It was something I learnt faster then surgery, and its terrors were equally less. Soon, I was writing to an old banking friend in England (who was also musical): ‘Our accounts would seem like a five-finger exercise to the symphonies of accountancy you must have conducted in your time.’
Dr Balti’s wife had been used to sitting in the surgery, ostensibly knitting, while keeping an eye on the clerk and the nurse, who might otherwise have been subject to obscure temptations while her husband was in the examination cubicles, or otherwise off his guard. She suggested that Terry might like to do the same: Terry didn’t.
Dr Balti instructed me not to let other Indian doctors into the surgery (they seemed to trust one another about as much as - I’d better not say). He gave me his address in South Africa with similar reservations; both including ‘specially Dr Vindaloo’.
Indeed, I seemed to be fending off half the Indian secret service. Mrs Tandoori, up the street, was not only a patient but a frequent inquirer. Dr Balti had advertised his house for sale at what seemed to Mrs Tandoori a suspiciously low price. Even Dr Vindaloo broke in one day, but got nothing out of me.
And no love was lost between them and the Africans. The drains frequently got blocked, which Annie blamed on the ‘horrible food’ the Indian tenants above us were cooking. An African colleague in the next street cheered me with the assurance: ‘Balti’s a crook, and Vindaloo’s another.’ And, of course, Mrs Balti had warned me from her side - ‘You can’t trust them!’
The practice specialised in sexually transmitted diseases (STD), and again I was getting experience far beyond anything Europe could provide. I was seeing 300 fresh cases a month, which is more than most general hospitals in England; and nearly ten times the number of diseases, for in Africa, there are about twenty varieties to choose from. Species multiply in the tropics: eg, Roberts’ Birds of South Africa lists fifteen species of eagle, on a rather different subject.
And more and more, I was seeing Aids. The first Aids case I saw was in Zvishavane, and went unrecognised by me until it was pointed out by the provincial physician, on his monthly visit: a young girl with extended shingles. Then, as I said, I recognised it in the terrible cases of pelvic sepsis we saw and operated on in females. In my new clinic, I saw it besides in cases of florid penile ulceration, which were stubborn to treat. Then the black spots of Kaposi’s sarcoma, and the ‘wasting disease’.
At first, I would test them, but the results took three weeks - a long trial even for the stoical African. The news was invariably bad: the signs were obvious enough before the test. The patients took the news silently: one schoolboy only shrugged his shoulders and said: ‘Then I needn’t bother about my ‘A’ levels.’ I would always try to comfort them, telling them they had many years to live, and medical science was advancing so rapidly, a cure might be discovered in time for them. But I had little faith in my own words. Finally, I gave up testing them, or even voicing my clinical suspicions. They would do nothing about it, anyway. Carpe diem - the motto of Africa!
For the battle was already lost; or rather, it would be won through the brutal solution described by one local African specialist: ‘We will outbreed it.’ The PMO put it rather more scientifically, when he said, the disease would burn itself out with the vulnerable group: but that included most of the youth and wage-earners of the country. What would be left after such a loss?
A country like Zimbabwe was specially vulnerable, as the specialist said, because it had a highly mobile population. Most urban Africans (20 per cent of the population) retained a pied à terre in their ancestral lands, and moved between town and country. The enormous crowds at the bus terminus on public holidays were evidence of this. In more prosperous days, men would keep two wives: one at home (which was always the land), and a mpoti wife in town (for the ‘pot’ and bed). But now this luxury was beyond most of them, and it was the day of the harlot.
I went to work on a bicycle, leaving the car with Terry, who had to shop and ferry children to and from school. On my two-mile ride, to and fro, I would pass the beerhall, buzzing like a hive, especially in the evening, with music and prostitution. It was the market-place for the product, and my principal source of business.
The first World Aids Day was marked in Gweru in 1988 by a meeting of all interested parties in the Catholic hall. I was not on the committee, but sat in the audience. The proceedings were opened by a clinic sister, who announced happily: ‘We are gathered here today to salute the great killer disease, Aids.’
She was followed by the PMO, a nice little Indian doctor, whom everybody loved but nobody could understand, because he spoke like a ham actor imitating Peter Sellers doing an Indian doctor. He sat down in a mystified silence, which remembered its manners just in time to produce an uncertain clap.
Next came the medical officer of health, I think, who spoke about condoms and ‘safe sex’. He was followed by the Anglican bishop’s wife: a large lady, as formidable in spirit as in body.
