Helmut Lauschke - For Justice, Understanding and Humanity

The reason for her tears was that her father was torn to death by a landmine a month ago what the girl answered. I stood up and left the room to get some air. I was shocked by the heavy blows, the fate had hit the girl and her family. I came back and dried the tears with a sheet of blotting paper from the girl’s face. I took the seat and gave her a smile to comfort her. The girl replied with a clean and innocent smile from her beautiful face which met my heart. I asked her, if she had a grandmother. The girl said that she has a grandmother. So I asked her to come back on the next day with her grandmother that I can explain the problem. The girl stood up. She dropped a curtsy toward me and left the consulting room.

I got deeply moved when I looked at the girl’s fine movement and the swollen arm. I put the X-rays into the bag and put the bag aside on a separate place with the certainty of the beginning of an extremely sad story. The Philippine colleague gave a look of sympathy over the table. He understood the heavy burden that laid down on my shoulders. I was distracted in my mind for quite some minutes. The beautiful girl came with a compound of problems of which a cylinder could be ‘pulled out’. The volume of this cylinder was too big than to fill it with words. The size was shaped by the power of fate that could hardly be understood and reasoned with the normal tools of human intelligence. The magnitude of this case was comparable with the accident of Kristofina who were hit by a lightning in an apocalyptic night during a torrent-like rainfall when the flash had charred her shin bone.

It was around six o’clock in the evening when the waiting benches were cleared up. The Philippine colleague and I washed the hands and the nurse cleaned the table from the piles of X-ray bags and the various forms and the packed plastic syringes, and closed the wings of the two windows. I thanked her for the good work done. The doctors left the consulting room and passed the waiting hall. We parted outside of the outpatient department building and wished each other a quiet night. The Philippine colleague left the hospital for his family and I made a short evening round through the wards to look after the operated patients of the day.

The nurses of the late shift expressed their satisfaction regarding the change in the hospital administration. They said that the change was the basic step to improve the hospital situation. I listened, but my mind was occupied with the girl and her swollen arm due to a malignant bone tumor. After having seen the patients in the intensive care unit, I left the hospital after seven. The sun lay as a blazing fireball on the horizon and submerged within minutes with pulling back the red and violett rays from the evening sky. Watching the magnificent light spectacle, I took a longer way on which I tried to digest the remarkable events of the day. I formed the ball of the day and turned the ball into the various directions forward and backward in trying to understand of what the ball was made that it could submerge beyond the thinkable horizon as the sun did behind the visible horizon.

It was the change from one day to another with all 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.