So the young family returned to Italy on leave. Imagine the changes in the three years since the young couple had left Abruzzo. The island had a new hospital, which functioned well. Ugo had encountered diseases he had never met in his previous posting. Through his experience, being the sole doctor for a population of 100,000, he had become a specialist in every field: gynaecology, surgery, tropical diseases. The whole family had been exposed to Swahili and English. Maria had undergone major surgery. And, almost miraculously, considering the cysts which had invaded her ovaries, she had a new baby.

Strangely, no-one remembers much about that first six-month family holiday,

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