On the Ogooue

17 April 2011
The late afternoon light emphasized the dark expanse of the Ogooue River with reflections of golden-tinged cumulus clouds. Here at Lambarene I look across what must be a kilometer or more of flowing river to the hospital grounds that Albert Schweitzer started well over a century ago. Expanses of lawn fall down a slope to the river’s edge and huge trees shade the buildings. What an amazing thing to have done when most serious medicine was witch medicine in these parts. As his reputation for curing spread there must have been such a flow of people arriving and departing by this river highway.