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Albert Schweitzer 08: Living conditions in Africa in general
Albert Schweitzer=one of the first "medical doctors without borders"

Tornadoes destroy steamships - Africa's ports are not deep enough for steamships - Loss of time and loss of goods during loading operations - Plague, rum and gunpowder in Africa's ports - Gulf Stream and currents - Birth on ships - Slavery has destroyed entire island populations - African bureaucracy provokes waiting times for days - Gabon: lack of agriculture - leopard people - leaf roofs always have new holes after every wind - only 2 months dry season - the natives only want to plant where there was a slash and burn, the myth of ash as fertilizer - brick production in the short dry season - mismanagement 1924: too much logging, hardly any agriculture anymore - coconuts everywhere - Goalas, Pahuins, and the often criminal Bendjabis from the interior - letters of condolence - the doctors: Dr. Albert Schweitzer - Dr. Viktor Nessmann - Dr. Marc Lauterburg - poor diet on the Ogowe River: almost only white rice - dried fish - hippopotamus meat - canoes - whaling by Norwegians - Gabon: The timber trade destroys handicrafts and agriculture - timber trade with a lot of risks - the harvest of bamboo poles only during floods or during the dry season with low water - from 1924: Goalas, Pahuins and the often criminal Bendjabis - motor boats - brick production - no dry season - no agriculture - animals on the hospital grounds: chimpanzees, dogs, goats, chickens - June 1925: the famine: the seeds have been eaten - Currencies in Gabon: gunpowder, lead, tobacco, alcohol - the medium of exchange - birds, monkeys and palm trees in the jungle - the plantings on the new hospital grounds: planting - creating an orchard - the double roof by carpenter Mr. Schatzmann - little chimpanzees - Albert Schweitzer introduces animal protection - the mono diet with white rice provokes weak immune systems and susceptibility to pathogens

from: Albert Schweitzer: Life+Thought (Aus meinem Leben und Denken) -- Edge of the Primeval Forest (Zwischen Wasser und Urwald (1920) -- Letters from Lambarene 1924-1927 (Briefe aus Lambarene 1924-1927)

In: Albert Schweitzer. Collected works in 5 volumes (German: Gesammelte Werke in fünf Bänden): volume 1; Edition ExLibris without year (appr. 1970)

by Michael Palomino (2020)
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Literature: Books of Albert Schweitzer concerning medicine in the African rain forest

Medical reports from Africa:
1) On the edge of the primeval forest (orig. German: Zwischen Wasser und Urwald (Edition Haupt, Berne 1921 - Spanish: Entre el agua y la selva virgen)
2) Letters from Lambarene 1924-1927 (orig. German: Briefe aus Lambarene 1924-1927)
3) Out of My Life & Thought (orig. German: Aus meinem Leben und Denken 1931 - Spanish: Mi vida y pensamientos)

Other sources

Sources for the time from 1924-1927 in Lambarene are also the reviews of the C.H.Beck Edition, which were mainly written for the donors of the hospital:
-- Messages from Lambarene. First and second review (spring 1924 - autumn 1925). C.H.Beck Edition, 164 pages
-- Messages from Lambarene. Third review (autumn 1925-summer 1927). C.H.Beck-Verlag, 74 pages
The reviews are also available in Swedish, English and Dutch, English with the title: "More from the Primeval Forest" (Life + Thought, p.219)



Albert Schweitzer 08: Living conditions in Africa in general

February 14, 1924
Departure from Strasbourg
Wife Helene stays in Europe because of health problems (Life+Thought, p.214)

There are destroyed steamers on the African coast line - almost 12 wrecks washed up by storms
From Freetown, the drive along the coast requires a lot of caution because of the many shallows that push out into the sea. Right at Cape Sierra Leone one can see a steamer stranded years ago on such a rock slab. Almost a dozen such wrecks will show up in the next few days. In order to save kilometers our captain dares to stay so close to the coast (p.482) so that we never lose sight of it. He has made the path several times. That is why he is even allowed to enter ports at night that can only be identified by a single light. (Letters from Lambarene, p.483)

March 10, 1924: Cape Palmas - an upturned ship on the beach - the steamer reaches the Gulf of Guinea
On Monday, March 10th [1924], around noon we are passing Cape Palmas. We can clearly see the palm trees on the heights that give it its name. To the north of the lighthouse there is a big ship that the hurricane has put on the beach and turned over so that the keel is looking towards the sky (letters from Lambarene, p.483).

From Cape Palmas the journey no longer goes south, but east, into the Gulf of Guinea, to the countries around which the Niger draws its enormous bow. (Letters from Lambarene, p.484)

Albert Schweitzer quote (translation):
Port of Sassandra (Ivory Coast) - unloading cargo onto boats in front of shallow harbors

<In the boat that carries us ashore through the surf of the small port of Sassandra, on the Ivory Coast, the oarsman's captain says to Noël, who is traveling in shorts: "You are still too young to come to Africa!" To save his dignity, I interject: "Yes, but he is clever and capable," which is an approving "Ah!" triggers. (Letters from Lambarene, p.484) [...]

The boats typically have 10 rowers and a helmsman who handles the big flap behind. They load only a few boxes or barrels. The heavier the boat, the more vulnerable it is in the surf, because it can then no longer snuggle up to the waves up and down nimbly enough. The crew of an unloading boat receives around 10 schillings for each trip. Often the ship has to anchor so far from the beach that they can only make 3 or 4 trips a day. This is then an expensive unloading. The freight to these African ports is also not cheap for the ship, although it is relatively high. Under certain circumstances, even during calm weather, it may have to lie for a day to unload only 20 tons. Or several ships happen to come together in such a port. Then the number of unloading boats is insufficient and there are waiting days for the ships having arrived last.

Unloading cargo on boats in shallow harbors: damages provoked by blacks
In addition to these inevitable losses, there are those that are provoked by being negligent or by inefficient operations. In Sassandra I see the rowers loading boxes of sugar and sacks of rice into a boat that is still half full of seawater when it comes back through the surf. "Please empty the boat first," I tell the guide. "What for (letters from Lambarene, p.486) are the insurance companies for damaged freight for?" he replies.

Unloading cargo onto boats in front of shallow harbors: The port's schedule means long waiting times
In a port, I don't know in which one, the rule applies that it is no longer allowed to unload from 11:30am until 2:00 pm and from 5:00 pm onwards. At 11 a quarter of a quarter I see 2 unloading boats approaching the ship from land, which took them more than one hour. At the moment when they are to be loaded, the rowers clap their hands to signal that it is half past eleven and drive back the way empty, although they would have had their load in only 10 minutes - the sea is very calm. At 2 o'clock they push off again from the land and at half past three they are back along the ship. In former times, the rower teams were resting and eating when they had come back during the day and in this way the turns were arranged. Today everything is reulated so any efficiency is blocked and much time is lost and nobody gets a profit of it. How many hours does our ship dance around by its anchor chain on these roads, waiting for the unloading boats!

