Chapter 1
‘Senhora! Senhora! SENHORA!’ Each time it got louder as it penetrated my sleep.
‘What is it?’ I shouted.
‘It’s bad, very bad, she’s had the baby but it is bad. Come quickly.’
I fished under the pillow for my torch, crawled from under the mosquito net, pulled on my plastic sandals and a dress over my nightdress and lit the small paraffin lantern. I collected my midwifery bag, left my mud hut and went out into the moonless, hot African night. It was well after midnight in the little-known republic, now called Guinea-Bissau, on the west coast of this great continent.
…
Why would a 30 year old nurse and midwife leave these shores to spend the next 35 years in one of the poorest countries of the world, Guinea Bissau, having to accustom herself to long drop outside toilets, pages of the Readers’ Digest for loo roll, deadly 12 feet long snakes, the risk of contracting all sorts of disease and, comically, for safety’s sake, having to wear a pith helmet at all times when outside?
God’s Needle is the story of Lily Gaynor, who, after an undistinguished school life, became an accomplished medic and, though lacking any linguistic training, invented an alphabet for the Papel language so that those among whom she worked could have books, especially the Bible, in their own tongue.
Arriving in the remote village of Ondame in 1958, Lily set to work, taking a chair and table out under the mango trees where, in the absence of a consulting-room, she held medical clinics. Yet she knew great success over time in the fight against prevalent infections, in large part thanks to what the villagers called “God’s Needle’, her syringe of penicillin.
Traditional medicine worked against good health outcomes, so Lily had to bear witch-doctors’ curses as she sought to educate her neighbours in matters of hygiene and the prevention of illness.
The challenges continued. On many occasions Lily cried out to God for help when she felt frightened and inadequate. For example, only four months into her time in Africa she was asked to single-handedly look after 23 children under five in a children’s home. Eleven of them were suffering from measles, three from TB and there were also two very small premature babies
Perhaps I am presenting a rather depressing impression of this book. In fact, it is book full of hope and happy outcomes peppered with descriptions of humorous situations, such as when Lily, by this time highly respected by neighbours who believed that she had untold medical skills, was required to perform emergency dentistry and even, though with less success, veterinary medicine.
This heart-warming story reminds us of the courage, perseverance and love for the world’s poor shown by missionaries through the ages. Guinea Bissau now has many churches, and the witch-doctors’ hold over the people has diminished.
If you’ve never read a book like this, why not give it a try?
Book review by Penny.