We’re delighted to officially launch the French-language version of our website today. To visit, simply visit dokotoro.org/fr, or click the little « tricolore » flag at right.

Note that we’ve translated the main webpages only, and we’re not planning to translate the blog posts. But you can read machine-translated versions in dozens of languages by using a site like Google Translate.

Please share this with your French-speaking friends and colleagues, and urge them to consider making a donation or get involved. We rely on our donors, and every dollar we raise goes to pay our team of professional translators and editors in Mali.

Merci et à bientôt !

I recently enjoyed reading the book Found in Translation, about the importance of translation and interpretation in the modern world, including health care. In the first chapter, the authors describe an infamous case of the $71-million word. While this story is set in the United States, it’s easy to think of equivalent situations in Africa or anywhere in the world.

In Florida in 1980, 17-year old Willie Ramirez came to the emergency room with a severe headache. Describing his symptoms to the hospital staff, his family described his condition as “intoxicado.” The staff incorrectly thought he was intoxicated, while his family meant that he was nauseous or dizzy. The result? An incorrect course of treatment, which made Ramirez a quadriplegic. The authors go on to explain the importance of translation in hospitals.

Costs to the entire health care system are higher when interpreters are not used. When language barriers are present, medical errors are more common. There are countless reported incidents of doctors ordering unnecessary—and expensive—diagnostic tests instead of simply paying for interpreting services. When patients cannot understand their instructions, they can easily overdose by accident or take medications incorrectly. It’s a risky and high-cost business to forego language services.

Patients may say they understand some English, leading the doctor to believe it’s fine to write a prescription in a language the patient may not speak fluently. However, a Spanish speaker who reads the words “take once per day,” could easily think they are supposed to take the pill eleven times per day. After all, once means “eleven” in Spanish—like intoxicado, it’s just one of many false friends that cause horrific consequences.

At the Smithsonian’s website, you can design your own mudcloth, or bogolanfini, and even print it out. Plus, learn the meaning of different patterns used by traditional artisans. Fun!

Thanks so much to the volunteers who turned out this past weekend for our 2nd Dokotoro Hackathon! And special thanks to the group of social work students and teachers from Bordeaux, France who were visiting San Francisco for the week and gave up some of their precious time to be with us.

With the help of a dozen people, we made some great progress with proofreading, formatting, “cross-walking” (our term for comparing different versions of Where There is No Doctor, such as the outdated French West Africa version and the new 2013 English edition) and other tasks that are central to the project. As a result of this productive afternoon, we can expect to see new chapters posted online soon!

After a good four hours of work, we all retired to a nearby park for a Malian-style barbeque featuring brochetti, plantains and beer. Although we didn’t have bottles of Castel on hand (and even though the meat was threaded on bamboo skewers, not bicycle spokes — the only authentic way to do it, really), the mood was definitely Malian in spirit. All in all, the afternoon was a nice tribute to a country we love.

We look forward to our next one!

Spend five minutes on an excursion to the beautiful city of Djenné, Mali in this documentary called “Hemelse Modder,” or “Heavenly Mud” by Ton van der Lee.

I recently learned about the global campaign Healthcare Information for All by 2015. The project, launched in Mombasa, Kenya in 2006, has a vision of “a world where people are no longer dying for lack of healthcare knowledge” and is working “to improve the availability and use of healthcare information in developing countries.” Great stuff. The organization is free to join, has over 10,000 members, and hosts several active email message groups.

Recently, HIFA 2015 announced its first SMART goal: Mobile Healthcare Information For All. What does SMART mean? It’s a bit of management jargon that refers to a goal that is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Here’s the goal:

By 2015, at least one telecoms provider, in at least one country, will endorse the vision of Healthcare Information For All, and will provide free access to essential healthcare knowledge in the local language, pre-loaded on all new mobile phones they may sell and freely downloadable to all those who already have a mobile phone.

This Goal was proposed and will be led by the HIFA 2012-15 Challenge Working Group, which is specifically concerned with the health information needs of citizens, parents and children, in recognition of the huge (and largely unrealised) potential of mobile phones to meet basic healthcare information needs of citizens, parents and children.

A draft concept note is available on their website, describing how this would work. I think it’s an exciting goal, and one that could really help people in developing countries. Who knows? In a few years from now, maybe anyone in Mali will be able to read Where There is No Doctor on their cell phone… Maybe we can interest Orange or Malitel!

For your Friday amusment, some gender-bending song and dance with Malian singer (and comedian?) Papa Gaoussou Diarra.

Amazing to see this on Youtube. This was a huge hit in the summer in Mali in 1996. Everywhere you went, kids would yell out to skinny people, “pekele!” And fat people were “niansanfari.” As far as I know, those were totally made up words.