A Trip to the Doctor

The paved road comes to an abrupt and unapologetic end, and I am lost in a maze of hollow tree stumps and edgeless rocks, worn down from the wandering steps of hundreds of men and women. I have been in Senegal for four weeks, and it is time to see the witch doctor. I want to see if he really exists; I want him to cure me of the physical discomfort of travel.
Children stare at me and laugh, their naked limbs peeping out from behind a peeling baobab tree. I feel overdressed in my cargo pants and long-sleeved shirt.
“Toubab! Toubab!” they scream, which means white person.
“I know” I want to say, “I know what I am.” Instead, I wave and smile, squinting my eyes from the sunlight that comes down in uncertain streams through the tree branches. Even with my tanned skin I’m white to them, like the cow’s milk they keep under their beds to ferment.
The children follow me as I walk through the rows of yellow corn, around the well, and past the rondavel huts made of cement and water reed. The air smells like goat manure and the sweet tea the men sip on their straw prayer mats. Two cups sugar for one cup tea. They must not sleep at night.
One of the children wraps a long piece of grass around his waist for a belt. In his new outfit, he comes forward and grabs my hand, leading me to a hut at the corner of the field. It sits away from the rest, threatening to start its own village. Three flies buzz in circles around a bowl of millet left on the top of a wooden stool.
Inside, the room is sparse, except for a slender man with a white beard sitting cross-legged on a piece of goatskin. Above his head, there is a framed photograph of him in the same position, wearing a blue embroidered Sherwani suit jacket. On his left, there is a black Koran with a gold border. On his right, a bulky cell phone.
He does not lift his head, but beckons for me to sit across from him on the dirt floor. He waves his fingers back and forth while mumbling inaudible prayers in Arabic. He takes hold of my hands, then my feet, inspecting me as you would a cracked plate at an antique store. Finally, he grabs my head between his palms, pulls it towards his face, and spits on me. Cold, wet, spiritual spit. I cannot help but smile. I am being spit on by a man who says he is taking away all my problems for the rest of eternity. But each time he spits on me, I remember that this man has devoted his entire life to his trade, and he believes he is healing me. So I believe it, too.