African ports with bureaucracy: "A whole afternoon" waiting for the "issue of the health certificate of our ship"
And more time is lost proceeding formalities of arrival and departure! One time we are waiting a complete afternoon for leaving the port, a health certificate of our ship is missing, with the stamp of the port doctor. I am calculating with the captain that we loose by all these inefficient conditions and delays proceeding formalities of arraival and departure during the way there at least 4 days. The way back may be the same, so these are 8 days lost during the complete tour. The costs of the ship with the crew of 36 men are 150 English Pounds a day. Therefore, the freight of the ship could cost 1200 English Pounds less (Letters from Lambarene, p.487) and the goods could be cheaper for people in Africa when the work for the unloading teams and when the work of the officials would be efficient and not inefficient.

The port of Sekondee on the "Gold Coast" - and a little plague
The port of Sekondee, on the Gold Coast, has been declared contaminated because of some plague cases in the inner [of the country?]. Nobody is allowed to come on board from the shore and nobody is allowed to go ashore from the ship. Unloading is permitted, but the port police ensure that only boxes and barrels move between the ship and the unloading boats.

Despite the poor quality of the ports on the Gulf of Guinea (Pepper Coast, Ivory Coast, Gold Coast and Slave Coast) there always was a living trade. Because these ports have their position at the intrence of big lagoons connecting the sea with wide regions of the inner of the country and with rivers which come down from the Niger River water shed.

Sailing ships with rum and gunpowder - the blacks then act drunk against the sailing ships
And one has to see also this: The sailing ships of former times were not affected of the unfavorable ports as the modern steamers of today. Sailing ships had a shallow draft which permitted to enter the lagoons where they sold their rum and gunpowder. Well, when a sailing boat was in such a lagoon this also was a trap and attacks by the natives were not rare because rum and gunpoweder were just the ammunition developping the joy for robbery. In the Sassandra lagoon there was a crew of a sailing ship killed in the 19th century yet, only one ship-boy could escape.

Guinea - the origin of the "Gulf Stream" and countercurrents
During the trip along the coast line of Guinea I am again on the command bridge and I am learning about the mysteries of these waters where the Guls Stream has got it's origin. As it's well known the Gulf Stream is not streaming in a unique streaming leaving the Golf of Guinea and then to the north, but there are streams and counter streams just side by side (Letters from Lambarene, p.488). Already at the height of the coast of Liberia this strange play can be observed which the sea maps can only show in an incomplete way despite of all research about it. Nobody knows precisely if the ship is in the stream or in the counter stream. In 24 hours depending on the course of the ship it can change several times from the current into the countercurrent and from the countercurrent into the current. Streams and counter streams have speeds of 3 to 10km/h. Depending on being in a stream or counter stream, the ship can win 100km of way in 24 hours or loose, this can be found out the next day with the determination of the position in correlation with the sun on midday - will be a good or bad surprise.

Ivory Coast - the wood test with the current
In the roadstead at Grand Bassam, on the Ivory Coast, I take the opportunity to roughly calculate the speed of the current. When there is no wind, when our anchored ship is positioned in the direction of the current, I throw pieces of wood from the bow, which I have begged from the ship's carpenter, into the water several times and calculate how long it will take to get to the other end of the ship to get. The ship is 106 meters long. The timbers cover this distance in 5 minutes and 48 seconds. The current goes along the coast in the direction from west to east and is therefore a countercurrent to the Gulf Stream. Despite the inhibition of the beach, which is only 200 meters away, the water here moves with a speed of about one kilometer per hour along the coast!

Harbor of Cotonou with quarantine - passengers have to go to Fernando Po - stories of "American" natives
Although we had no contact with the country in Sekondee and meanwhile we were admitted without quarantine in Accra, on the Gold Coast, and in Lome, in Togoland (letters from Lambarene, p.489), we are in Cotonou, the port of Dahomey, declared in quarantine. We have to unload our cargo in the strictest of seclusion, which does not help to speed up business. Some colored tween deck passengers who have come on board on the Gold Coast and want to go to Cotonou are not allowed to land and have to go with Fernando Po, even though they are penniless and do not know how to get back from there. I feel sorry for them and tear myself away from my book to show them my condolences. I take a look at the book that one of these negro passengers has in front of him. He reads stories of "American" natives in English. I myself hold a well-worn volume of familiar "American" native stories in my hand, which a boy from the vicinity of Strasbourg gave me as a present to Africa. After the negro passenger has come to terms with his fate, we sit next to each other and read "American" native  stories under the African sun.

March 22, 1924: Port of Cotonou - a birth on the ship? - Prepare the feeding bottle 8 times a day?
We are going on near Cotonou, it's night and the date has just changed to March 22 [1924], and the only woman on board is giving birth to a child on board with a doctor as assistant. The baby was awaited only for Duala. As no other woman is on board, I have the duty to cure mother and child so I am busy for some days: Heat in a ship's kitchen in the tropic is horrible; eight times a day I am there for preparing the baby's bottle. And as the child - a boy - cannot see yet what is day and what is night, teh boy sleeps during the day and is shouting in the night. Then I have to walk with it around in the hot dining room where his cradle made of wood is placed. And also Noël has to help. He (Letters from Lambarene, p.490) has to accept also to be a nurse when he is in Africa.

[This story sounds pretty impossible. African women actually always breastfeed their baby WITHOUT a feeding bottle].

March 26, 1924: The Spanish colonial island of Fernando Po - guest workers because the population was destroyed - cocoa at an inflated price
Wednesday, March 26th [1924], we are in the small port of Santa Isabella on Fernando Po. Fernando Po is a volcanic island off the Cameroon coast, belonging to Spain, of extraordinary fertility. The cocoa grows particularly well on it, although the best cocoa does not come from Africa but from Guatemala. But the great difficulty on Fernando Po is finding workers to grow cocoa. A resident colored population no longer exists, so to speak. It has been worn out by the cruel forced labor previously practiced. Fernando Po, a true paradise, is therefore dependent on workers who move there. But no African colony allows their blacks to emigrate. The current governor has now managed to sign a contract with the negro republic of Liberia, according to which every year so many Liberians are allowed to work in Fernando Po for a certain period of time. Thereupon he is considered the savior of the island, although the workers granted by Liberia are far from sufficient, and was given a statue in bronze in front of his palace. Nothing illuminates the African labor issue as brightly as this memorial on Fernando Po, sparkling in the sun. Because workers are hard to get, they have to be paid with high salaries and they have to be treated very leniently. They do very little. That is why the cocoa that the fertile island produces is far above the world market price. So it could not be sold at all if Spain had not imposed high tariffs on all cocoa that did not come from its colonies. All of the cocoa from Fernando Po moves to Spain. The Spaniard drinks cocoa, which is much more expensive than the other Europeans, in order to artificially maintain cocoa cultivation on one of the most fertile islands in the world. (Letters from Lambarene, p.491)

Duala (Cameroon) March 27, 1924: Mother with baby has to wait 2 days because of stamp issues
In the dark of night, the captain maneuvers the steamer out of the small bay in a virtuoso manner, and on March 27th around noon we are in Duala. Since the passport of our mother with baby does not have all the stamps it should have, she has to stay on board until further notice, and Noël and I stay with her, as she would have no one else to look after. After two days, permission was obtained to disembark her for the time being as sick. My last job is to carry her down the swaying stairway to the launch, marveled at by Kroo people as a strong man. Then we hurry ashore as free people.> (Letters from Lambarene, p.492)

Losses of goods

A considerable part of shipments from Europe to Gabon is lost due to transport damage (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.379).


