Toilets, children, and Doctors

Marc here:

They won't have toilets like this in Senegal.

You stand in line for a long time.  The door is closed and the green light says, "Ready"  (French, English and Italian script)  You push the button, the curved door gracefully slides open, you enter, and it gracefully slides closed.  After you're done, you push the flush button and nothing happens.  You push it again and a franch voice comes on.  You push it a third time, decides it's broke and feel sorry for the poor schmuck who is coming in after you.

You open the door, exit, and expect the next person to walk in after you.  They don't.  Instead, they wait as the door gracefully and automatically slides back closed.  A sweet French voice starts talking into a now empty public restroom.  Then, you realize what she is saying.  "If there is anyone in here, you had better get out right now because I'm gonna' spray this whole damn place down."  Which she does, along with finally flushing.

Then, the light turns green and you realize why the line was so slow.  While it might suck to wait if you really need to go, it sure is nice to get into a clean public bathroom.

Children:

We understand what parents are saying to their children better then when two adults are talking.  We understand children even better when they talk to other children.  Like today, walking back from the train, two children were running along the pedistrien walk area that connected the station with the neighbor hood the hotel is in.  They got to the end of the walkway and sat on the large stones that keep cars out.  The boy announces, "J'ai froid."  "J'ai chaud," the girl announced.  We tended to agree with her because the temp went above 35C today.  "Froid," he insisted.  "No, chaud," she retorted.  "Froid."  "Chaud."

"Chaud," the mom interject, then added other things that included, "Vit," and several other things.  At lease we understood what the kids were talking about!

Doctors:

While in line at one of the public, robotic, clean toilets, we struck up a conversation with  lady Dr. from Paragua who spoke good english and was on her way to 3 month in the Central African Republic to work with Dr. Without Borders.

Julienne asked her what she expected to treat.  She said she didn't really know but that after her time in S. Sudan, everyone on her team had gotten Malaria except her.  "Bed netting and lots of spray," she said.  "I didn't do the profolactics because they didn't agree with me but I guess I was lucky."

We told her we were on our way to Senegal but that probably our experience were going to be very different, especially since we were going as a job and she was going as a volunteer.  An interesting question came in my mind from listening to so many Planet Money podcasts and after reading the book, Death Aide, which argued for direct foreign investment and against governmental level aide.  If one was to put a volunteer Dr. Without Borders on a moral spectrum along with teachers at posh internatinoal schools, where would we each fall?