I was a twelve-year-old kid living in a no-man’s-land between the port, the cement factory, and the fishing harbor. It was full of scrap and debris, a dumping site lousy with mosquitos. Somehow, though, I never got malaria; I didn’t even know what it was to be afraid of it. In my village, people went to the healer more than the doctor. For example, I think my adopted mother died of cancer, but she thought it was witchcraft. She was in the hospital for two months, but she left because she insisted she was bewitched, not sick. These beliefs have deep roots.
