We are in a bar on Likoma Island, a small blotch of land in Lake Malawi, close to the border with Mozambique. It’s dark, lit by kerosene lamp. There’s Carlsberg beer, warm, in green or brown bottles, and not much else except Coke and Fanta, also warm, which is what we drink when we can’t filter water. It is May 1989 and we are on our honeymoon.
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My last impacted wisdom tooth woke up three months before our wedding. At first, I thought I could ignore it, but I’d already learned three times before that ignoring tooth pain never ends well. It would be bad if a full-on dental emergency blew up right before the wedding. A whole lot worse if it happened in Malawi, where there would be spotty medical care. After the swelling was down and the pain backed off, I had invitations to address and mail. I sealed a bunch of envelopes before I noticed a dark smear on the flaps and realized that it was dried blood.
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A week after the wedding, we were in our doctor’s office, getting injections for yellow fever and prescriptions to prevent malaria.
“Haven’t you kids ever heard of the Bahamas?” he asked, as he prepared a dose. He did not look pleased.
We laughed, nervously. Our friends had the same response when we told them where we were going. The explanation was that we’d planned this trip long before deciding to get married. A friend of mine was serving in the Peace Corps. She wrote to me frequently and said we should visit her in Malawi while she was posted there. When my boyfriend proposed, we planned a cheap wedding and spent our money on the trip.
By now we’ve been in Malawi for a few weeks and we’re doing just fine with the warm beer. My tongue still searches out the new-healed gum in the back of my mouth. An ice cube would feel good, but there aren’t any here. Our sole companion at the bar tonight is a portly man who has been regaling us with stories of his colorful childhood and career. He is a doctor, he tells us, works at the local clinic. He tells us how few doctors there are in the country, how most people with a degree leave. But he stayed here.
A good thing I had that tooth cut out, I whisper to my husband, and he nods.
The doctor’s face is damp with sweat, though the sun is down and the air has begun to cool. I assume it must be his night off, because he is well and truly polluted when a priest, dressed in robes of the Anglican church, slips in and speaks quietly into the doctor’s ear.
“Have to go,” the doctor slurs and rises unsteadily. “Back to clinic.”
“There’s been an emergency,” the priest says.
“‘Mergency,” the doctor repeats.
My husband and I look at each other, and then at the priest, the three of us silently acknowledging the obvious: this doctor is in no condition to care for anyone. But there is no one else. The doctor follows the priest towards the door, stumbles, and my husband reaches for his arm.
“May we accompany you?” My husband asks. “We have a flashlight.”
“Yes,” the doctor says. “Come.”
My husband is insatiably curious, but I am wondering if we should instead return to our inn. I am not sure we should be witnessing what the priest has described as an emergency.
The priest tells us that the clinic is a short walk away along a dirt path. By now I know the red dust that our feet kick up, the velvety powder that covers everything, our clothes, our skin. When we wash, the water turns the russet color of autumn leaves back home. My husband’s flashlight bores a hole in the darkness. The nights here startle me: no ambient light, a black dome speckled with stars I don’t recognize.
Right now—as I often have in these last weeks—I feel very white, very stupid, very naïve. This happened the moment we landed at the airport in Lilongwe and my friend’s husband picked us up in his truck. Within minutes my husband fell asleep, but my mind was too revved up. Jetlag exhaustion turned everything out the windows dreamlike and unreal. I heard an unfamiliar hum in the air—insects buzzing in another language. The car tires churned up the dirt road, wafting clouds of dust that flared in the sun. There were people on foot along the side of the road, most barefoot. Some of the children had bloated bellies. My friend’s husband explained that the diet here was poor, mostly nsima, a staple porridge made from sun-bleached and pounded corn, and often not much else. Corn was a testy crop, an import that failed in years of drought.
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Inside the clinic, there is an examination area where a trio is waiting for the doctor: two men and a woman. The priest explains that they cannot speak the local Malawian language because they have rowed over from Mozambique. Likoma Island is a beneficiary of international medical funding, so the closest available healthcare is this clinic and this drunk doctor.
