Across the Wide Zambezi: A Doctor's Life in Africa (51 page)

     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.