Auld Lang Syne

31st December 2006

Hogmanay. I spend all morning engrossed in Rupert Everett’s autobiography, and having finished it, I have a slightly disconsolate afternoon. It’s partly that bereft feeling that you get after having read a good book too quickly, but maybe it’s also the dispiriting effect of reading endless accounts of international travel and glittering parties when you are stuck out in the bush in Africa. (Rupert does go to rural Zambia near the end of the book, but it only merits one paragraph; Joan Collins’ wedding gets three pages.)

It is a humid, overcast day, and it drags on and on. Chas and I have run out of conversation by about two thirty, and there is no one around to distract us. We are both a bit fidgety and fed up, having planned to go away for New Year and then, predictably, having failed to organise it.

In the evening, there is a small gathering at Beatrice’s house. We are just clearing up the dishes when we hear singing outside. The women of the Santa Anna society are meeting for a retreat tonight. Thirty of them are singing and dancing by Beatrice’s front door. Beatrice is dragged into the middle of the circle, looking over her shoulder with a panicked expression on her face. I take pity and follow her. The women ululate loudly as we join them, doubtlessly anticipating a typically European display of ineptitude on the dance floor. We do not disappoint them, although we do bow out when they try to get us to copy their kneeling-and-rapid-pelvic-thrusting manoeuvre. (I’m not sure what that’s about, but I do know that I’ve never seen them do it in church.)

The singing and dancing carries on until midnight, and we bring in the New Year together. Chas and I then lead the remaining revellers in an off-key version of Auld Lang Syne. Initially, our duet receives an uncertain reception, but by the end, everyone obligingly crosses their arms and runs in and out in the time-honoured fashion. Possibly more of a cultural robbery than an exchange – they gave us their best saucy dancing and we reciprocated with the Caledonian hokey-cokey. But we have a good time together all the same.

3rd January 2007

We arrive in Lukwipa for the mobile clinic. The church where we work sits back from the road, at the other side of a muddy patch of land. There has been a lot of rain over the last few days. I tentatively drive across, and am relieved to make it to the other side without getting bogged down. The church roof has seen better days, and the area where I normally see patients is flooded, so I set up in a corner and start work. Halfway through the clinic the rain starts to fall though the roof immediately above me, and I am forced to retreat further to prevent my notes turning into papier mache.

At the end of the clinic, I realise that Adamson has not shown up. Adamson holds the all-time clinic record for a low CD4 count, and he was recently discharged from the hospice after starting on treatment. I am a bit worried about him, so I decide to pay him a visit. I set off in the Landcruiser, and get completely stuck in the swamp at the roadside. I work my way through the 4WD settings, but every time I rev the engine, I feel the car sinking below me. I look up from fiddling around with the gearstick, and realise that all the men in the market opposite are staring at me. Just as I am beginning to resign myself to a long, humiliating wait in a muddy hole, some of the patients appear. They work quickly together, piling stones below the tyres, and then they assemble at the rear to push me out. I press my foot down on the accelerator, and magically, the vehicle starts to move, onto the safety of the tarmac ahead. When I finally get to Adamson’s house, I find him looking and feeling really well. I sit on the floor with him, checking his medicines, and admiring his new baby girl. Some journeys are worth a bit of sweat.