No One Can Stop the Rain: A Chronicle of Two Foreign Aid Workers During the Angolan Civil War

Graeme S. Mount is a professor of history at Laurentian University. He
is the author of Canada’s Enemies: Spies and Spying in the Peaceable
Kingdom, Chile and the Nazis, and The Diplomacy of War: The Case of
Korea.

Karin Moorhouse, an Australian, and her Chinese husband, Wei Cheng, had
a prosperous life in Hong Kong, where Wei was a surgeon and Karin a
marketing executive. Médecins Sans Frontiиres sent them to Kuito,
Angola, for almost a year (2000–2001). Angola had been at war since
the Portuguese withdrawal in 1975 and had a reputation as one of the 10
most dangerous countries in the world. Kuito was reportedly “one of
the world’s most heavily mined cities” and a place of refuge for
100,000 displaced persons. Wei, the only surgeon to serve one million
people, treated gunshot wounds, dealt with victims of land mines,
delivered babies, and trained nurses. Karin was an administrator.

Together they reconstructed their memoirs from emails they had sent,
letters they had written, and diaries they had kept. They also added
some historical perspective. One or the other wrote each chapter, all of
which are short and easy to read. There are many pictures.

The local people lived in Stone Age conditions. Angola exported 800,000
barrels of oil per day, but there was not enough to keep the hospital
generator operational. Kuito lacked such basic amenities as electricity
and drinking water. The mortality rate was horrendous, and one in three
children died before the age of five. Half the patients had worms.
Malnutrition was rampant. Only 20 percent of the rail line constructed
by the Portuguese was operational, and it functioned at an estimated 3
percent of its colonial level. Bed bugs were a problem.

There were light moments, particularly at Christmas and Carnival
(immediately before Lent). Wei and Karin distributed such toys as
stuffed koalas and yo-yos to the hospitalized children, who were
understandably delighted.

Karin and Wei now live in Toronto. She is marketing vice president for
Nestlé Canada Inc., and Wei is a pediatric surgeon at The Hospital for
Sick Children.