One evening in the pirogue coming back to Kalabougou with all the women from the Monday market in Segou, Modibo asked me to read the instruction sheet for some medicine for a little baby. Not only is the medicine expensive, but the instructions are useless since the mother can’t read. It was an anti-throw-up medicine for a newborn baby. The mother had bought it at one of the pharmacies in Segou. A major purchase. The instructions were written in English and in French. It said something like 10 to 15 drops three times a day. There were also a notation written in pen on the side of the box. Someone had tried to explain to the mother how to administer the medicine, probably at the pharmacy. There were five lines on one side and three lines on another side of the box. At first I couldn’t figure it out. I read the instructions in English, spoke them to Mobido in French, who translated them into bamanankan for the mother. The child had begun to cry and the mother gave the baby ten drops as I had read. But I was troubled by the hand-written notation. I looked again at the box and decided that the five lines meant that the proper dosage was five rather than ten drops since it was a newborn and three times a day. It would be easy enough for the drug company to also give instructions through drawings –ten drops three times a day. But they don’t.