by Sr. Sheila Campbell, MMM                            Ireland                          13.06.2026

In 1940, Sr. M. Elizabeth wrote in her letter home –

“At 5am the alarm goes off and, thinking you are in Ireland, you wonder what the cage of netting is doing all around your bed. Then you realise that you are in Africa and locked in the folds of a mosquito net. Then you remember spending half the night chasing a mosquito which accidently got in somehow before the net was let down the previous evening. You could not imagine anything so tantalising. He comes along and sings a little buzz in your ear and then disappears. A sense of duty compels you to try and catch him in case you would get malaria and you would get no sympathy for your laziness. The next step is to get a match and light your bush lamp and then the chase begins which, I needn’t tell you, is often a lengthy one because he is the size of nothing.”

After reading this I had a memory of sitting in our little chapel in Salvador, Brazil, and casually asking the Sisters: “Does the sound of all these mosquitos not bother you?” They looked at me blankly and then at one another. “There are no mosquitos, Sheila”, Maria ventured.

Then it slowly dawned on me – what I was experiencing was tinnitus, due to hearing loss, and not mosquitos! They are annoying little inscets, but can’t be blamed for everything!!