To an Island in Africa

Fifty years ago in Africa, she bathed in crocodile-infested waters, lived for months without plumbing, electricity, or running water, slept on a cot inches above roosting bats, fell asleep to the beating of drums and the howling of hyenas, sampled lakefly cakes and fried locusts, and administered medical examinations to thousands of tribespeople.

In 1951, Vivian Mary Usborne, a 31-year-old English doctor posted to remote areas of Tanzania, worked as a member of a team conducting medical surveys under the auspices of the British Colonial Service. Every day, Doctor Usborne walked miles through dramatic landscapes in the Northern Province gathering data on common diseases from rural inhabitants on Ukara Island in Lake Victoria and, later, in the savannas of Sukumuland. In 1953, she treated patients in mission hospitals in the far reaches of the Southern Province. She journeyed thousands of miles throughout East Africa, often alone, by car, train, boat, and small plane, and she painted the people and places she observed with only the materials at hand. Here in her own words and pictures is her African experience.

Now 83 and recently retired, Dr. Vivian Usborne Child, known affectionately as "De Doktah," has been working, walking, and painting enthusiastically throughout St. Vincent and the Grenadines, her West Indian island home, since 1954.