Angus Whyte

Just out of graduate school at U.C.L.A., I had taken a job for a year with the U.S. State Department in Brazzaville, long the capital of French Equatorial Africa. Administered first by the International Cooperation Administration, the program was subsequently subsumed by the Agency for International Development. The goal of the State Department was for the United States to make friends with nine newly independent African nations, including Mali, Chad, Senegal, the Central African Republic, Upper Volta, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, and the Republic of the Congo by offering gifts.

Candidates sought were young, single, unattached males, fluent in French, well-educated, and seeking adventure. Eleven prospects were chosen from all over the United States for nine jobs, and the program commenced with a Summer-long intensive course in African history, politics, and vehicle maintenance at the University of Indiana in Bloomington.

Competition was intense, and by the Summer’s end, nine of us were chosen and assigned to different African nations to personally deliver these independence gifts. Some chose a mobile cinema unit, designed to show films to isolated populations who had never before seen films, and some chose a mobile health unit, designed to travel away from cities in order to provide healthcare to non-urban populations without electricity. Several of the larger countries were given both.

My assignment to Brazzaville did not begin well. I arrived in the early Fall, eager to begin the project, and was met by the American ambassador who informed me that none of my equipment had arrived as scheduled. Further, before anything else, the Ambassador introduced me to the PX, where bottles of liquor were available for $2 each, and he made certain I stocked up appropriately. That suggested something about life in Brazzaville. He then assigned a car and driver to show me around the city and help me get situated, given that my vehicle had not arrived - a custom Willys wagon with a platform on the roof from which to project films, and a special fitting for the generator, so that the motor could power the projector as well as the vehicle. The package included a large portable folding movie screen, which was to be set up at the proper distance from the projector, to show “health” and “educational” films in remote locations.

During the first few days, I was shown the City, was introduced to most of the employees at the Embassy and to the Director of the American Library. I also sublet a small apartment from an English woman who was returning home for a year’s sabbatical. The agreement included a “boy”, who was, in fact, a family man with a wife and four children, and it was stipulated that I could not raise the boy’s salary more than the $2 per day she paid him. Given that a Coke at the PX cost $4, twice the price of a bottle of liquor, that didn’t seem quite fair to me, however I needed a place to stay while in town, so I agreed.

While waiting for the vehicle and equipment to arrive, I put together a team of four young African fellows who spoke some French as well as one or two other local languages, of which there were more than 200 in the country. Our only mutual language was French, which was also the country’s official language.

After waiting impatiently, I paid a call on the Ambassador and complained about the failure of the equipment to arrive in a timely manner. I remember telling him “I’ve been here THREE WEEKS already, and there’s nothing I can accomplish without my equipment!” With a world-weary sigh, indicating far more ennui than his words, he replied quietly, “My dear boy, you’ve been here ONLY three weeks”, and I suddenly began to comprehend how things worked – or didn’t - there on the equator.

Shortly after getting settled, I met two American pilots who had been sent from Washington with a DC-4 so that our Ambassador could easily travel around the African continent to confer with colleagues and African leaders. It turned out the Ambassador was a career diplomat, he had been in service for 35 years, and he had no desire or intention to fly around conferring with African leaders. He preferred to stay in his big white house overlooking the Congo River and host grand dinners served on official porcelain plates adorned with handsome golden eagle decals.

The pilots were obliged to keep the plane in the air, otherwise it would rot in the equatorial climate. In other words, they were flying around in circles, going nowhere. That seemed a terrible waste to me, so I asked them if I could secure an invitation to visit Dr. Albert Schweitzer in Lambaréné, in Gabon, the neighboring country some 1500 miles to the north, would they take me there. They replied in the affirmative, so I then asked if they would return in three or four days time to bring me back to the Congo, and they laughed and happily agreed. I wrote to Dr. Schweitzer, received an invitation, and confirmed the dates.

A three-hour flight from Brazzaville over an emerald-green carpet of equatorial forest, lush and verdant under a sprinkling of white clouds, brought us to Lambaréné. My colleague, Alan Yeager, a U.S. State Dept. doctor, thrilled at the prospect of meeting the Great Doctor, and I jumped off in the wind of the propellers of the DC-4 and were immediately whisked through customs by silver-haired Miss Silver, Dr. Schweitzer’s welcoming committee of one. In a long white dress, white shoes and stockings, the whole costume set off by a white helmet, her arms full of sun helmets for the arriving guests, she epitomized an Africa which is no more. A French airport official drove us to the landing on the Ogowe River, where we transferred to a pirogue (a dugout log canoe) for the half-hour trip upriver. The humidity was stifling. The river water was muddy but uncluttered with the clumps of water hyacinth which clog the Congo River. The forest reached into the river on both sides. Huge unfamiliar tree stumps and roots, like primeval remnants, line the banks. Strange rustling noises from the underbrush, explained Miss Silver, were made by hippopotamuses.

