BY BARBARA SHORT

SO WHAT WAS I supposed to do just before the athletics carnival when one of my best runners, aged about 12, had a very sore leg and believed the village sorcerer had worked magic on her?

I placed the poor girl in Wewak Hospital and the lady European doctor began a course of antibiotics to cure the poisoned leg. But her family came and took her back to the village and told her the sickness was because she had sent a bead necklace to a boy from the village, who was studying at Madang Technical College.

The boy’s family did not want her to interfere with his studies, their ticket to future wealth, so they had asked the village sorcerer to work magic on her. Which, for a price, he did. And the girls’ family believed the poisoned leg was due to the sorcery.

The doctor knew the poisoned leg probably came from swimming in the polluted waters of nearby Brandi River. She had seen it before in Africa, and knew which antibiotic would effect a cure.

For a few weeks, life took on a circularity. I would put the girl into hospital and the parents would remove her. This happened a number of times. The doctor grew fed up with this, and told me to forget about the girl. But I was determined she should run in the forthcoming athletics carnival. I had my own selfish motives!

One day she came to see me after again running away from the hospital. I told her if she believed it was sorcery and went home to the village she would surely die. She sank down to the ground in some sort of strange state.

I said if she put her faith in the doctor who knew what was wrong with her, and went back to the hospital and took the medicines, then she would live. On hearing that, she rose to her full height and looked at me with hope. I then repeated what I’d said, finding that with the tone of my voice and choice of words, I could made her go up and down like a yo-yo!

Well, sorcery won and she went back to the village. But I wasn’t to be outdone. By now I was angry.

On the Saturday a few girls and I drove to her village. Someone pointed to a house and we went in. We found the poor girl lying on a table with the villagers gathered around while the sorcerer was working his magic. They had a half coconut shell of murky water and were pretending to exttract sticks and stones by sleight of hand.

Well I let fly, and told the village know in dramatic Tok Pisin that it was all giamin, trickery. I did my best to let them all know what the doctor had said and demanded the girl be taken back to hospital otherwise she would die of septicaemia.

The sorcerer stopped what he was doing and sheepishly the parents obeyed me. The girl went back to Wewak Hospital. She complained she could not eat the hospital food, so each day I would take in some school food. I checked her every day and talked the doctor into resuming treament. We saved the leg and she ran in the athletics carnival.

Several months later she thanked me for saving her life and presented me with a beautiful rooster, the sort you see wandering around the villages with magnificent colours in their long tail feathers.

The bird was duly killed and slowly cooked, and I insisted all the girls share some and give thanks for the fact that their friend was now well again. The other girls knew that my reason and the doctor’s skills had won over sorcery.