For Justice, Understanding and Humanity. Helmut Lauschke

the changes around and inside the ball, and the amazements and speechlessnesses similar to the observation when the flame burns down the wick in the centre of the candle what made the story of life so thoughtful.

      I showed the permit to the guard at the checkpoint who took a look into a journal given by a woman through the open window of her car when she passed the lifted barrier rod without control. The guard said ‘goeienaand!’ [good evening] and let the doctor pass without taking notice of the permit. The other soldiers at the checkpoint followed the nonchalance in contrast with their instructions, but with a smile. I pulled off the sandals in the verandah when a huge detonation shaked the village and the power was cut off. I lit up a cigarette and took a seat on the step in front of the verandah door.

      Elands with the long ninety-millimetre barrels and Casspirs with the sit-up and rifle-armed squads took the sharp curve and speeded to the exit of the village for a field patrol. The heavy vehicles left behind big sandy clouds on the gravel road. I sat still on the step when heavy guns roared and grenades detonated with sharp noises. The heavy howitzers from the camp started firing and shook the village with each shot. The impacts were heavy and followed by long dull sounds. “The hard fists of the desperate last battle hit the field and shook the surroundings of Oshakati with its anxious but helpless people, goats and the few thin cattles in a zone of a losing war with the sinking apartheid vessel”. This was what I got in mind when I lit up a cigarette. The sky put on its nightdress as an ocean of sparkling stars and the broad moon sickle pulled up the humorous face of a clown as there is something to laugh at or to grouse about that everything was a misunderstanding that things had to be understood in another way. The Elands came back with headlights on full beam what put the front walls of the houses in a glaring light when they took the sharp right curve in front of the flat. The Casspirs were still in the field to complete the business of revenge with the debit order of torture and shootings.

      I went to the kitchen for a cup of tea and something to eat from the tasteless grey bread spread with margarine and sausage. The huge detonation was still in my ear when I ate the slices. The telephone rang and I thought it was the nurse from outpatient department who informed me of injured people who were brought. However, it was Leon Witthuhn who mentioned the advertisement and the importance to get more doctors at Oshakati hospital. He said that the detonation had shaken his asbestos house. “We need more doctors, if this goes on”, and he expressed the shock he got. “It is the madness that comes up to us. What can we do, if a grenade hits the hospital? Can you imagine the catastrophe?”, Leon asked.

      I could not imagine the extent of such a disaster. I tried to calm the acting medical director by saying that I do not wish the hospital a grenade. I immediately came aware that this remark was everything else than a soothing pill in terms of a tranquillizer that the friend had needed for the night. The question flashed through my brain, if there could be a human being who wished another human being a grenade impact that was not only possible under the escalating circumstances, but had to be taken seriously into account after the laws of the probability. I tried to lower the worries of the friend and said that I was convinced that the young German doctors would react on the advertisement who like to collect their practical experiences in the shortest period of time.

      It was an optimistic remark, because who of the Germans would take the life risk to work under war and other miserable conditions at Oshakati hospital? I asked the friend after his girlfriend and recognized that he should have asked the question earlier to divert the friend from his concerns. The mood went up and Leon told that he will fetch her on the weekend. “I didn’t tell her of the grenade impacts, because she is very concerned about the security situation. In each phone call, she is asking about security.” “I agree, but we are also human beings”, I replied and wished the friend a quiet night.

      I sat for a moment in the outseated armchair to continue supper when the telephone rang again. I set the cup with the cold tea back on the table and put up the receiver. It was the nurse from the outpatient department who informed of three seriously injured which were brought ten minutes ago. She said that she tried several times to call me, but the phone was engaged. I explained that I had a call from the medical director who was concerned about the huge detonation which had shaken the village. The nurse told that the tremor had jumbled up the drugs in the cabinet and had smashed the glass in four windows. I stuffed the rest of the second slice into my mouth, emptied the cup of cold tea, put on the sandals in the verandah and drove with the beetle to the hospital.

      I speeded over the gravel road that the wheels jumped up and down through the potholes. A big sand cloud followed the car and caught it up when I stopped in front of the closed barrier rod at the heavily guarded checkpoint. I showed the permit and told that I was in hurry. The guards believed the doctor and lifted the barrier rod without inspection of the car. The hospital gate war far open and not guarded by the gatekeeper. I parked the car in front of the two windows of the short wall of the intensive care building. The place in front of the outpatient reception was empty. The people who normally stayed overnight at this place should have moved to another place inside the premises. I thought that the people had expected koevoet with the Casspirs after this huge detonation which was not far away.

      I entered the waiting hall and saw three trolleys with injured people. The first injured had a torn-open stomach with a prolapse of torn intestinal loops. On the second injured the right forearm and the left leg were missing. The upper arm and the leg stump were tied to stop the bleeding. The third injured had a torn face on which the left ear was missing. He could not see on his left eye due to a piece of metal that had injured the lens and stuck in the eyeball.

      The nurse had taken the blood samples for cross-match and a young nurse had found the lab assistant and had given him the three samples. Infusion bags with physiological saline solution were put on each injured. I informed the anaesthetic doctor on call who was Dr Nestor, the new superintendent, and the theatre staff of the emergencies. One injured after the other were carried on the trolleys with squeaking rollers to the theatre building. The first operation was on the injured with the torn-open stomach. I had carried him to the theatre room 3 where I and two nurses put him from the trolley on the operating table. Dr Nestor appeared in operating clothes with a slight delay. The shock after the detonation was still in his face.

      He pulled up the syringe for the induction and adjusted the levels of oxygen and nitrous oxide [laughing gas] on the anaesthetic machine. The instumenting nurse laid out the instruments on the instrument table, while I washed hands and forearms over the large zinc tub in the washing passge. The lab assistant brought four bags of blood for the patient and the first bag were connected for transfusion, while the other three bags were put in a thermostat to warm them up to body temperature. The patient was cleaned with the brown disinfectant solution and covered with sterile green sheets. I made a midline incision, while the nurse held the prolapsed bowel away. Blood were sucked from the abdominal cavity. The ruptured and bleeding spleen were removed and the bleeding mesenteric vessels were ligated. Intestinal loops with big tears were cut out and new bowel connections [anastomoses] were done. The urinary bladder was torn and were sutured. Other tears on the descending colon segment and the left kidney were sutured as well. Two wound drains were put in, one under the left diaphragm and the other to the deep abdominal pouch [of Douglas]. The closing of the abdominal wall was complicated by the torn tissue that had partly to be cut out. The operation went over two hours when the wound were dressed.

      Dr Nestor had difficulties to bring up the blood pressure to a measurable level. All four blood units were given during the operation. The condition of the patient was critical and the operation were done in head-down position of the operating table. All hands took part to bring the patient on the trolley who were carried to the recovery room.

      I went to the small tea room and filled two cups of tea, one for Nestor and one for me, and put the cups on the pen-scribbled wooden plate of the small club table. “Have you an idea where the detonation had occurred? It couldn’t be so far from the hospital”, I asked Nestor when he entered the tea room. “We can be grateful that the hospital wasn’t hit.” Nestor agreed, because nobody could imagine the extent of the catastrophe in such a case. “I hope the madness comes soon to an end. The damage is already big enough”, he said. I thought for a moment of the young colleague and writer