Dr. Schweitzer’s hospital was not immediately visible from Lambaréné. The river bent into a long, sweeping curve, and as the pirogue swung around a point, the red rooves and thatched houses of the hospital suddenly appeared. Behind a stone landing the community sloped up a gentle hill with fruit tress spreading off to the left and an enormous vegetable garden to the right. Miss Matilda, the Doctor’s official hostess, waited for us on the landing, and as the pirogue pulled up, Dr. Schweitzer himself came down to greet us. His hair long and his moustache walrus-like, he wore khaki work pants, muddy boots, a white shirt with a little bow tie, and the inevitable sun-helmet. He took each of us by an arm and walked us up the sloping path to the house, stopping every few moments to point out a view, emphasize a point in the story he was telling about de Brazza making a treaty with a native king, or to pet one of his antilopes, dogs, monkeys, or goats, all of whom he calls by name.

As it was almost lunchtime, he introduced us to Miss Maria, who took us to our quarters, instructed us in the operation of the kerosene lamps for evening, indicated which bottles contained “Trinkwasser” and which contained “Waschwasser”, allowed us exactly two minutes to wash our hands, and trundled us off to the dining hall for lunch.

The entire staff sat around a table of baronial proportions. Dr. Schweitzer presided from the center on the wall side, with Miss Matilda to his left and Miss Silver to his right. Alan and I were seated directly across from him between Miss Maria and his daughter, Mrs. Eckhart. The first course consisted of papayas and avocados from the garden, followed by a sort of clubhouse sandwich, sweet and sour spinach from the garden, a large green salad, and a platter of noodles. Dessert was fried bananas, followed by powdered coffee. From the very beginning, everyone was wonderfully warm and friendly, and, far from presenting a haughty or unattainable attitude, Dr. Schweitzer was charming and hospitable. Although a trifle hard of hearing and slowed slightly by the weight of eighty-some years, his mind was keen. His sharp eyes, somber and grave in a massive head, would at any moment twinkle into a brilliant mirth of laughter.

Rest period followed lunch. At two o’clock, the sound of a gong bade everyone return to work. That particular day, however, it rained at two o’clock, an occurrence which prevented the Doctor from leaving to work on a bridge he was building near the hospital. This gave him a few moments of respite, fortunate for us, during which he sat on the porch, and for more than an hour we conversed. Partly in German, mostly in French, we spoke of many things: American foreign aid, his animals, seventeenth-century organ builders, the beginnings of his hospital, and, primarily, of Johann Sebastian Bach. Alan, the American doctor visiting from New Jersey, one of those humorless types suffering from an “M. Deity” complex, a malady frequent among doctors, was quietly furious that Dr. Schweitzer was ignoring him and paying attention to me, even though Alan spoke not a word of French or German. I suspected Dr. Schweitzer could understand quite a bit of English, and he clearly didn’t want to bother with this pretentious fellow or his temperament.

The rain stopped abruptly, and Dr. Friedmann, one of his assistants, took us on a tour of the hospital. Rude wooden structures served as operating theater, consulting rooms, laboratories, dental office, maternity clinic, day nursery, and pharmacy. There was one part-time generator that furnished electricity for the operating room, otherwise lighting was accomplished by kerosene lanterns. Directly across from the hospital building was the ward for post-operative patients – a dark, dingy, crowded facility for a sundry host of men, women, and children, each accompanied by his or her respective family, whose task it was to cook and care for the patient. We met Drs. Müller and Munz, both Swiss, both young and dedicated, and learned that Dr. Schweitzer discouraged modernization. His staff members had sneaked in an air conditioner and a fluoroscope, but neither functioned well because of poor electricity, humidity, and irregular use. Leaving the doctors to their tasks, we were then conducted by Miss Maria to the leper village, where, in a clearing of red clay, more than fifty lepers in bandages stained with gentian violet, lived in tidy rows of straw huts. A group of children were practicing verses for a Christmas play, and the only non-European member of the staff, Dr. Takahashi, was putting pills directly into the mouths of his patients, who were not considered trustworthy enough to take their own medicines. Africans who had lost entire sets of fingers and toes were learning to carve simple wooden toys and utensils, or to weave straw baskets. The facilities were startling in their simplicity – and as the Good Doctor intended, formed an integrated part of the African landscape. The entire establishment was run quietly, efficiently, and with a discipline based on love. It was something from another era, something difficult to believe and inexplicable, ensconced in an atmosphere not unlike that of a well-planned camping expedition.

At five o’clock the gong rang again, and African patients and workmen were doled out their daily ration of bananas; at six it rang to announce the end of the working day, and Dr. Schweitzer fed his pelican, Parsifal; once again at seven it rang to announce supper, and the staff assembled, each member in his or her assigned place, clearly indicated by a personal napkin ring. Handwashing was compulsive here; almost equally obsessive was the treatment accorded germs and locks, and everything, from the showers and the “toilet”, a generous description indeed of the relief station, right down to the rooms and the closets, was kept under strictest lock and key.