Trip to Gabon - hardly any agriculture - the killer gang of the "leopard people"

1924
Cruise Cameroon-Gabon - arrival in Cape Lopez (Port Gentil)
On Monday we go on board of the mail steamer "Europe", which took me to Africa on my first voyage. In two days we will be in Cape Lopez, which is now called Port Gentil. On the beach I am recognized by natives who are delighted that "our doctor" is back again. (Letters from Lambarene, p.499)

Gabon: Cruise from Port Gentil to Lambarene on the steamer "Alembe"
We leave Cape Lopez on Maundy Thursday afternoon on board of the river steamer "Alembe", on which I also made my voyage up the Ogowe in 1913. How old and frail and dirty has it got! Among the white timber merchants on board I meet some friends from before and am warmly welcomed (letters from Lambarene, p.500)

In the quiet of Good Friday I move back between the water and the jungle. There are the same antediluvian landscapes again, the same swamps overgrown with papyrus, the same crumbling villages, the same ragged blacks. How poor this country is compared to the Gold Coast and Cameroon ... poor because it is so rich in precious forests! (Letters from Lambarene, p.500)

Gabon: Everyone works in the timber trade - nobody does agriculture anymore
The exploitation of the forests comes at the expense of the cultivation of food. These have to be introduced. Wherever we stop, the same thing is unloaded again and again: sacks of rice, boxes of ship's biscuits, boxes of stockfish and barrels of red wine. (Letters from Lambarene, p.500)

Gabon: The killer mafia of the "leopard people"
At the ship's table, after the wood prices and the labor issue have been dealt with, the discussion turns to the societies of leopard men, whose mischief has increased everywhere in recent years. They are distributed all over the west coast of Africa. The [Jesus Fantasy] missionaries from Duala told me that they are coming to areas (letters from Lambarene, p.500) which for months have been so under the terror of the leopard people that after dark no one dares to leave the hut. Two years ago, a leopard man also committed a murder at the Lambarene mission station. (Letters from Lambarene, p.501)

Leopard people are people who are obsessed with the belief that they are actually leopards and as such must kill people. When killing them, they try to behave like leopards. They go on all fours; they tie leopard claws or iron claws to their hands and feet to leave traces like leopards; they injure the carotid artery of their victims like the leopard does. (Letters from Lambarene, p.501)

The "leopard people" mafia: the magic potion and the belief in "magic power"
What is really strange is that most of leopard people are becoming like this just involuntarily. They are made like this by the leopard peiople society without knowing about it. Friom the blood of a murdered person a magic drink is prepared. Then an elected person gets a drink with a little bit of this magic drink in it. Having drunk this mixture it is presented to the victim having enjoyed the magic drink and by this would be member of the association. Nobody defends against this offer. The belief of having magic force with a magic drink is dominating them. They obey without will. (Letters from Lambarene, p.501)

The "leopard people" mafia: the test of courage for the inauguration
First they normally have to hijack a brother or a sister where leopard people is attacking the victim and killing it. Then they have to murder themselves.  (Letters from Lambarene, p.501)
The "leopard people" mafia: suicide in the group
An official in the interior of the Ogowe area, who had received orders during these months to control the mischief of the leopard people, had captured 90 suspects. But they didn't reveal anything, they poisoned themselves all in prison. (p.501)

May be this society of leopard humans is a movement of pure superstition, or it's a group for revenge and plundering. It's not known. In Africa there is a great development of rebellion going on, and there are more secret societies coming up. There is new superstition, primitive fanatism, and mordern Bolshevism having strange connections on the black continent. (Letters from Lambarene, p.502)

Living conditions in the tropical part of Gabon on the Ogowe River

-- The Ogowe river basin is in the southern hemisphere with winter from May to October as the "dry season" and with summer from October to May as the "rainy season", with a short dry season of 3-4 weeks in between from Dic.25 to the end of January with the heat peak (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.323)

-- average temperatures in the dry season (winter) are 25 to 30ºC, in the rainy season (summer) 28 to 35ºC; the nights are not cool (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.323)

-- Lambarene is always [almost always] calm, wind only comes up during the short tornado thunderstorms (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.403), and in the evening there is always a light evening breeze and palm trees rustle softly to the loud music of crickets, toads and animal screams from the jungle (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.451)

-- only 2 months of dry season: In the tropical part of Gabon on the Ogowe River there is only two months of dry season in July and August, and that too is not safe (letters from Lambarene, p.529).

The dry season and the dangerous sandbanks in the Ogowe River
-- in this dry season the river level sinks considerably and you can go for a walk on the sandbanks (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.455), whole villages are camping on the sandbanks and they are fishing there (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.343,455), so that less patients come to the hospital (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.455) or the mentally ill are transported in the dryness to a sandbank, where they can romp around unbound (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.360)
-- sandbanks at the hospital in Lambarene also serve as "mailboxes" to anonymously unload sick people there (letters from Lambarene, p.675)
-- shipping during the dry season is very dangerous: when steamers get stuck, it may take days for getting away (letters from Lambarene, p.670,684), or if motor boats hit a sandbank, they become defective (letters from Lambarene, p.531), or if wooden rafts run into a sandbank, the entire raft has to be dismantled and reassembled, the loss of time is up to 8 days (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.411)
-- always after the dry season there are new waves of patients when the fishing season is over (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.455)

-- the Ogowe river area is approx. 1200 km long, at the lower reaches of the Ogowe is 1 to 2 km wide, the delta is 200 km long, a total of 350 km are navigable to N'Djôle, with primeval forest on the riverbanks (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p. 321) - cultivation in the tropical climate is good for coffee, pepper, cinnamon, vanilla, cocoa, oil palms, rubber (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.322) and for corn is yielding in 4 months (letters from Lambarene, p.613).

-- then there is hill country with rapids, which can only be driven with small screw steamers and canoes, with prairie and forest on the riverbanks (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.321).

-- the bay and the timber trade: The Ogowe Estuary is in a bay, ideal for a port with calm waves. Overall, Africa has few such natural harbors. The timber trade with tree trunks from the jungle is flourishing in this bay, because the calm waves are ideal for loading wood onto the merchant ships (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.322).

-- wooden boards: Beams and boards have a high value, also as used goods, because there are hardly any sawmills in the jungle (letters from Lambarene, p.677).

