I am very sorry for the natives of this once-beautiful country. I am less forgiving of the British, Americans, and other Westerners who should have known better. Everyone could see who Mugabe was, even before he took over. This was all predictable.
But the British, especially, made out the Rhodesian whites as being “oppressive” (a term Kristof still uses).
Nowhere does Kristof indicate that he gave the sick, pregnant woman the two dollars she needed for her medicines. I hope that he did, and just left it out of the story.
I think Mr. Kristof was pretty explicit about what action he took: “But the clinic refused to give her some life-saving antimalaria medicine unless she paid $2 — and she had no money at all in her house. So, dizzy and feverish, she stumbled home for another four miles, EMPTY-HANDED.” In other words, Mr. Kristof didn’t give her a squat, most likely because he couldn’t find someone else’s pocket to steal it from.