Sanitary conditions at the hospital were primitive, to say the least. The latrine was an exterior trough, filled with maggots. The shower, also outside, was a bucket hoisted up a pole erected for the purpose. The bucket had a sieve mechanism that, when pulled, allowed the water to drip out; however it was impossible to utilize the mechanism while in the shower, so two people were required to make it happen. A fellow guest was assigned to operate the shower for me and I for him. He happened to be young, tall, handsome, with jet-black hair and a perfectly formed alabaster-white body. Framed by the intense green background of the African jungle, it was like seeing a Praxiteles sculpture come to life in Africa. That unexpected vision was unforgettable, and I have loved outdoor showers ever since.

For supper we were served tomato-herb soup, also from the garden, a casserole of frankfurters and potatoes, a green salad, and spiced cooked apple compote for dessert. Dr. Schweitzer presided over supper as he had lunch. The table was cleared immediately following the meal, and he read verses, in German, from a little-known text dating from two hundred years B.C. Hymn books were then passed around; he announced the title and page, sat at the piano, and accompanied the singing – all four verses. This little ritual was completed en famille, after which the group dispersed. Some stayed to write letters or to converse, one doctor returned to a maternity case, and Dr. Schweitzer retired to his study.

Mrs. Eckhart, who had been informed by Alan that I could play, asked me to try out the piano. Naturally, I couldn’t refuse. I began with some Bach dance movements from the French Suites, played a few Brahms pieces, and after having played some fifteen minutes, noticed that almost the entire group, including Dr. Schweitzer, had returned at the sound of the music. Dr. Schweitzer apologized because the piano was so badly out of tune. I replied that I was rusty myself, a fact I thought painfully evident after six months in Africa, and that it didn’t really matter. We then talked some more, this time about Bach and Brahms, whether trills begin on the upper or lower note, and whether or not the clavichord was in fact Bach’s favorite instrument. He then sent someone to fetch an album of records he had just received: a special edition of the complete piano works of Wagner, inscribed and sent by Wagner’s granddaughter. He played the album on a portable phonograph, commenting occasionally, but mostly listening attentively. Seated in a pensive attitude, his heavy head held in his rough, square hands, lit by the soft glow of a kerosene lantern, it is an image I will never forget.

After Dr. Schweitzer’s departure, the two young Swiss doctors wanted to hear some blues, so I obliged with a bit of Berkeley Rathsekeller music and a few rags. Then, lanterns in hand, we went for an evening walk. We proceeded down to the river, silver and glistening in the moonlight, up the path past a cluster of breadfruit trees, then along the shore, all in silence, enlivened only by sounds of crickets and an occasional frog. We finally made our way back to their rooms for a drink. There they wanted to hear all about life in Hollywood, a difficult subject to explain. I did my best, and in turn they told me of life in Lambaréné. After another drink we were old buddies and began to play the tam-tams and monochord that one had received as gifts from an African patient. They both had pet monkeys, one just a baby who thought a dog its mother. The dog’s puppies had been killed and the monkey substituted – a happy arrangement for both. There was also a parrot who spoke German. After a snack of hot peanuts (heated to kill the germs) they walked me back to my bug-proof, screened-in, cross-ventilated room. Dr. Schweitzer was proud of his cross-ventilation, an ingenious system he designed himself utilizing the prevailing wind directions. Even though we were by far the last to extinguish our lanterns, the day was over much too soon.

Next morning at six-thirty the gong sounded. Breakfast was served at seven: fresh-baked bread but no butter (it arrived twice a week but didn’t keep), porridge for the foreigners, and bowl after bowl of exotic homemade jams: papaya, guava, bitter orange, and mango.

Of Dr. Schweitzer himself, I can only say that it is almost frightening to meet a complete man of character – one who knows exactly what he wants, where he is going; what he values. It is all too easy to criticize his establishment: for example, no Africans had anything to do with administration of the hospital nor had they been trained to perform any but the most minor medical tasks. The staff had no privacy or private life whatsoever. The sanitary facilities were, at best, medieval. Twentieth century devices, which must certainly have been available from countless sources to a personage of his stature were, when not discouraged, simply not allowed. None of this seemed to matter, however, in the atmosphere of confidence, respect, and indescribable kinship within the personnel, all engendered by the love of one great man. A quietude and gentleness permeated the entire community, and it was indeed a moving experience to behold.

On the third day of the visit, an impromptu fair was set up on the compound by several itinerant Senegalese merchants and jewelers. I took photos, bought a few trinkets as gifts, and for my mother a pair of finely chased gold earrings, hand-wrought by the goldsmith selling them. Many years later, after my mother’s death, I had them transformed into cufflinks, which I wear nostalgically from time to time. I also have a small sculpture from one of the Senegalese artists as well as a photo of myself taken with Dr. Schweitzer as well as a quick portrait I took of him.

As we stepped into the pirogue to leave, Miss Silver thrust into my arms an enormous going-away basket of bananas. I thanked her and the Doctor profusely for their hospitality and presented him a carefully wrapped bottle of Scotch whisky. (It was a problem, you know. What sort of gift can one offer Doctor Schweitzer?) He was delighted with the gift and brandished it happily in the air to show everyone. He said to come again, and suggested I visit the organ in the Church of St. Sulpice in Paris on the way home. “Just tell the organist there,” he said, “that you were sent by Albert Schweitzer. That will suffice.”