-- canoes: Canoes are carved out of thick tree trunks, have no steering, a paddler has to steer at the end of the canoe, always in coordination with the paddlers at the tip of the canoe (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.356).

-- canoes: maintain canoes
Canoes have to be repaired and tarred again and again (letters from Lambarene, p.606)

-- canoe trips:
-- In Africa there are tropical plants whose leaves and roots have an euphoric effect, so that an activity is possible for 1 day without hunger, thirst or fatigue, but more and more euphoria and exuberance develop (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p .362).
-- Light and heat are reflected by the river water (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.356-357).

-- tornadoes and sinking ships: Tornadoes and sinking ships or canoes because of tornadoes are always possible on the tropical-African Atlantic coast [because the coast is at the same height as the Caribbean] (letters from Lambarene, p.582)

-- tornadoes destroy the roofs of leaves: Every tornado constantly provokes holes in the canopy of leaves, which then have to be repaired and every 2 to 3 years the canopy has to be covered again (letters from Lambarene, p.640)

The roofs are so bad that Albert Schweitzer is always busy with repairs in the afternoon (letters from Lambarene, p.640).
[and patients become sick and die when it's raining into the the hut - see chapter 7].

The whites in the jungle of Gabon
-- the Whites from Europe or the "USA" get tired and anemia comes after 1 year, after 2 to 3 years they are no longer able to work and need a break of at least 8 months in Europe
-- there is a high mortality among whites, e.g. in Libreville (the capital of Gabon) at the coast with a mortality of almost 14% ("almost 14 on 100") (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.323)
-- before 1914 are living about 200 white people at the tropical Ogowe River: planters, timber traders, merchants, government officials, Jesus fantasy missionaries (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.324)
-- and until 300 years ago there were powerful black tribes living on the Ogowe River, but in 1914 everything is in ruins, because the slave trade and the alcohol of the whites has destroyed the black tribes (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.324)
-- the Orungus in the Ogowe Delta have almost completely disappeared (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.324)
-- the Galoas in the area of ​​Lambarene are a maximum of 80,000 yet (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.324)
-- tribes from the interior of Gabon are pushing into the void: the Fans (Pahouins) are supposed to be cannibals, they are stopped by the colonialists, not to destroy the other tribes
-- Lambarene is the border between the Pahoins and the old tribes at the lower reaches, the Orungus and the Galoas (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.324).

The whites with their goods destroy black craft
-- the blacks had a high tradition of carving (p.429) with household appliances (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.430)
-- cords were made from bovine fiber
-- salt was extracted from the sea
-- the imports from Europe destroy this craft
-- there used to be carved wooden buckets, -> now there is the enamel pot from Europe
-- there used to be carved wooden dishes, -> now there are rusted dishes in the grass near the village
-- many crafts are forgotten
-- young black people are no longer learning to make cords from bark fibers, to make sewing thread from the fibers of pineapple leaves, to make canoes from wooden trunks (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.430).

The whites destroy the brains of the blacks with alcohol
-- Schnapps from Europe (p.430) and from the "USA" and Canada (p.431) are destroying African societies, small children get drunk with the elderly, schnapps is not forbidden because the government is cashing high tariffs from them. The self-destructive income of the colony and the customs are the reason why the consumption of alcohol is never banned, and if the tariffs are raised and the alcohol price rises, the consumption will NOT decrease because of that (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.430)
-- when the government is asked to finally ban alcohol, the government asks how one should replace the customs duties on alcohol (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.430-431)
"I am not indiscriminating in claiming that most of the liquor for Africa ... is imported through North American trade." (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.431)
Palm wine of the black
-- the local alcohol is only the palm wine, "a palm tree juice", it is never available in large quantities because production is prohibited, so the blacks have to drill secretly into the palm trees in the forest, and palm wine is not durable, i.e. for palm wine is available for 3 festivals a year, but not more, and certainly not every day all year round (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.431)
-- Fresh palm wine tastes like fermenting grape must, hardly makes you drunk. But the blacks add certain tree bark, so that the people are then heavily drunk (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.431)

-- from 1919 on there is a governor who tries to ban alcohol and wants to put the colony on healthy feet (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.431).

Gabon with a criminal tradition in the jungle: the natives only want to plant after slash and burn - depending on the dry season (!)

-- the blacks have a tradition of planting after slash and burn, the soil is fertilized with the ashes of the fire and then freshly planted on the ashes as fertilizer
-- when the dry season does not come and its also raining in July and August, no slash and burn operations can be carried out, and then nothing is planted - so that is of course a mindless reaction, not planting anything (!!!) (Letters from Lambarene, S.603)
-- every 3 years a village clears the area under cultivation (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.419)

Planting would also be possible when it rains, maize in the tropical climate already has yield in 4 months, but the blacks in Equatorial Africa prefer to eat the maize that is intended for sowing. Instead of hunting, famine is "celebrated" (letters from Lambarene, p.604).
There are wild boars to hunt, but the hunters are hypnotized and just don't hunt because there is "famine" (letters from Lambarene, p.605).
Or there would also be hippos to be hunted, but that is not done either (Letters, p.536-537).
Bananas and cassava can always be planted in the tropics - but the blacks refuse to cultivate them if they have not been cleared forest by fire before (letters from Lambarene, p. 605).
Also das Verhalten der Schwarzen mit der Tradition, nur nach Brandrodungen anzupflanzen, weil dann eine dünne Ascheschicht die Erde bedeckt, ist total KINDISCH und SELBSTZERSTÖRERISCH. Die Asche der Feuerchen zu Hause wird nämlich NICHT gesammelt - zumindest ist das NICHT EINMAL erwähnt].

[The myth of ashes as fertilizer - the childish, destructive behavior of the Afros concerning agriculture
So the behavior of black people with the tradition of only planting after slash and burn, because then a thin layer of ash covers the earth, is totally CHILDISH and SELF-DESTRUCTIVE. The ashes of the fires at home are NOT collected - at least that is NOT EVEN mentioned. Cultivation is also possible under roofs during the whole year, and with permaculture in the steppe. NOTHING is done like that under Albert Schweitzer...]
Dry season in Gabon
-- everything grows best during the dry season
-- vegetables and cabbage do not grow in tropical rain (letters from Lambarene, p.606).
[People never get the idea of ​​roofing garden beds].
Brick production in the jungle in Gabon: exactly 2 dry months (July + August)

Bricks are only produced in Gabon during the dry season in July and August. The clay is extracted in the swamp and then burned. Nobody wants to help, many are going "fishing" and then Schweitzer is reducing the rations and is losing his good reputation (Letters, p.529). In the end, Schweitzer loses to the blacks. They don't help for the bricks. For the year 1924 it doesn't matter because the dry season is not coming... (letters from Lambarene, p.530).

