Listening for Lions (15 page)

I grew fond of Ngigi. He was more solemn than his father and thought of things beyond the
shamba
s and villages. He confided to me, “A Kikuyu from Nairobi visited the
shamba
s and spoke of ‘Africa for the Africans.' He told of a leader called Jomo Kenyatta. My father ordered the man to go away, but I followed him and listened. The government gave land to the English soldiers who fought in the war. Some of that land had been farmed by the Kikuyu. The government gave no land to the Kikuyu who went to war for them. That is not fair. The Kikuyu are not allowed to own land. Why is that? The man, Kenyatta, spoke of
uhuru
. Was I wrong to listen?”

The word
uhuru
means freedom, a word dear to me. “I don't think you were wrong to listen,” I told Ngigi.

Not only patients came, but peddlers arrived at my doorway with eggs and chickens, squash, bananas, and even goats and sheep. I had been gathered in by the people.
I had ordered a small piano, and on Sundays there were church services again. Kanoro, who was much better, came with his family and sang in a loud, sure voice, for he had not forgotten the hymns.

I had one sad duty. I wrote to Mr. Grumbloch to contact the Pritchards about Valerie's grave. An answer came. The Pritchards wished to have Valerie's coffin returned to England. At last Valerie left the country she so disliked, and I thought of the pony I had seen galloping happily through the grasses and wildflowers of the New Forest.

While waiting for the operating room to be finished and the delivery of a generator to give us electricity, I could attempt little surgery. Instead I treated the lepers, the infections, and the fevers, and brought babies into the world when they were stubborn about coming. By day I was overwhelmed by
wasiwasi
: a crooked wall, men who did not show up for work, constant trips into Nairobi to bring back supplies in the little truck.

In the evening when the last patient left and Ngigi went home, I counted the new rows of brick that had been laid that day at the hospital and ate a supper of cold chicken and beans. I sat on my porch looking out at the way the hills leaned against the horizon, thinking often of Mother and Father, sure that they would be pleased with the hospital.

It was February, hot, and too early for the rains. All around me were the rustling sounds of small night creatures, like the light fingers of a child tapping your shoulder for attention. In the distance I could hear the lions, restless
in the heat, roaring their complaints. I thought of the lions in the zoo at Regent's Park and mourned for them in their captivity. The little green monkeys bickered with one another in the baobab tree, and the bat-eared foxes that slept by day crept out to hunt for termites. A gecko climbed the mud walls of the house to catch the insects attracted by the hurricane lamp. When I awoke at dawn, it was to the sad calls of the wood doves with pale-pink breasts the color of the sunrise.

I knew there would be
wasiwasi
, troubles that no medicine could cure. Drought might come, and with drought, starvation. The government was raising the hut tax and taking land from the Kikuyu reserves. How long would the Kikuyu put up with that? I could not tell the government what to do or bring the rains. I had dreams for Tumaini, dreams of a large hospital with the latest equipment and many doctors, a school for the children, and a nursing school. Many of my dreams for Tumaini might come to nothing, but Tumaini was the Swahili word for hope.

S
wahili is an African language that incorporates words from a number of different languages, including Arabic and English. It is pronounced just as it is written.

L
istening for Lions
is a work of fiction, but I am especially indebted to Dr. C. Albert Snyder for sharing reminiscences of his years as a missionary physician in Rwanda, Africa. When Dr. Snyder and his wife, Louise, first went to Kibogora hospital in Rwanda in 1968, it was a 40-bed rural clinic. It is now a 175-bed full-service medical center with two surgeries, outpatient clinics, and a maternity and nursing school. Dr. Snyder retired in 1990, but in April 1993 a surgeon was needed at Kibogora and Dr. Snyder and his wife returned to Rwanda, only to be forced to leave in the wake of the brutal uprising that killed hundreds of thousands of Rwandans. In 1994 he again returned to Kibogora hospital. A journal of those years and of his struggle to be a missionary doctor in the most challenging of circumstances appears in his book,
On a Hill Far Away
.

The following books were especially helpful:

Amidon, Lynne A.
An Illustrated History of the Royal Free Hospital
. London: The Royal Free Hospital, 1996.

Bell, E. Moberly.
Storming the Citadel: The Rise of the Woman Doctor
. London: Constable & Co. Ltd., 1953.

Dinesen, Isak.
Letters from Africa, 1914–1931
. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.

Snyder, C. Albert.
On a Hill Far Away: Journal of a Missionary Doctor in Rwanda
. Indianapolis, Ind.: Light and Life Press, 1995.

White, Gilbert.
The Natural History of Selborne
. London: Oxford University Press, 1789.

Zimmerman, Dale A., et al.
Birds of Kenya and Northern Tanzania
. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996.

Cover art © 2005 by Brett Helquist