h e a lth | INFRASTRUCTURES
‘C’est l’Afrique, madame’ | Oriol Osan
8 |
“I had a holiday with a difference in 1992 when I went with Mario, my husband, to Goundi Hospital in Chad”. That is the opening line of Goundi, Unas Vacaciones Diferentes, by Barcelona-born photographer and nurse Isabel Rodríguez. It was at the height of Olympic fever, when her hometown was drunk with success, that she and Dr. Mario Ubach decided to indulge in a dream they had long put off: to work as co-operation volunteers. And so they packed their bags and headed off to a Catholic health mission in the south of one of the four poorest countries on the planet. A one-way trip which would change their lives, and to which the pages of this book bear witness. In the forword to the book, now it in its second edition, Javier Nart, the Chadian Consul in Barcelona says that Africa: it swallows you up or spits you out. Those of us who have had the good fortune and opportunity to get to know the “Dark Continent” from the inside, above all Sub-Saharan Africa, would confirm that “either/ or” assessment whilst endorsing the former phrase: Africa is indeed a continent which swallows you up in a way you could never have imagined, and that makes it comforting to read Goundi, Unas Vacaciones Diferentes. Isabel, in her graceful, vivid and readable prose, gives voice to the images, sensations and experiences she has lived through. As with Ryszard Kapuscinski, Bru Rovira or Javier Reverte, Isabel Rodríguez rejects pride and arrogance and comes down from the privileged heights where we in the West live, and with her warm, humble simplicity, has the reader accompany her on her daily routine allowing them to discover and experience the adventures at her pace. In short, she carries the reader around in her back pocket from the very first page, which makes the book very accessible.
Goundi, unas vacaciones diferentes. Isabel Rodríguez Plataforma Editorial. Barcelona, 2009
From the moment the aeroplane touches down at the airport of N’Djamena, the capital of Chad, and Isabel and Mario are buffeted by what seems like a whirlwind of the senses: outrageous red of the earth and the green of the crops, the incandescent dresses of the women, the piercing smells, the contrasts... everything about the book everything about the book has an intensity,