One of the men lies on his side on a low cot. He has been shot in back of his right leg as he ran away from RENAMO guerillas, a casualty of the everyday violence during the civil war that has been raging just across the water. The guerillas are funded by South Africa which opposes a communist government in Mozambique. The priest explains this to us in a hushed voice. In this country, a dictatorship, most of the kind and generous people we’ve met will not speak about politics at all, so I am surprised by what he shares with us. I imagine that his role in the church offers him certain liberties. Though the priest does not elaborate, I infer that the South African-funded guerillas are willing to kill civilians to accomplish their goal.
I have never seen a gunshot wound before. The man’s lower leg is shattered, bloody bone shards have flayed open the skin, revealing muscle shredded to pulp. I look, the image imprinted forever. I cannot unsee it. The wounded man lies silent, staring at the wall in front of him. Not a twitch, not a grimace, not a cry, though he must be in excruciating pain.
We watch as the drunk doctor gives the injured man an injection that I hope is morphine and then stabilizes what is left of his leg, using plaster and bandage. The result is a crude cast with the open wound still visible through a gauze wrapping that quickly stains. The priest and the doctor discuss what will happen the next morning. The trio will board the ferry that we will also take to travel south along the lake.
The man and woman who have accompanied the injured man have a small bag with them. It appears to be full of grain, perhaps the pounded corn or manioc root used to make nsima. In my friend’s house we eat nsima with beans and hot sauce. These three don’t seem to have anything else with them. Nsima needs to be cooked. I wonder how this will happen on a ferryboat. Our backpacks are stuffed with oranges, tinned meat I would not buy back home, but is a luxury item here, and a bag of white bread—somewhat stale but not yet moldy—so we will eat it.
I’ve been so distracted by thoughts of food, a daily preoccupation on this trip, that only now I notice that my husband, usually as ready with questions as a reporter, is as quiet as I am. On the way back to our inn we do not speak about what we have seen.
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At home in New York City, a place of endless evening amusements, I am a night owl. Here, I wake at dawn, since we are usually in bed shortly after nightfall and there is no electricity. Outside, I see the silhouettes of men at water’s edge preparing boats for a day of fishing and women collecting water. The day brightens rosy. The air is still cool, but soon the heat will come.
We board the ferry. Our destination is Monkey Bay, a town on the southern tip of the lake. My friend and her husband have described it as a beautiful spot, where we can stay in a comfortable room right on the beach. There will be fresh fish and eggs to eat. Warm Coke and Fanta. Carlsberg green and brown. Colorful fish you can see just by dipping your face in the water.
The heat softens the day as the ferry chugs along. I’m near the end of the only book I’ve brought—V.S. Naipaul’s A Bend in the River—but lethargy overtakes me. A young woman traveler sits next to us on the crowded deck. She is from New Zealand and has been traveling on and off for a few years. She is so slight and petite and yet she has been everywhere on her own, even traveled by raft on the Congo River. Her backpack is tiny. Just essentials, she says. I can see we have different ideas about essentials. One extra t-shirt. A toothbrush and toothpaste, a bottle of soap. A swimsuit. A chitenge cloth that can be worn as skirt. I have one now as well since women are not permitted to wear trousers or short dresses in Malawi. My husband had to cut off his shoulder length hair before we left New York. The three of us talk together and share food. She asks me how I like A Bend in the River. Good, I tell her. Really good.
“Can I have it when you’re done?” she asks.
Usually I cherish books I’ve read and loved. I want to keep them with me, so I can relive the pleasure I experienced in their pages. But I can tell she really needs this book. “Sure,” I tell her.
We’ve been so lost in conversation that it is only now I see the trio from the evening before, huddled together in one of the few shaded spots on deck. They still have the bag of food, unopened. There is a concession on board where we get in line to buy some fried corn patties to offer the travelers. The wounded man looks the same. The bandage is already soiled. He stares off in silence, his face blank. I’m sure the pain medication has worn off by now. His companions accept the food we’ve bought and oranges from our supply, and then we return to our new friend from New Zealand. We tell her only a brief version of what we witnessed the night before.
The ferry pulls in to the port of Nkhotakota. We watch as ferry staff carry the injured man off the boat. I wonder what will happen to him, if he will lose his leg, whether he will even make it home again or succumb to an infection. The land here is flat and we can see the road that leads from the port into the blazing landscape. From way off, a flashing light catches the sun. Now it is coming closer and we can just make out the cries of a siren.
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An evocative, distressing account. A privilege to follow Julie into this very different world.
This was so beautiful, so powerful! Thank you, Julie!