Dry season in Gabon with sunshine: drying bricks in the sun - can go wrong
So if you plan, e.g. to dry bricks in the sun, the plan can go wrong if the drying season is not coming (letters from Lambarene, p.529). Quote (translation):
"There are no covered rooms to dry the bricks. So you have to dry them on the floor in the sun. Only July and August are good for this, when it usually doesn't rain here." (Letters from Lambarene, p.529)
The Jesus fantasy pastor Silvanus said to Albert Schweitzer about the dry season of 1925: "Now every day is worth 3 days." (Letters from Lambarene, p. 606).

-- Coconut trees: Coconut trees are growing everywhere, sometimes the coconuts are rotting on the ground because nobody is going to fetch them (letters from Lambarene, p.557)

-- Goalas, Pahuins, and the often criminal Bendjabis: From 1913-1917, only blacks from the Goala and Pahuin tribes come to the Lambarene hospital - then from 1920 approx. also "wild blacks" come to the river - people from the interior of the country - in 1924, the Bendjabis, they make up 20% of the population at the Ogowe river (letters from Lambarene, p.547) - unfortunately they speak many different languages ​​and some of them can NOT be understood, one has to cure and operate them without communication (letters from Lambarene, p.555) - and unfortunately the Bendjabis also often have a high crime rate and terrorize the hospital and the patients with robbery and theft etc. (letters from Lambarene, pp.553-559, 578)

-- Letters of condolence: Albert Schweitzer always has to write a condolence letter to the relatives after a death, that is always very depressing for him (letters from Lambarene, p.584, p.673)

The doctors' nicknames in the hospital of Albert Schweitzer
The native blacks give doctors their own nicknames:
-- Dr. Albert Schweitzer (from April 19, 1924) is the "chief" (letters from Lambarene, p.585)
-- Dr. Viktor Nessmann (from October 19, 1924) is "the little doctor", whereby "little" means rather "young" (letters from Lambarene, p.540), Dr. Viktor Nessmann is also called "Ogula", the "son of the chief" (letters from Lambarene, p.585)
-- Dr. Marc Lauterburg (from March 16, 1925) is also called "N'Tschinda-N'Tschinda", as "the man who bravely cuts" (letters from Lambarene, p.585)

-- Hippos: Hippos are a danger to canoes
Hippos are a constant danger for canoes, can capsize canoes, destroy entire loads, and if the crews cannot swim, people drown (letters from Lambarene, p.606)


Food on the Ogowe River in Gabon

Poor diet on the Ogowe River

-- Hardly any agriculture on the Ogowe River: the food is poor, there is hardly any agriculture and mainly white rice is imported from Europe or Asia, so all strong blacks are working in the timber and logging business cutting trees, this brings in more money than agriculture (letters from Lambarene , p.635?)

-- Bananas + cassava + fish: the main plant-based diet is bananas and cassava tubers, in the dry season in the fishing season also fish (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.367).

-- Imports from Europe for the Ogowe River: Potatoes and grain are not possible in tropical climates because they grow too quickly in tropical climates, which means that the potato plants do not develop any tubers at all, and the grain is missing the ear with the grain. Rice cultivation is also impossible in the tropical climate. Cows can't stand the tropical grass. So flour, rice, milk and potatoes have to be imported from Europe, and therefore life in Gabon at the Ogowe River is not so cheap (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.323).

-- imports from the cr. "USA" for the Ogowe River:
   -- Tobacco (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.367)
   -- Petroleum (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.418)

-- the role of Tenerife: Here potatoes are produced for Africa and Europe, vegetables and sweet bananas also go to Europe (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.330).

-- inner of the country with cows is not a problem (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.323).

Almost only white rice
-- only eating white rice is damaging the intestines of the blacks, which lose their resistance, so that the blacks then become susceptible to the smallest pathogens, because they usually drink the river water, where the pathogens are, which they normally tolerate without problems, but combined with the white rice then they get one infection after the other (dysentery) - with a wholefood diet that wouldn't be a problem (letters from Lambarene, p.635)


White European education and relaxed mind against blacks in the jungle - the whites think the jungle is against whites [because the whites understand NOTHING about mother earth] (!)

Albert Schweitzer about the blacks in the African jungle without mental relaxation
-- they are "nature children" (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.434)
-- the blacks don't know any high education, no mental relaxation and suffer more in the jungle than the whites (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.452)
-- other whites also have their "reading" when they live in the jungle of Africa, e.g. the book "Aurora" by Jakob Böhme (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.452)
-- When whites live in the jungle of Africa, there is a constant battle
    -- against the unreliability of blacks
    -- against attacking animals
    -- Albert Schweitzer calls these living conditions the "terrible Africa prosaic" (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.452).

-- the nature of the jungle has power here, newspapers are hardly worth anything in jungle Africa
-- the European psychological terror (called Jesus fantasy "mission") and vanity (with highly developed technology) is nerving, looks abnormal
-- in the jungle, nature is everything and a human being is nothing - in civilized technology Europe nature is nothing and a human being is everything - THAT is the difference between Europe and jungle Africa (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.452)

Elsewhere there is clearly seen that the whites are the eternally aggressive and the blacks the relaxed people:


Mentality of the Afros with peace politics and against war: For the killed people one has to pay!

African law: whoever murders someone in a dispute has to pay for it!
-- if someone kills another human being in a dispute or manslaughter occurs, the aggressive party has to PAY for the dead: Albert Schweitzer quote (translation):
"Already 10 men [from Ogowe River region] have died in this war!"

10 people have already died in this war!" said an old Pahuin. "Yes, then why don't these tribes come together to discuss the palaver? How can they all pay for these dead?" The natives have the obligation to pay the persons killed in wars, not important if they are winners or loosers." (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.453)
-- therefore any acts of war are avoided in the black African society (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.453)


"Christian" colonialism of the whites destroys other cultures
[Supplement: The entire colonialism is based on criminal Christianity and the gay pope: In 1493 he defined a "Tordesillas line" parting the complete workd between Portugal and Spain. Albert Schweitzer is not aware of this important detail].

Colonialists brought diseases + atrocities reducing the population in Africa

-- the whites from Europe adorn themselves with a fantasy Jesus and are eliminating other colored populations or are reducing them more and more [by imported diseases - as it happened in the "USA" too]
-- the whites commit injustices + cruelties on and on and the colored peoples have to endure all of this [and do not know what is actually going on!]
-- the whites destroy the colored peoples [not only with deportations and forced labor], but also with schnapps, alcohol and diseases and only provoke misery, that is the total cruelty of the whites [in interaction with the black governments]. Albert Schweitzer quote (translation):
"What have committed the whites (all nations) to the colored peoples since they detected the far countries? What does it mean that many populations have died out already where the Europeans arrived adorning themselves with the name of [Fantasy] "Jesus"? Other populations are just before extermination or are constantly reducing! Who describes this injustice and cruelty which they have endured during centuries by the populations of Europe? Who dares to judge what schnapps and all the dreadful illnesses which were brought in by them have created among them with misery!

