Afikpo Mater Hospital Feb/Mar 1954 - To Emily Timoney's younger brothers - Conal, Gearóid & Éanna Timoney

Afikpo Mater Hospital

Feb/Mar 1954

Masters Conal, Gearóid & Éanna Timoney,

Redemptorist College,

Mt St. Alphonsus,

Limerick,

Ireland.

                                                     

Photograph: Dr. Emily P. Timoney and Dr. Godfrey Hinds.

My dear Lads,

I hope you are all well. I am keeping any stamps I can get for you, but I had a little letter from Seán asking me to save some for him too. I am still here at Afikpo as the hospital is not ready yet at Obudu which is about 200 miles north from here near the Cameroons. I expect to be going there sometime before the end of this month. Godfrey is very well and sends you his regards. It is very hot here now 102°. We had a very bad tornado last night. It started quite suddenly about 1.0am. Everything in the room was scattered round the place, the curtains were flying madly in the wind. The lightning here is unlike any seen at home, it comes in sheets & forks at the same time & a flash lasts a few seconds lighting up the whole countryside & making a terrific picture of palmtrees swayed over by a furious gale & angry cloudy sky.

I hopped out of bed (quite a job to get out from under the mosquito net) & closed the windows (There is no glass in the windows. Just little wooden doors & bolts) got a rug & hopped into bed again & lay shivering with fright as each flash of lightning lit up the room (there is a wide open space to the outside between the roof and the walls) and the claps of thunder were earsplitting & seemed to be just overhead. They came in quick sequence like a firing squad! The rain poured down & made a terrible racket on the 'pan' roof (aluminium). Then just as quickly it all stopped again.

There are millions of sounds at night here, distracting at first but then we don't notice them much later – there is whirring and whizzing & buzzing of crickets & insects & croaking of frogs all the time in the bush around, then beating of drums monotonously all night in the distance (on moonlight nights especially). There are literally millions of insects here & they are the hardest to get used to – you know how I hate creepy crawlies! - Every single day since I came I have seen some or other insects or flying things that I have never seen before & they all clutter around the lamps at night in hundreds. We use oil lamps.

The little kids play with the insects. One little lad in the hospital (about 4 or 5 yrs) was playing with a 'thing' of the grasshopper class I suppose it was – about 4” long & he had broken a wing so it could not fly. He was letting it walk along the bed a bit & then bring it back. They use them like mechanical toys! The other day we were going out to Bush to do a dispensary when we met a very angry crowd who were just going to beat up a fellow who had killed a snake. We saw the snake lying there, it was a long thin green one. It is a crime to kill a snake or a sheep around here and if anyone kills one by accident they have to bring a lot of animals and sacrifice them. The native teacher out at that place was telling me that the people believe that the snake & the sheep brought the river that runs nearby & they adore them as gods – desperate isn't it?

We are invited to the inauguration of Prince Okpara as Obow (Chief) of a place called Ebom. I hope I am here for it, it's on the 27^th & we have to go down the river by canoe to the place. It's a place we do dispensary once a month. The sheep & goats here all look the same. The only way to know is sheep have tails down & goats have tails up. The cows have things like humps like small camel humps & huge loins. They do not have them here at all but we see them on the road being driven down from the north to be sold in Calabar (down south).

No more room, lots of love, Emily

ps. There are monkeys here but we usually see them being carried home on the hunter's head (dead) for “chop”. They “chop” them which is how we say they eat them.