Eighty Not Out (14 page)

Simbu, who lived in the village, was supposed to keep the vegetation surrounding the hut complex short and snake free. Da and he, as salaried government employees, were therefore figures of substance in the community. The caretaker should have commanded more deference than a mere grass-cutter, but nobody had much respect for Da, as he belonged to the Lobi tribe, many of whose customs and taboos were widely despised. They filed their front teeth, were reputed to eat dogs and snakes, did not allow women to eat chicken or eggs; their artefacts were crudely made and personal hygiene was not a priority. Da had a pregnant wife and a two-year-old son; all three looked malnourished – indeed, the child exhibited the classic signs of kwashiorkor: reddish hair and a distended belly. He clung to his mother, from time to time grabbing a razor strap breast for comfort.

It was clear that, as a woman who was going to spend a lot of time on my own while Fergus was at the laboratory, I would have to establish myself as second in the pecking order. Adda had not yet returned, so in the meantime a daily routine would need to be set down. The local pidgin was even more basic than what I had learned, and the regional dialects so numerous that even Adda was to have problems. Now resigned to being ‘Mama', I winced when Fergus was addressed as ‘Massa'; we encouraged the use of ‘Doctor' in preference, but with limited success. I counted the days until Adda's return, confident that he would establish order, and that his dominance, as an ‘educant' who had attended a mission school and could read and write, over Da and Simbu would be accepted without protest.

The three bridges on the tortuous thirteen-mile track back to Wa were liable to inundation, and could be washed away during flash floods, so it was imperative that work on the bungalow should be finished before the next rains. The good news circulated that Fergus was a soft touch for a lift, so each morning a hopeful group waited beside the vehicle – mostly the project Land Rover, but sometimes the Peugeot 504 shooting brake, which had replaced our Zephyr: it might have been a Bentley considering the awe it inspired. He learned to inspect the contents of large bundles before allowing them on board; if they contained dried fish or monkey flesh, the owners were encouraged to walk or wait for one of the open trucks that visited the village on market days, but these cost two shillings, well beyond the means of most. Patients for the health centre who displayed open sores, gigantic umbilical hernias or other obvious afflictions were never refused; nor were the very old, even if their excuse for a visit was unconvincing. Pregnant women with bowls of eggs or writhing red and yellow hairy caterpillars to sell at the market were also hard to refuse. The arrival of long-stay occupants of the rest-house was a major event: this couple displayed none of the autocratic ways of some previous visitors, and seemed genuinely interested in the wellbeing of the people, so goodwill must be maintained to ensure a continued taxi service. Gifts began to arrive within days of our taking up residence: mainly fruit and vegetables, but sometimes a bowl of guinea-fowl eggs, only a quarter of which would be fit for consumption.

The plan of the house was based on two circles: the larger living area was open to a veranda, from which a path led down to the dam; the smaller was a bedroom with an en suite recess for a handbasin, shelves and a shower, from which a trickle of murky water full of wrigglers flowed. The kitchen was a flat-roofed afterthought leading off the living room. Our priority, as usual, was to get the refrigerator working, as the only other means of storing food was in a wood and wire-mesh meat safe, the legs of which stood in tins of kerosene to deter ants and cockroaches. Not even a long-handled brush, dustpan or mop was to be seen. Da's sweeping technique involved bending double, with a loosely tied bundle of dried grasses; for dusting chairs, shelves and tabletops he used an ancient feather duster. Almost all the letters I wrote to my mother asked for supplies of Wettex cloths, the lives of which were short because my instructions that they should be squeezed rather than wrung dry were ignored. My pleas for the correct use of clothes pegs were also ignored; I pointed out the circular gap that was meant to grip the line, but they were thrust to the hilt, putting maximum stress on the spring. The wooden sort were useless, as they just disappeared. Washing was a back-breaking job carried out between a stone sink and two battered zinc buckets; notwithstanding this and the need to conserve water, clothes always emerged looking bright and clean. This phenomenon exists throughout Africa: on their day off, immaculately dressed men in crisp white shirts emerge from primitive abodes. Compared with the current situation, life at Kintampo had been one of pampered luxury.

I found ample material for missionary zeal in an effort to improve the dietary habits of Da's family: the child ate no fruit, eggs, meat or vegetables, and it was clear that his mother's milk supply was inadequate. To my ultimate regret I encouraged supplementary use of
USAID
(United States Agency for International Development) dried milk powder: this worked well enough when I was around to supervise, but in my absence milk would be left uncovered or in feeding bottles lying around on the ground, a magnet for flies. Advice was listened to politely, but while the parents were concerned by the child's failure to thrive, no serious effort was made to introduce a more varied diet. Future prospects for the survival of this toddler were grim after the birth of the next child.

