Midwife of Borneo by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Women, Medical (Incl. Patients), Personal Memoirs
ISBN: 9780281080311
Google: Z2B5DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: SPCK
Published: 2018-11-15T04:14:39+00:00

The next morning I taught Larnia, Samuel and his mother about labour and childbirth with the aid of a flannelgraph entitled ‘Birth of a baby’. All three stared at it, fascinated, as if the whole process was a revelation to them. Samuel told me that in the kampongs the husband and two men pushed hard on the fundus during labour while a woman pulled at the other end, then one man pushed to expel the placenta. They would cut the cord with bamboo and bury the placenta in bamboo. I remembered my experience with childbirth when I had been with Beryl in Sarawak, not long after my arrival in Borneo, and how strange it had all seemed.

I was fairly certain my sleep was not going to be disturbed by a new baby that night, so after writing my diary and letters I played the Messiah and sat following the score, with Jeremy asleep on my lap. I couldn’t resist joining in. Music and singing had always been a big part of my life. I could barely remember a time when I hadn’t belonged to a choir. But it was now more than nine months since my tonsillectomy, and I still sounded husky and struggled to reach the high notes. What had happened to that clear voice that people used to compare to a choirboy’s? Perhaps it was nothing to do with the tonsillectomy and was simply the effect of living in this unnaturally humid atmosphere. Or perhaps it was, and I just had to give it more time. I gave up and listened to ‘Concert Hour’ on Radio Sarawak.

At Mass the next morning, Arnold said special prayers for ‘Mrs Elsie Grey, leaving England today to travel to Borneo; may God guide and protect her.’ I felt so excited at the thought of Mum beginning her journey, and kept wondering what time she would be sailing and where she might be.

Before opening the dispensary I nipped to the jamban. As I was about to sit down I spotted a large snake in the hole. Was it the one from Joan’s room? It looked rather like it. But wherever it had come from, I didn’t want it making itself at home in our loo. I poured some kerosene into the hole and watched it wriggle. When I went back I couldn’t see it, but I was still afraid to sit down. It was one thing having a snake on the wall in front of me, but quite another having it lurking below the most intimate part of my anatomy. I called for Samuel, who tried to fish it out but couldn’t find it. We decided it must have died.

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