. He never hesitated to hit or slap. I don’t understand people.

I am with two volunteers on the way to the first village outside Sokoto city to deliver relief materials: two hundred sachets and a hundred bags of pure water. We are using a new Hilux truck, which was donated by Islamic Relief and has the same driver who fought with Jibril.

Travelling in this truck is better than using the buses especially because of the areas with bad roads. You don’t feel the bumps so much. Also the radio has really clear speakers and doesn’t give me a headache.

Everyone must be tired from packing and sealing sachets last night. We haven’t even been travelling for thirty minutes and apart from the driver and me, everyone is dozing off.

The village looks deserted. But for two old men tilling a farm and two children rolling old bicycle tyres, we meet no one on our way to the village head’s house. He has already lost one of his wives and one of his daughters to cholera. He takes us round the village as we distribute the items and talk to people about hygiene. At the home of one of our members we drop ten bags for him to share with other members we cannot meet. We do not let the village head see this.

On our way back to the village head’s house, we hear screaming. We stop and follow the sound until we find the house where it is coming from. We say salaam and enter. There are two men, one young and the other older, on the floor, covered in flies, emaciated and barely breathing. Two women are kneeling over them, wailing.

‘It is cholera,’ one of the volunteers says.

He goes back to the truck and gets gloves and face masks. The volunteers ask us to step aside and they carry the men out one by one and put them into the back of the truck. They prepare two oral rehydration salt mixtures and ask the women to make the men drink these as we begin to make our way to the health centre close to the city. The village head leaves us and bids us goodbye.

I cannot stop turning to look at the men in the back of the truck. They are throwing up as the women make them drink the solutions. This is the first time I am this close to someone who has cholera. There are tears in the driver’s eyes. We almost run a goat over as we reach the main road. The driver looks at me like he expects me to tell him to slow down. I don’t tell him anything.

By the time we have got to the health centre, the young man is no longer breathing. Two attendants come and take the two men and lay them on mats outside the building because there are no beds. They take the young man away to the back where they keep dead bodies. We stay at the health centre for thirty minutes while they try to get the only doctor to come around. The older man is throwing up and stooling at the same time. His eyes begin to go pale.

When the doctor comes, he feels the man’s pulse and shakes his head. The doctor looks like he is going to collapse himself. When the attendants come to take the man’s body, the two women resume wailing.

I walk to a tree away from the health centre, squat and let my tears flow.