Unspoken Farewell
A novel based on my life in Africa.
UNSPOKEN FAREWELL spans events that occurred when I was a missionary nurse to Africa from 1969 to 1974. While it is 95% true, events, places and people have been changed to protect those who are living in precarious situations and could still encounter reprisals. In addition, I have condensed the time period to three years with a few personal life events taken out of sequence.
MALARIAL FEVERS ends as Tizora Navess describes his vision of a free Mozambique for his daughter Joanna. UNSPOKEN FAREWELL offers glimpses toward the fruition of his vision as the character Amanda Bechtel first learns about how the native people in the overseas provinces are resisting control by the Portuguese central government. Her introduction begins as she is living with university students in a Lisbon boarding house. Her purpose there is to learn to speak Portuguese, but she also experiences life under constant secret police surveillance which involves not only being followed, but phone calls that are monitored and censored mail. This is her introduction to similar practices that continue in Africa.Shortly after Amanda finally reaches Mozambique and begins to work in the hospital, she is deported for reasons that are never made explicit. It appears that events at the level of international agencies have reverberated in the Portuguese government with one of the outward effects being Amanda’s deportation. Now she must decide whether to stay in Africa and try to return to Mozambique, accept appointment to another church-supported hospital or return to the United States. She must also decide whether to stay with her freedom-fighter boyfriend.
