Night time.....

By Dr Sue Catling

Tonight we heard a woman screaming …….. Labour?grief?what?

We don’t know what it was about, but none of us really felt we wanted to go and properly investigate.

Its funny - you tuck yourself into your mosquito net, you spray DEET and Raid and feel safe, and then you hear something like this - a woman screaming, louder and louder , on and on, tearing the night apart. And you think: if this was the UK I’d run out there and investigate, she obviously needs help- is she being attacked, murdered, raped. Or is it grief – has a loved one just died in the hospital?

But because it’s Africa, and unfamiliar, you don’t venture out, and you never find out the answer.

And the next day you feel guilty, but reassured by the fact that no-one else went either. What are the limits of the risks that it’s reasonable to take I wonder?