“The cows belong to the chief,” he said to her, “to show that he’s the richest man in the village.” As they got in the car to leave, a man ran up to them and tried to hand a young goat to Dick. He kept bowing and thanking the doctor in Kikongo, and Dick pointed to the car to show he couldn’t take the goat with him, and the donor accepted it back in good humor.
“We give them free services,” he explained to her, “but that’s not how they like to do things, so they bring us melons, and chickens, an occasional goat or a young pig. They like to pay their debts. They’re honorable people. I always tell Phillip about it, and wonder what would happen if our patients gave us pigs or goats in exchange for Botox shots. That could be interesting.” She laughed, thinking of how luxurious their office was. A pig running around the office would definitely be entertaining.
They visited several other villages that were similar, Chiumbo and Lioema, and then looped back to the hospital on another rutted old road. She had seen numerous injured children during their drive. There were many of them, and she could see why their hospital treated so many patients on an ongoing basis.
“The roads get washed out sometimes during the rainy season. It’s harder to get to them then, and for them to come to us. We have an old truck with four-wheel drive, but it’s not reliable. We need so many things here. We have to prioritize very carefully. The medical equipment and supplies come first.” She could see a need for many kinds of equipment. He said the hospital existed on donations of the material they needed and medical supplies. But whatever they got was never enough. And their available funds were limited.
It was after lunchtime by the time they got back to the hospital, and she went to get something to eat in the kitchen, and then to clean up after the drive over the rough roads. She took off her hiking boots and jeans, which were all dusty. Prudence, one of the English nurses, dropped by to say hello while she was changing, and saw the scars on her legs.
“Was that boom too?” They both smiled, thinking of the little girl with the scars on her face in the ward that morning. Véronique nodded and put on fresh jeans.
“Yes, it was. It was a big boom.”
“Military?” she asked her. She had been an army nurse for five years, before she left the military and came to Africa to Saint Matthew’s, recruited by a doctor she knew who volunteered there.
“Brussels airport a year ago,” Véronique said simply.
“Shit,” Prudence said, making a face. “The world is a crazy place these days. I used to see injuries like that when I was an army nurse and something went wrong on maneuvers.” She had recognized the shrapnel wounds.
“I’m okay now,” Véronique said, and meant it.
“What did you do before that, and before you came to Africa?” she asked, curious about her. She looked familiar.
“I was a model before the boom,” she said with a smile, and Prudence stared at her.
“Oh my God, Véronique Vincent? I saw every magazine you were ever in. You were my idol. I dyed my hair the color of yours once. It looked terrible on me. That really is rotten luck. I wondered why I hadn’t seen you in a year. I thought maybe you had a baby and took a year off.”
“No, I took a year off after the boom, in a military hospital in Brussels. I’m trying to figure out the rest now.”
“Will you go back to modeling?” She looked anxious for her.
“Not with this.” She pointed to her face. “It looks better than it did, but it won’t go away. So here I am. It sounds crazy, but I like it here,” she said, smiling at Prudence.
“It is crazy, but we all do. That’s why we stay. They need the help so badly. You go to bed at night knowing you’ve made a difference. I didn’t feel that way in the army, or in a hospital in London afterward. Our doctors at Saint Matthew’s do a great job. It makes you proud to work here, although we don’t have much to work with. We wing it a lot.”
“I can see why you love it,” Véronique said, as they walked toward the dining room together.
“I hope you stay for a while. We can always use a spare pair of hands.”
“That’s why I’m here.” They walked back to the hospital together, and Véronique went to volunteer her services to the nurses in the wards. They put her to work bringing trays of bandages while they changed dressings. She was all too familiar with what they used. She had seen it all in Belgium.
After that, she helped make beds, and colored with crayons with two little girls. Her little friend from the morning waved at her across the ward and shouted “Boom!” and then laughed uproariously, and Véronique laughed too.