When history would make a list in a book listing what all happened between the whites and the colored people, so there would be masses of pages about events from former times and from these times which should be turned without reading because of too dreadful content." (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.472)

[Supplement: Corrupt, black governments
In doing so, however, Albert Schweitzer forgets the inability of the black governments, which are acting partly deliberately against their own populations driving them into hunger by not organizing agriculture with stimuli. It even may be like this that black governments are bribed by the whites and let die the black population so the whites get all mineral resources almost for free. In Peru it's just the same: the whites come with mining companies and the corrupt government wants the high mountains of Sierra without population for exploiting and destroying it - see the mines of Huancavelica or of Cajamarca...].
Albert Schweitzer wants a collective punishment
-- when white doctors heal colored people, then it is an atonement for the suffering that the Afros were inflicted by white colonialism (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.472-473)
-- for every white bullyman + murderer a doctor should go there to heal
-- whoever is a colonialist has a humanitarian responsibility
-- many colonial powers do not even have enough doctors for the few colonial doctor positions
-- every single one should contribute, but with the organization in Europe in the background (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.473)
-- one can deliver colored people from their pain
-- and those who have been healed and who have been operated on should help at the hospital so that other people can be healed and operated on (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.474)
-- European doctors should heal "far away" in order to realize the "humanity culture" (Edge of the Primeval Forest p.475)
[Conclusion: Albert Schweitzer is one of the first "doctors without borders"]
-- a European doctor with modest means can achieve a lot and save lives with just a little bit of "exotic medicine" (tropical medicine) "outside"
   -- against malaria with quinine + arsenic
   -- against ulcer diseases: Novarsenbenzol
   -- against dysentery: with emetine (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.475) and a microscope for finding out if it's cholera (Letters from Lambarene, S.663)
-- so the "exotic medicine" (tropical medicine) has made great progress in the last 15 years [from 1900 to 1915 approx.] (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.475-476)

The "Christian" warmongering from Europe thinks war is a "noble need for fame"
-- a magazine from Europe says that the whites have an crazy destructive need for fame and that is why they keep making war (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.471). Albert Schweitzer quote (translation):
"In those days I read an article in a magazine (p.470) which stated that there will always be wars because a noble need for fame is ineradicably rooted in people's hearts." (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.471)
-- black people think a lot, even without school education, they think a lot and come to a conclusion (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.455)
-- old natives make an impression on Albert Schweitzer with their spiritual life (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.455)
-- the blacks mercilessly show the whites the mirror [against the war mentality of the whites]

The blacks think "deeper" because they are not distracted from life by the NWO media
-- the blacks feel deeper because they are not distracted by the stupefying war media from Europe and North "America" ​​(Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.456).

Albert Schweitzer quote (translation):
"First of all, I notice that the natural child is much more "thinking" than is usually assumed. Even if it cannot read or write, it has thought about a lot more things than we think. Conversations that I have with old natives in my hospital about the last questions of life have touched me deeply. The difference between white and colored, educated and uneducated, disappears when one comes to talk to the jungle people (p.455) about our relationship to ourselves, to people, to the world and to the eternal. "Negroes are deeper than us because they don't read newspapers," a white man said to me recently. There is some truth in this paradox." (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.456)

[Albert Schweitzer does not seem to be aware of the whole manipulation of the "high lodges"].

So it is easy for good blacks to show the [arrogant-narrow-minded] Jesus fantasy whites the mirror and to put them to shame (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.459).


Mentality of the Afros: Rumors say that tehre are ghosts and demons

Birth among primitive peoples
-- The faces of the mother and the newborn baby are painted white to scare off demons or to deceive them (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.458)

Mentality of the Afros: stealing + lying + unreliability
-- for black people it is difficult to become a reliable person and to get rid of the tendency to steal and lie (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.459)
-- Black people think that if there is a temptation one should use it and they think that stealing things is "normal" (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.459)
[This kind of thinking I could observe also in Peru: familiar persons think when it's possible to steal then stealing would be allowed! Until they are detected with a trick and police is coming!]

Mentality of the Afros: Death is "normal"

-- the blacks think that death is something "natural", the fixed idea with a "last judgment" is unknown with the blacks (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.456)
-- Blacks are ethical rationalists with "a natural sensitivity for the concept of the good" (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.457)


Mentality of the whites: The eternal defamation of the white Jesus fantasy missionaries against the blacks

The white mission school is educating proud, educated blacks
-- the white Jesus fantasy missionaries destroy the African culture, and that is why many Afros reject the black Christians who come from the missionary schools who have attended the mission schools and at the same time feel "better" than the not educated Afro masses (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.459)
[The Jesus fantasy missionaries are dividing the African society, they are provoking social rifts, arguments, frustration, etc.]
-- black children with a school certificate from a mission school feel better than others (p. 459) and lose the connection to the family, lose themselves in pride and conceit (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.460)

The defamation by Jesus fantasy missionaries against the blacks - until the next Christian world war comes ...
-- the white Jesus fantasy missionaries with their Rome fantasy Bible claim that blacks live with a "worldview without history"
-- the white Jesus fantasy missionaries with their Rome Fantasy Bible claim that the blacks do not want to see the light of Jesus fantasy christianity, with which one could neutralize the "ghosts"
-- the white Jesus fantasy Christians claim, "that in all events only the will of God rules", [as if there were no other worlds] (Edge of the Primeval Forest,, p.456)
-- the belief in ghosts of blacks provokes fear and should be unethical, should be superstition, but the Jesus fantasy belief should provoke freedom, should be ethical and should "free" the blacks [until the next "Christian" world war comes and destroys everything !] (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.457)

The conversion to the brutally racist Jesus fantasy Christianity
-- sometimes the white "Christian" defamation against the black culture is successful and the blacks let be "their superstition" [and accept the new Jesus fantasy superstition] (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.457-458)
-- the Jesus fantasy missionaries complain that some black people have relapses and do not want to give up their "superstitions" (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.458)

The brutally racist Christians from Europe want to force black people to "drive out" ghosts and fetishes
-- Albert Schweitzer claims that the ghosts and fetishes of the blacks are being driven out with friendly irony (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.458)
-- at the same time the Europeans still have habits of native inhabitants who are called "pagans" by the [arrogant] Jesus fantasy Christians (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.458)
-- Albert Schweitzer differentiates between "heart morality" (renunciation of revenge) and bourgeois morality [doctrine of the "Christian" family, illegitimate children and orphans are excluded from society] (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.458)


Black Mentality: Black polygamy and its purpose on the Ogowe River

Polygamy is useful, like a security system. The [stupid] Christians are inciting against polygamy and want to call concubines as "illegitimate" (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.432).
[When there is no insurance system, polygamy is a safe system for securing the livelihoods of women and children].
The point of polygamy: all women get married

