Page:Kvartalshilsen (Kvinnelige misjonsarbeidere). 1917 Vol. 10 nr. 4.pdf/6

 a lot but remained thin and pale. Little by little, however, the little boy gained pounds and began to get peppy and shout "Mama" when he saw me. He had a couple of severe fever attacks, then I looked after him day and night, and he was so good at taking the little quinine pills that I gave him, he probably thought it was sugar. Later I tried to give him quinine injections, which I believed helped. - I had spent some time giving all the children who had malaria a quinine injection every morning, yes several of the big ones got up to 10 injections, and those helped many excellently. - In the end little Fridtjof, as I called him, as far as we could understand he was not baptized, looked good and started to walk and was sometimes playing with von Dobbeler's little three year old girl, who was so fond of the little boy, and often came to get him. She always wanted to bring sweet things to the little ones in the nursery, and she and the little boy soon became good friends.

Only in March did I start thinking a lot about going home; but before I got a substitute I couldn't leave. My father wanted me to come home and he was old and sick and besides, I didn't want to endure another summer in the hot climate, a younger force was needed. One day, we unexpectedly get a telegram announcing the arrival of two German sisters, and it was a great joy and surprise, because during this time of war, a trip to Turkey is difficult enough, and even harder to get permission to travel. What a joy it was that one sister was destined for Harunje; but when she came out for the first time and neither knew the language nor the conditions, Pastor Lohmann thought that I should wait until the fall and get her into my work; But since the children in Harunje all understand German more or less, it was not so bad after all, and she had been a nurse for many years, so Mrs. von Dobbeler said: "You may very well depart." Then it was decided that I should travel to Adana to arrange my papers, so that I would have no difficulties along the way. I lived there with the American missionaries who were very kind to me. They have a big girls' school in Adana, where also Turkish girls came to last year. Adana is a big city, well known from the massacres some years back, there are only a couple of hours of rail travel from Adana to Tarsus. The town itself is not pretty. Most of the children in Harunje we had after the Adana massacre. The German consul was very kind to me and promised to arrange everything for Constantinople; but he thought it probably would be difficult to bring little Fridtjof with me. When asked if I could go home, the reply from Frankfurt was that I had to wait until the fall, so then I had to wait yet again, but at the end of April there finally came a permission to go. The Turkish "müdür" in Harunje promised to issue passports to me and little Fridtjof to Constantinople and then I decided to defy all difficulties and bring little Fridtjof. I can't say how happy I was to finally get home after so many years, I felt I gained new power at the thought of soon seeing Norway and all the loved ones there and getting some fresh Norwegian air and to not see more misery and injustice. But on the other hand, it felt bad to travel from those down there who must live under the same pressure and in the same distress, and not be able to know how it’s going down there and how the ones who are left are doing, because the censorship is so strict, they can write very little.