as if , more than in most professions , they needed the escape valve of humour to get away from what they faced daily : the pregnant mother with breast cancer so advanced that they might have to cut the baby from her on her deathbed ; the infant with untreatable raboid cancer who wouldnt make it to their third birthday ; a twelve-year-old boy , ebans cousin , his body stick-thin and wasted by aids , reaching out and taking andrs hand ; one of only twenty-nine remaining from ebans originally a hundred and forty strong rwandan village .