The terror missionaries are inciting against polygamy (p.431) and want to manipulate the government to abolish and forbid polygamy by law (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.431-432). But polygamy has its point [when there are no insurance systems and when women are not emancipated]:
-- women in Africa do not work for wages
-- unmarried women only cost families
-- in order to marry all women polygamy is needed (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.432): Albert Schweitzer quote (translation):
"Where people live in bamboo huts and society is not yet organized in such a way that a woman can earn a living by working independently, there is no place for unmarried women. ANd the precondition for marrying all women is the law of polygamy." (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.432)

Tropical Africa: The mothers have to breastfeed for a long time because there are no dairy animals
There are no cows and no dairy goats in the jungle, so polygamy is useful, because
-- Mothers have to breastfeed their babies for a long time, they live legally protected for 3 years with the child and during that time she is no longer wife, but also lives a lot with her parents, and after 3 years the weaning festival comes and she returns to the husband's hut
-- with polygamy the man has other women for the household and the plantings without any problem, so the first woman is never overloaded (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.432). Albert Schweitzer quote (translation):
"In the jungle there are no cows and no milk goats. So the mother has to breastfeed her child for a long time if it is not to perish. Polygamy safeguards the child's rights. After the birth, the woman has the right and the duty to live only with her child for three years. At first she is no longer wife, but only mother. Often she spends most of this time with her parents. After three years the weaning festival takes place and she returns as wife to her husband's hut. This life for the child is only conceivable if the husband meanwhile had another wife or other women to look after the household and the plantations." (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.432)
Tropical Africa: Blacks don't know lost widows and abandoned orphans
There is an enforced right of inheritance: when a man dies, the next familiar man inherits the woman with children and has to take care of them. With the consent of this closest relative she can then marry someone else (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.432). Albert Schweitzer quote (translation):
"There are no lost widows and no abandoned orphans among the primitive peoples. The next familiar man inherits the wife of the deceased and must maintain her and her children. She enters into the rights of his wife, even if she can later marry someone else with his permission . " (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.432)

With this right of inheritance at the death of a man it can happen that a 14 year old boy inherits a wife and children (p.433). When the woman remarries, the boy keeps the rights to the children and his duties in terms of buying a wife or the bride price - pretty hard (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.434). Albert Schweitzer quote (translation):
"In this country it can happen that a fourteen-year-old boy is the representative of a "family". This is how it goes. He has inherited a woman with children from a deceased relative. The woman has (p.433) married anew husband. But with this the rights of the boy on the children and his duties to them are not touched. When there are boys, so later he has to buy a bride for them; when there are girls, so the men who want to marry them have to pay a brideprice." (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.434)
Tropical Africa: Tolerant women among each other
The relationship between women is usually good and tolerant. A wife doesn't want to do everything alone and she likes to have a helper (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.433). Quote from Albert Schweitzer (translation):
"The relationship between women is usually good. A negress does not like to be the only wife, because then the maintenance of the plantation, which is the woman's affair, falls to her alone. Maintainance of plants is much work because the plantations are normally far away from the village in some hidden place." (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.433)
Lambarene: Example of a chief with 3 women in the Lambarene hospital
If a chief comes to the hospital with 2 young women and that is not a problem, later the first wife comes along, that is not a problem either (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.433).

Albert Schweitzer thinks that polygamy will disappear on its own:
Albert Schweitzer claims that when beautiful houses and agriculture come, polygamy will disappear by itself (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.433).

So one shouldn't change anything in the African system without need, and the Jesus fantasy Christians should keep their mouths shut with their fantasies [which always define orphans and "illegitimate" children] (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.435 ).

Blacks and the women

Blacks against blacks: Black women is pawned until the husband can pay

Some black people pawn a second wife in case they can't pay a debt. This is how a patient in Lambarene wanted to do it, but Albert Schweitzer refused (letters from Lambarene, p.665). Quote from Albert Schweitzer (translation):
"Someone who is really serious about his promise [to pay for the operation with bananas or other fruits] wants to leave his second wife with me as a pledge until he returns with the gift. I reject this method because the pledge is difficult to keep..." (Letters from Lambarene, p.665)

The African mentality: the man has to buy a woman

Black people are buying women and therefore have to earn money (letters from Lambarene, p.527).

Black people have to save money to buy a woman (letters from Lambarene, p.535).

Case: wife leaves husband - dispute over bride money
If a woman leaves the husband, the ex-husband demands the bride money back from the family (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.385).

Case: Buying a woman on partial payment can cause the woman to disobey

Quote from Albert Schweitzer (translation):
"At the moment he [the medical assistant Joseph] is unmarried because his wife left him when he was a cook on the coast to live with a white man. The purchase price for a new partner would be around 600 francs. It's possible to pay the marriage fee also in installments. But Joseph does not want a wife on installment because he thinks this is “a bad thing.” “If one of us,” he told me, “has not paid his wife in full, he has a bad life. She does not obey him and accuses him on every occasion that he has nothing to say to her because she has not yet been paid." (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.387)
Case: woman is auctioned
-- it is legally possible with the blacks that a family is auctioning one of their wives in order to do a "big business", but it is inhuman and has nothing to do with love (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.434)

The bride price - marriage is a money business in black Africa - forced marriage
-- a bride price for a relationship is like a dowry
-- marriage is always a money business, but it should remain an "accompanying circumstance"
-- there is no romance with relations among primitive peoples
-- about marriages are taken the decisions within the family council, the girl doesn't have much to say (!) (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.434). Albert Schweitzer quotes (translation):
"When the affair is with a girl being auctioned being ordered to a man without being asked there must be a protest of course."

"But when the affair is that following the national custom that the man who is vacating a girl and the girl says yes to marry him will pay a certain sum to the family so there is no objection to this as it is in Europe with a dowry."

"So we do not have to fight the buying of women as such, but only to have an educational effect on the natives so that they do not give the girl to the highest bidder, but to the one who can make her happy and for whom she feels affection."

"Usually the negro girls are not so dependent that they can be sold to the first best. Of course, love does not play the same role in marriage here as it does with us. The natural child knows no romance. Usually marriages are decided in the family council. Generally they are happy." (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.434)
Marriage age 15 - girls are "promised" from around 12 years - forced marriage is normal
The marriage age for the girls is mostly 15 or 16, from about 12 a man is determined for them, the family determines the girl's husband (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.434-435). Albert Schweitzer quote (translation):
"Most of the girls get married at the age of 15. Almost all of the girls in the girls' school of the mission (p.434) are destined for a man and marry as soon as they are released from school." (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.435)
In special cases, parents promise their unborn baby already during pregnancy, e.g. to pay debts (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.435). Quote from Albert Schweitzer (translation):
"That girls can be promised before they are born, I learned from the story of an unjustifiable woman purchase, which once happened at Samkita and was told to me by a missionary. One man owed 400 francs to another man, but didn't think about it, to repay it, but bought a woman and got married. As they sat at the banquet, the creditor came and heaped accusations that he had bought a wife instead of paying his debts with the money. The palaver began. They came to an agreement at the end that the debtor promised the creditor the first daughter that would be born out of his marriage, and with this solution the creditor was satisfied and was taking part of the festivity. After 16 years he came and applied the marriage. And in this way the debt was paid." (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.435)
 

The mentality of the Afros in "natural medicine": the healers ("fetish men")

The African healers ("fetish men") sometimes give too high doses so they are poisoning their patients. The fetish men then work together with Albert Schweitzer in Lambarene and cases that do not heal with them are referred to Lambarene (letters from Lambarene, p.658).


