A tribal woman, heavily pregnant, leaned against the iron gate sliding it open and walked into the health centre. Her gait was strained as she had broken water. Too weak to press the electric bell she just about managed to spread out a mat on the corner and collapse. She was alone; her husband was a rabble-rousing  Captain Cooker with political ambitions who believed pregnant women were hoodoos to be avoided at all costs. The saving grace about him, I was told later, was that he wasn’t a soak and