Simbu, accompanied by two lively puppies, reported for duty every day. Smart in appearance, wearing clean cream shorts with matching top and turban, cutlass in hand, he was the antithesis of Da; his life, however, was not without its problems, details of which were later revealed to Adda. His first wife, though nominally a good Muslim, had drunk beer and smoked hash; the second just sat around all day and refused to cook. Clearly disenchanted by lack of success in the marriage market, Simbu said: ‘I finish, they be all the same.' It was suspected that his second wife had been pregnant at the time of purchase, so she had been returned to her family, with which there was an ongoing dispute over the price originally demanded, some of which was still, according to her father, outstanding.

Simbu made an eight-hour onslaught on the shrivelled vegetation surrounding the compound, stopping only for a short break at midday to consume a dish of boiled cassava seasoned with chilli pepper and palm oil sauce. The resulting cull was eleven snakes ceremoniously laid out for Massa's inspection when he returned from Wa in the late afternoon: some were pronounced harmless, others were vipers, but there was one black spitting cobra of the type that had blinded Da. The heads, one of which had been in the act of swallowing a toad, were then buried to ensure that nobody would extract the poison to use for tipping arrows.

Late at night, after the day of compound cutting, I was sitting in the lavatory hut, enjoying the beauty of the moonlit scene, when a reptilian head appeared at the open door. Mesmerised, I lifted my feet off the ground while the seven-foot snake made a slow circuit of the hut, disappearing behind me for what seemed an interminable time, before sliding off in the direction of the main house. I raised the alarm, but immediately regretted having done so when the compound quickly filled with frenzied humanity swinging oil lamps, wielding cutlasses and assorted heavy sticks. The hapless cobra tried to climb the curved slope at the base of the house wall, making itself an easy target, and was decapitated. I felt something of a traitor and reproached myself for having overreacted – after all, it had only been searching for food and had not threatened me. After that, when I saw anything that might trigger a murderous hunt, I kept quiet.

The village policeman regularly accompanied a procession of women to a safe spot that he chose on the shore of the dam, where they could wash clothes and gather water for the day. Bearing on their heads a variety of receptacles, from calabashes and beautiful giant clay pots, down to buckets and chipped enamel bowls, the women complained loudly when his choice involved a longer walk than necessary, but they were in awe of his authority, so laughter was subdued and the spontaneous merriment characteristic of washing assemblies throughout Africa was absent. The proximity of three young crocodiles on the opposite shore did not noticeably worry any of them.

Each morning at seven the primary school children were taken to the edge of the dam for their morning bath: this consisted of the children stripping off and huddling in a compact group, over which the teacher threw several buckets of water. It was his duty to ensure that nobody urinated in, or defecated near, the water. Sadly, swimming in the dam was prohibited, as a means to limit transmission of bilharziasis and Guinea-worm infections. Any person with an open Guinea-worm sore was forbidden to enter the water at all. Bilharziasis is a debilitating disease, the severity of which depends on what Fergus cringingly described as ‘the worm load'; but Guinea-worm disease (dracunculiasis) struck me as the more horrible of the two. A long worm can emerge from sites such as the lower leg, the nipple, the end of the tongue, or even the penis. With patience the worm can be wound around a matchstick, taking care not to break it, because to do so risks formation of an abscess. Control of Guinea worm is simple – just boil the drinking water. River-blindness (onchocerciasis), spread by a tiny black fly, was also widespread in the region. Added to repeated attacks of malaria and limited diet, the chances of survival to adulthood were low – many babies died in their first year, others before they were five.

After the initial cutting, there was little for Simbu to do, but still he reported daily with the two pups, which were quick to sense that in my company life was bountiful. Both were smooth-haired pi dogs with a white diamond on the forehead, and a white-tipped tail: the bitch, Fu-Fu, was a ginger-coloured sharp-witted opportunist wary of all humans; but the darker, brindle male, known as Simbu Dog – there being no possessive in pidgin English – was devoted to me and would lie blissfully contented in my lap, legs in the air, while I tickled his pink belly. His proportions were good and he smelled of clean young animal and wood smoke. Jealous of anyone who made rival demands on my attention, he would get between me and the intruder, snapping at his sister if she came too close. The two grew sturdier, thanks to hand-outs from the kitchen, more proof that I was a soft touch where animals were concerned. One of the laboratory assistants begged me to look after his young ‘pet' sheep while he went on leave, but it was quite a while before it dawned on me that the animal was being fattened for slaughter, and leaving it in my care was an insurance against theft.

