The Healing of Dr Mayoyo

Even by the harsh standards of Africa, Richard Mayoyo had a gruelling childhood.

When he was just two his father walked out, and his mother Marth was left struggling to bring up four children in a tiny two-room house near the Congo River. The river’s massive waters swirled past Kinshasa, now capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, towards the sea.

When Richard was only nine, his mother died in a road accident and her widowed sister Genevieve, with five children of her own, stretched a meagre pension to care for all nine.

Richard did well in school, in spite of all he had been through. After classes, he loved to play football in the street with friends until late.

When he was 17, he visited a friend in hospital. On the next bed, a woman lay crying while two doctors tended to her. Then suddenly she was quiet.

“She’s dead,” said one of the doctors. “She didn’t have any money anyway.”

For Richard, it was almost like reliving his own mother’s passing. But he came to realise there was an answer to such suffering for poor people. He would become a doctor.

Supporting himself by what he could earn from selling cigarettes and with the aid of a tiny government bursary, he graduated from medical school at Kinshasa Hospital, where he often saw a tall, graceful girl walking to work two streets away. Too shy to approach her, he left a message with the building’s guard asking her to call him. To his surprise, she did.

Three years later, Julia became his bride and they moved to South Africa so that he could specialise in neurosurgery. After seven years of hard work, he won a place as a neurosurgery registrar at Johannesburg General Hospital, one of Africa’s largest.

There his mentor was Dr Maurizio Zorio. In a city noted for violent crime, the two often operated far into the night, repairing damage to nerves and brains from shootings, stabbings and road accidents. Richard learnt from Dr Zorio that, while operating on the brain required extreme care, it was important, sometimes, to be bold. “You need to be cautious,” Zorio would tell him, “but you have to be courageous, too.”

Richard’s skill and gentle manner quickly won him the respect and affection of a busy staff not easily impressed by young surgeons.

After six months, Richard had earned his first proper break – a full week to spend with Julia, their son Nehemia, seven, and daughter Genevieve, three. On the second day, Julia planned to go shopping in the city centre. “Take a friend with you,” cautioned Richard. “It will be safer.”

Zorio telephoned, asking him to give a talk to other registrars about the anatomy of the skull. Richard agreed and at 9am dropped Nehemia off at school, where he was competing in an athletics contest. Richard waved his son goodbye and called after him, “I hope you win your race!” He turned his blue Volkswagen Jetta into Observatory Road. Traffic was light and the smell of jasmine blossoms floated in the air.

Bang! Bang! Two explosions sounded from the side of the road. Gunshots! He bent his head down and floored the accelerator, but felt a sudden heavy weight on his right shoulder. As the car headed for a lamp-post, he tried to brake, but his legs wouldn’t move. With the shriek of torn metal, the Jetta slammed into the lamp-post, spun and rolled over. A bystander started opening the door. “The car’s burning!” he shouted and backed off. Richard felt strangely calm. I’ll just wait for the car to burn and then I’ll die, he thought.

As he slipped into semi-consciousness, he felt himself being pulled out and loaded into an ambulance.