It is no part of African etiquette to cause embarrassment; but, I suppose, planning and coordination are weaker points with them than, say, the Germans. Therefore, I conclude that the bishop’s lady had no prior knowledge of the contents of the MOH’s speech: because her speech was a forthright denunciation of condoms and what she witheringly called ‘safe sex’; but it was too late even for African powers of improvisation (which are considerable), and if the lady was going to say anything, it was no use giving an uncertain sound. She ended with a rousing appeal to ‘Christian standards and the traditions of our ancestors’. By the time she had finished, the MOH looked like the little boy who had to stand in the corner.
And finally, and unhappiest of all, came the provincial physician, Dr Badza. Dr Badza gave a lucid and comprehensive survey of the disease, and should have left it at that. Unfortunately, being an African, he was a philosopher, and could not resist an incautious excursion into the tricky field of professional ethics. Under no circumstances, insisted Dr Badza, should any doctor or medical personnel betray the confidence of a patient, especially in the most delicate case of this disease.
He sat down amid polite applause.Then an old male nurse rose to his feet.The almost palpable scepticism of Africa (than which there is no scepticism denser) rose in his person. It was immediately palpable to Dr Badza, who knew the signs only too well: you could almost see the defensive hackles rising round his ears. First, the old man looked at the floor, like a practised barrister; then he looked up at Dr Badza, with an indulgent smile on his face, and asked: ‘Doctor, are you telling us that if your daughter was going with a chap, and you knew that chap had Aids, you would not tell her?’
The old man sat down. Dr Badza rose to his feet, as bravely as he could. I must say, he stuck to his guns, even if he was destined to fall with them. ‘No!’ he protested. ‘I would not! I could not under the ethics of my profession!’ His voice cracked and became squeaky, as he tried to keep it up, but was soon drowned out by the tide of unbelieving laughter.
As to condoms, I discovered that private GPs were allocated a monthly ration of 500 to be given away freely. So, once a month, faithfully I would get on my bicycle with a rucksack and pedal up to the provincial medical store. My first appearance was greeted with surprise. It was plain I was the only GP in the town who was applying for his ration. I later learned I was the only one notifying cases of Aids. Far be it from me to play the good little boy at the expense of my colleagues: I expect they had given up the battle as already lost, which it probably was.
It was said that the African men had a prejudice against condoms. All I can say is, my 500 were gone long before the month was out, and I am sure I could have given away many more.
I offer this contribution to the subject for what it is worth.
The new surgery was busy at the beginning and end of each month, when people had money. In the middle weeks it was slack, and I would spend hours reading. From some puritanical habit, I would read only medical books in working hours: study. And indeed, one
always had to in Africa, quite apart from the vocational pleasure I have described. I got through books on tropical medicine (again), on STD (of necessity), and pharmacology. But now and again, for a break, I would stand at the door and observe the street scene, of which my interpreters were Robert and Annie, and sometimes Nyasha.
Late one afternoon there was a power failure. There was thunder about and the sky was overcast. The Indian supermarket opposite was reduced to a dark cave. They started unceremoniously bundling the customers out on to the pavement. Robert explained they were afraid of shoplifters. The owner evidently did not wish his store to become an Aladdin’s cave to his customers.
Sometimes, there was a hue and cry after a tsotsi (thief). It sounded like a pack of dogs. If you shouted ‘stop thief!’ in that country, people didn’t just stare at you as if you had gone mad. Once I saw a single policeman following up, like a huntsman with the Quorn; and the thief would be lucky if the policeman dug him out.
This was called ‘instant justice’ and could also be visited on a motorist who knocked someone down. He was wise to drive on to the nearest police station and report the accident, where his failure to stop would be understood. Otherwise, he too could get a mauling. This kind of thing was commoner at first in other parts of Africa than in Zimbabwe, but they all learn.
One day, a plain-clothes policeman tried to arrest a smuggled watch seller. This time the crowd was not on the side of the law. The policeman drew a revolver and fired a shot in the air, which made no impression at all. Finally, he hailed down a passing taxi and bundled his captive into it.
Another day, a rabid dog ran into our yard. The veterinary people came, calmly got a string round its neck and led it away.
I suppose Dickens’s London must have had scenes like these.
And now I was earning twice my government salary for half the work. Working from nine to five (or rather, from eight to six) for the first time in my life, such are the hours most doctors work, seemed to me like part-time. So we were able to employ servants again: Norah, and a new gardener, John.
Norah occupied the kaya. One day she had an adventure. She was eating lunch outside her house, when a baboon appeared. We described it in a little rhyme:
Little Miss Norah
Sat on the floora,
Eating her bread and jam.
Along came a baboon
And sat on her spoon,
And Norah said, ‘Frightened I am!’
The baboon got up without argument and climbed over the garden wall.
