In praise of missionaries

Tonj is a war-battered settlement on a river that eventually feeds into the White Nile, in South Sudan. When they are not feuding over livestock, Dinkas from remote cattle camps, dressed in garish jalabiyas, saunter down the dusty main street. For months at a time, tropical deluges turn the surrounding mud hamlets into islands, clogged with papyrus, buzzing with insects and isolated from the world. Last year, Dr Ben Roberts, an eye doctor from Alabama who works as a medical missionary in Africa, arrived in Tonj to perform cataract operations on hundreds of local people, restoring sight to those who live in darkness. News of Dr Roberts’s miracles reached a blind elderly woman named Madhieu, many days walk away. With her daughter leading her by the hand, Madhieu set off for Tonj on foot. They trekked night and day through thick jungle and when at last they arrived they discovered they were too late.