By the time she left his office, it was almost six o’clock. He had more patients to see and post-op patients to check. Véronique wandered back to the dormitory, and went to find the dining room, and when she did, it was a big room with long refectory tables, and more fans circulating overhead. The smells from the kitchen were delicious. The nurses she had already met in the wards walked in as she was looking around, and invited her to sit at their table.
More nurses joined them a few minutes later, and within half an hour all the tables were full with laughing, talking, chatting women. It looked and sounded like a girls’ school for adults, only no one was glum or unhappy to be there. There was an atmosphere of real joy and pride about what they were doing, and it was contagious. Several of the nuns made a point of introducing Véronique to the other nuns and nurses. They were all interested in where she was from, and how she had heard about them, and asked how long she was staying. They were an open, friendly group of women, who all made her feel welcome. They had chicken with delicate spices to eat for dinner, cornmeal, plantain, and some vegetables she didn’t recognize but it all tasted delicious. After she had eaten, the trip caught up with her. She could hardly keep her eyes open, as she headed to her room. She brushed her teeth, put on pajamas, and crawled under the mosquito netting, and before she could put her head on the pillow, after she turned out the light, she was instantly asleep. So far, she loved everything she’d seen and everyone she’d met at Saint Matthew’s. It felt like coming home.
The next morning, after breakfast at six, she took a quick shower according to the schedule, and arrived at the hospital as Dr. Dennis was starting his rounds. He had two nurses with him, whom she hadn’t met yet, and he introduced her. Both were British, Prudence and Felicity. She accompanied them to the wards, and observed what they were doing. Many of the children were severely damaged after accidents, and several of them had disfigured faces, mostly due to the minefields. One little girl, who appeared to be about four or five, cried when he checked her dressing. She had been in a mine explosion when walking to the river with her mother. She had deep scars on her face that looked similar to Véronique’s. She smiled at the little girl, and pointed to her own face. The little girl stared at her and stopped crying, and asked her mother in their dialect how the lady had hurt her face. Felicity translated it for Véronique, and Véronique answered without feeling self-conscious, possibly for the first time.
“A big explosion,” she said to the mother, gesticulating with her arms to show how big it was, and said “Boom!” loudly to go with it. The little girl laughed when she did, and let Dr. Dennis examine her. She watched Véronique with interest the entire time.
The little girl smiled again when they left her, looked at Véronique and said “Boom!” herself and pointed to Véronique, and they all laughed.
“Yes, boom!” Véronique said again, and pointed to her face. Then the child said something to her mother, which Felicity translated again.
“She says you are very pretty,” Felicity said with a smile.
“Thank you!” Véronique answered her. “You are very pretty too,” she said, pointing to the little girl and smiling, as Felicity translated again. The little girl giggled and hid her face in her pillow. They moved on and Véronique was still smiling. The nurses didn’t comment on the exchange or ask further details about the scars on Véronique’s face. “Boom” seemed to cover it.
When they finished the doctor’s rounds, he took Véronique out to the car he drove while he was there. All the doctors used it. “I thought I’d give you a look at the nearby villages.” He spoke the local dialects well enough to converse with the patients easily and occasionally used a translator for difficult cases, so he got all the information he needed accurately. He was deeply committed to the people in the area and the goals of the HALO Trust, to make Angola mine-free in the future. Their name stood for “Hazardous Area Life-support Organization” and he’d known many of the young people in the villages since they were born.
They followed a deeply rutted road and stopped at a village about ten miles away with a lot of mud huts and a few shaky-looking small wooden buildings. Several of the residents recognized him and greeted him warmly, as they walked around. A stream ran alongside the town, where women were washing clothes and carrying vessels of water and baskets on their heads. Most of them wore sandals, many were barefoot. Their poverty was evident, but they were friendly and welcoming to Dick and Véronique. No one looked unfriendly or unhappy. A few were eating, and there were cows nearby.