Traveling far from the beaten path has sometimes forced me to play doctor. That can be problematic. First, how do I persuade my own doctor to prescribe me enough pills to help a few people? Besides, a few pills are never enough, for once I start medicating people, the procession of would-be patients never ends. And how do I pay for them? They’re expensive, and nobody helps me with the bill. Years ago, magazines paid for my travel expenses. But not any more.
When I was younger and foolish, I traveled light and did not bother carrying as much as aspirins with me. I thought I’d never die. I went on two 30-day camel journeys across the Sahara that way. That did not stop people to bring their sick relatives to me. Once it was a little Sahara Tuareg girl who had a small stone lodged inside her ear. Over time the flesh had grown over it. In another Tuareg camp it was a boy who had had the tip of his penis accidentally chopped off when circumcised. In Ethiopia’s Danakil Depression, a Danakil nomad also showed me his penis. It was rotten with infection.
I could have done nothing for those people if I had carried any drugs. I may not have been able to do much for myself if I had been in their shoes. And there’s always the danger that if you give a couple of aspirins to someone with high fever, and that person dies during the night, that you will be accused of the death.
However, when traveling across Borneo once, I made sure that I was carrying enough medicines for myself. I had no idea how long I would be living in the jungle, and the environment would be less healthy than that of the Sahara. My isolation among primitive tribes ended up lasting four months, and if anyone in my family had died meanwhile, that person might have been long buried by the time I got back home. It made me wonder how many relatives Marco Polo never saw again during his long years of travels.
When, somewhere in the middle of the island, a middle-aged man came to show me a large greenish wound in the middle of an awfully swollen forearm, I knew I had to try to help him. While hunting, a wild pig had bitten him, and his wound had festered for some time.
I was carrying four disposable syringes and antibiotic. I had never before given anyone an injection, but the needle got into his buttock as if through butter. I boiled the needle for possible reuse.
The man was back the next day. However, this time the used needle refused to get through his skin. After trying unsuccessfully different parts of his backside, the only option left to me was to stab him with the needle. Later, I boiled it again.
Next day the man was back once more, but this time he limped badly. I had just learned that disposable needles were just that, and that if I ever needed my three other needles, they would only be good for three injections. So I had to tell him that I had run out of antibiotic.
But I was of much more help to another poor devil. He was a man from Sumatra, a Batak in his mid-twenties, who the Dyak had held against his will for two years. Though he only had a fifth-grade education, a Swiss missionary had told him that if he went to teach Dyak children to read and write, they would pay him with gold.
Using the wood from the forest, the Dyak had built a one-room school on stilts. They had much gold, but never gave him any. He spoke a little English, and begged me to tell the Dyak that I needed him as an interpreter. I felt bad for the kids, but it was not right to keep this man from returning to his own people. So I accepted, and the Dyak consented to his release.
Unfortunately, that meant rushing to his help every time a leach hooked up on him during our eight-day forest crossing of the water divide. That must have been 30 to 40 times a day, and I had my own leeches to constantly pull off. But he screamed as a manias each time as if the leeches were killing him.
One evening he really shocked me. “Last night,” he said “I told the Dyak to kill you and take all your possessions.”
“Are you out of your mind?” I asked. “Why did you say such thing?”
“I wanted to be sure that they had no ill intentions toward you.”
“And what did they say?”
“They said that nowadays they can no longer do that. Your people would come after them if they did. They also said that they were afraid of you. Have you seen his eyes, they asked? Have you ever seen such eyes? They are blue!”
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