Other animal stories followed. Michael had another adventure with a snake. Terry would take the children to the swimming pool after school. One day a black mamba streaked towards them - or rather towards Michael. He was six or seven at the time and, unlike his previous encounter, remembers it clearly. He was in that most dangerous position - between the snake and its hole. Terry shouted, ‘Run, Michael, run!’ Michael was confused for a moment. He remembered my caution: if he stood up a black mamba in the bush, to freeze. Fortunately, on the present occasion, he followed his mother’s advice.
A family were picnicking near a river, when a lioness appeared and picked up a young child in its mouth in a maternal sort of way. In an even more maternal sort of way, the mother jumped on the lioness’s back and twisted its ears, until it released her child. The child needed nineteen stitches at the hospital.
A man got mauled by a leopard. This was while I was still at the hospital. The leopard either bit or clawed a hole in his head. I raised a flap of scalp and washed out a perforation of the skull beneath, before excising the scalp wound and closing the scalp.
At the risk of spoiling these stories, I have to confess that all these creatures, except the resident mamba, escaped from a local zoo, and the incidents could have happened in England (except for more awareness of ‘health and safety’).
Besides which, never having learned, we had more animals of our own. Again starting with cats: first a little girl, called Chocky after her colour. She did not last long, getting run over. I found Michael, then about four, weeping silently on his bed. Both our children had soft hearts. I suppose having pets develops their emotions: a rueful consolation, perhaps, as far as parents are concerned.
Then, as a consolation, Blackie, a boy. Alas, he was sleeping under the car one day when Terry took off. No, he wasn’t run over. He climbed into the works and dropped off when Terry slowed near the school. She saw him go, and he didn’t come back, not surprisingly, perhaps. At least the chidren did not cry; they felt they could leave him at school.
Then, at last, a dog: a Jack Russell, called Whisky. He grew up into a lively little fellow. He would race round and round the house when the mood took him, though he had plenty of walks, even though it was difficult to let him loose in town, except in the school grounds. Alas, he, too was run over.
Then another cat, boy, called Smokey: grey coat. But we did not feed him correctly - lean mince only, so he got rickets and couldn’t climb trees or jump over walls. He survived to find a home with Dozie and Boyce when we came to leave the country (as will be told); and was followed by two beautiful fox terriers, Snoopy and Socksy. They too found a good home with an African lady who was obviously fond of dogs.
One day, after two years in the practice, I decided quite suddenly to leave Africa and take my family to England. The reasons were plain and mostly concerned our children.
We could see their way clear to the age of eighteen. We were not leaving for educational purposes, as people in England later thought. We had them in good private schools, which we would be lucky to match in the English state system; but after that, the future was problematical.
If everything in Zimbabwe were perfect, we would still have been members of a dwindling minority group. (At university, our children would have been in a mere handful of their own kind.) Minority groups have made great contributions to the world: the Jews are the outstanding example. But nobody knows better than the Jews the disabilities of minority groups.
Everything in Zimbabwe was not perfect. There was a million unemployed in a population of ten million. The economy was declining. The menace of Aids was already bigger than a man’s hand, with its incalculable threat to the national life.
I sat on it for two days, although I was inwardly certain, before telling my wife, who readily agreed.
And Terry was going to feel the worst of it. The children would be easiest: they would adapt readily. I had done my work in Africa: my main concern now was to support my family. But Terry was leaving her native land, her family, and worst of all, her old father, with little prospect of seeing him again this side the grave.
We thought about the servants we were discharging, with no prospect of re-employment. I thought of lump sums, pensions - both would quickly wither in the rising inflation. Then Terry came up with a stroke of genius: we would buy them knitting machines. An African with a knitting machine is in business for life. We got one for Norah, and another for Beauty, John’s wife (which eventually, John, too, learned to use). Years later, we got letters telling us they were still in business.
We were not going to come away rich. We sold everything. Through official and approved private channels, after eighteen years in the country, I realised £10,000, and received a civil service pension of £100 a month. I had enough savings in England to cover a modest house.
‘Look thy last on all things lovely!’ Africa would always have a place in our hearts - the ‘great spaces washed with sun’. We took a last holiday: a few days at Hwange game park, where we heard the lions in the night; a lodge by the Zambezi - the wide Zambezi, the rolling river.
I wrote to England: ‘I brought nothing into this continent (except, in Wildean fashion, my genius), and it is certain I shall carry nothing out of it - except a loving wife and children, incomparable professional experience, and a life of adventure.
THE END
October, 1995.
ss the Wide Zambezi: A Doctor's Life in Africa
Across the Wide Zambezi: A Doctor's Life in Africa Page 42
