As dusk fell, we pulled off the dirt road and pitched our tents in the shelter of the truck. We had already dropped people at various projects along the route. The husband and wife doctors were staying at the capital to work in the new Red Cross hospital and that left Haneen our driver, Veronica, Martine and myself. It had been breathlessly hot and stuffy in the back of the canvas-topped truck, the packing cases of supplies and equipment bouncing about on the bumpy road and sometimes sliding into our knees and shins. Haneen seemed determined to reach Bakalla as quickly as he could and the countryside unravelled in a veil of dust and exhaust fumes. Insects, mistaking the green of the canvas for vegetation, landed and sunned themselves and once after an undignified communal toilet stop we returned to find what looked like a locust settled on the top of a tool box. We sat, stiff-backed against the side of the truck, until I cupped it in my hands and threw it out, unable to disguise a shiver.