I had a makeshift desk on the terrace, where, with my Olivetti, I typed regular letters to my mother and coped with Fergus's secretarial work. The contract with the Ghana government and the
UN
stipulated that secretarial help should be provided at all duty stations, but this was seldom honoured, or if there was an efficient secretary, her services would be monopolised by the national counterpart. There were two official typists at Wa, but one was on leave and the other could not type, restricting his talents to clerking. I recall having to produce four copies of a report written for the regional office – I do not know how I did it, because these were the days of carbon copies.

At the outset I had feared loneliness, but soon settled to a routine of food preparation, writing, photography, sewing and resolving minor domestic crises. While we remained at Dorimon the only means of cooking was a Primus stove, so menus were not ambitious. Tomatoes, shallots, peppers and aubergines were never in short supply, nor was cooking oil, so we lived for some weeks exclusively on ratatouille and eggs in one form or another. A whole cow's liver, warm from slaughter, was delivered one morning with the sincere thanks and compliments of a local chief who had benefited from our taxi service. To dispose of this luxury without causing offence posed a real problem, as every activity within the compound would be known in the village by sundown. To feed bits to the dogs would be regarded as outrageous waste; to give large portions to friends and servants might be deemed ungrateful. The cuttingup process was unpleasant and I found myself remembering Fergus's account of a visit to an abattoir during his student days, looking for signs of liver fluke. Adda's return coincided with this gift and I gave bits to him, Da and Simbu, swearing them to a secrecy in which I had little faith, lavish trimmings went to the dogs, and some I claimed to have frozen. Any thought of burial at night was a nonstarter. I would either be discovered in the act or by some mortifying excavation of the site the following day.

Within hours of his appearance, Adda had established a hierarchical pecking order within the compound. Fergus, when on site, was number one; next was me; then Adda usurping Simbu, who was in charge when there was no guest in residence; Simbu reigned over the cowed Da and his wife, whose nominal duties were sweeping in and around the round-house. The only time Da's voice was raised in authority was when a team of compound cutters arrived from Wa and needed surveillance. Even then, Simbu was likely to appear from the village and take over command.

Nearly every day brought some drama, often involving mortality. Much to Adda's satisfaction the nesting house martins, whose droppings adorned the mosquito netting over our bed, were silenced by an unidentified predator after a night of restless chirping. A gun was stolen from a policeman who had carelessly laid it in the ditch while inspecting a headless corpse on the Dorimon–Wa road. There were two murders, and a near skeletal body had been found lying on a mat by the roadside. The drunken driver of an overloaded lorry killed nine of his passengers, all of whom had known he was drunk, but were anxious to get home quickly. Six prisoners awaiting trial died of suffocation in a crowded cell at Wa prison.

By this time we had become reacquainted with Karel and Marta Sin. It was Karel's first assignment outside the Czech Republic and he often consulted Fergus when he had suspicions about the background of cases brought to the hospital. He was learning fast, both at home and at work – so was his wife, who was in charge of paediatric care. In Prague they had lived in a small flat with shared kitchen and bathroom, their only means of transport a Vespa scooter. Now they had a house, servant and their first car, a Volkswagen Beetle. The car had been ‘borrowed' by a friend of his steward, who then crashed it hundreds of miles away near Tamale. Reluctantly he sacked his servant, the intermediary, and embarked on the convoluted process of making an insurance claim. He had been called to examine the decapitated corpse found on the Dorimon–Wa road; it was already ‘high', flesh remaining only on the hands and upper chest. He thought the pool in which it was half lying had dried up, exposing it to view, and that dogs had decapitated it. We suspected it was a cutlass job, and had been dumped. Nobody seemed unduly upset, and no person had been reported missing. On another occasion a woman with a huge belly swore, ‘No not pregnant – last menstruation two months ago'; she was suffering intense pain, no heartbeat could be heard and the swelling was lopsided, so he decided to operate – giving a heavy anaesthetic. The incision revealed a full-term child, which survived the anaesthesia, but only just. Karel was furious, suspecting, as we did, that the woman had wanted an abortion.