The mentality of the Afros in "natural medicine": The fantasy that powdered tree bark would heal wounds - but provokes amputations (!)

The healers of the black natives in Gabon have the wrong fantasy that wounds would heal springking powdered tree bark into the wound. But this only provokes a rotting of the whole body part even provoking an amputation (letters from Lambarene, p.587). Quote from Albert Schweitzer (translation):
"His tribal comrades [...] treat him in their own way with powdered tree bark. This has the success that in the end the whole arm forms only a gushy surface and the general condition of the man becomes worrying. We show him his case, whereupon he, on the advice of hospital inmates, asks for the amputation. After we have heard from witnesses that he himself wants it that way, the operation is carried out. He returns to the lumberyard healthy and grateful, only with one arm. " (Letters from Lambarene, p.587)

Mentality of the Afros: no money box there

The blacks don't know what is a money box. Albert Schweitzer installs a money box for his helper Joseph (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.387).


Afro mentality: Buy bad goods from Paris

Blacks buy goods from Paris even if they are spoiled or worn, e.g. patent-leather shoes, which always stood in the sun in a shop window, with burned varnish (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.387).


Catch animals (wildlife) in the jungle

-- Hunting is hardly possible in the African jungle, because the dense undergrowth protects the animals well, hunting is only possible on the grass steppe, but where there is no wood (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.407)

-- Elephants: Elephants like to eat the bananas, in one night they can eat away a whole field (letters from Lambarene, p.634)

-- Elephants in the jungle of Africa are in the swamps during the day and during the night they plunder the banana fields of the people (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.444). Quote (translation):
"During the day they stay in inaccessible swamps and then at night they plunder the previously explored plantations." (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.444)
-- Elephants at the end of 1924: Elephants are eating up the banana fields: The food shortage is getting worse because of the elephants, who were able to reproduce quietly because of the neglect elephant hunt and now they are big groups eating one banana field after the other one (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.442). Albert Schweitzer quote (translation):
"I'm worried about getting the food for the sick [in 1924 during the coming famine]. There is almost famine here ... because of the elephants. In Europe people usually imagine that the wild animals, where the "culture" comes, are going to die out (p.442). This may be the case in some areas, but in many regions the opposite is the case. Why? For three reasons: If the indigenous population declines, as is the case in many places, the hunt is less. And [second point] the hunt becomes bad because the natives forget how to chase animals in the primitive and often so ingenious way of their ancestors. [Now] they are used to hunting with rifles. However, little powder has been distributed by any state in all of Equatorial Africa since years to make revolts impossible. In addition, they are not allowed to own any modern hunting rifle, but only old flintlock shotguns. Thirdly, however, the fight against wild animals is therefore also less vigorous. because the natives don't have time anymore. They make more money with timber trade and rafting the logs to the sea than with hunting. So the elephants can thrive and reproduce fairly unchallenged. We get to feel this here now. The banana plantations in the villages northwest of here, from which we get our food, continue to be plagued by elephants. 20 elephants are enough to devastate a large plantation in one night. What they don't eat, they trample down." (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.443)
-- Elephants destroy telegraph lines: Elephants like to walk where the whites installed their telegraph lines passing the rain forest and they also like to walk following the cuttings passing the rain forest, and then the elephants are destroying the telegraph lines by rubbing against the posts or even knocking down posts. In this way, telegraph lines are blocked for days in Gabon (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.443). Quote from Albert Schweitzer (translation):
"The elephants are dangerous not only to the plantings, but also to the telegraph. The line that leads from N'Djôle to the interior has a special story. It's forming a channel in the rain forest showing a way and this is attractive for the animals. But even irresistible are the straight poles where the elephants are rubbing themselves, this they like very much. Pushing strongly the poles are broken on the floor. Then the next pole will get it's same fate. In this way, a strong elephant can destroy a complete telegraph line, and days can pass (p.443) for repair by the next surveillance post for having the damage repaired." (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.444)
The traditional elephant hunt: cut the Achilles heel

Black people have a tradition of killing elephants by cutting their Achilles tendons, but if they are discovered the elephant wins (letters from Lambarene, p.653). Quote from Albert Schweitzer (translation):
"Now the lumberjacks are thinking of killing the animal in the style of their forefathers by sneaking after it and cutting the Achilles tendons of its hind feet with a machete. How many thousand elephants were defenseless in the forests of Central Africa in earlier times in this insidious way and killed. But the blacks at Samkita lack the practice that their ancestors had. The elephant notices the attack and attacks them. He throws the next one into the air and bores his tusks into his body, whereupon the elephant continues his way calmly." (Letters from Lambarene, p.653)

The new elephant hunt with the rifle of the whites

The elephant hunters approach an elephant within 10 paces and then fire a fatal shot. But if the shot is not fatal, then the elephant hunter has got a problem (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.444). Quote from Albert Schweitzer (translation):
"The artist was a famous elephant hunter at the same time. When hunting, the natives sneak up to 10 steps to the elephant and then fire the flintlock shotgun at him. If the shot is not fatal and if the animal detects them, they come into one unpleasant situation." (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.444)

Wildlife: Fishing on sandbanks: Camping on the sandbank

-- dried fish: fishing is mainly worthwhile in the dry season when the water is low (letters from Lambarene, p.536)

In a river with low water during the dry season, an entire village population can camp on a sand bank:
-- the whole village camps on a sandbank in tents for 2 weeks, fresh fish is eaten, boiled, baked, stewed, and fish is dried and smoked for storage
-- at the beginning a ritual is carried out: Schnapps and tobacco leaves are put into the water in order to put the "evil ghosts" in a good mood, so that a lot of fish is caught and against damaging events
-- from such a fish action the village then returns home with up to 10,000 dried or smoked fish (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.343)
-- on the sandbank many old people get pneumonia and after returning they die from it (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.366).

-- Hippos: A canoe full of hippopotamus meat
When during the dry season it's raining so the dry season is no dry season, and when there is no agricultural cultivation in the jungle, the population is forced to stock up on meat by killing hippos, but then one has to search and hunt for days or weeks (letters, p.536) and it is not said that the hunt is successful - but you PERHAPS win a canoe full of hippopotamus meat (letters from Lambarene, p.537).

-- Whaling by Norwegians off Cap Lopez
In August, the whales of the southern hemisphere swim as far as the equator to escape the cold at the South Pole, thus Norwegian whalers are in Cap Lopez. (Letters from Lambarene, pp. 606-607)
[The government of Gabon apparently allows this or is paying for the whaling license well. It's not told that the wale meat is also distributed to the population in Gabon].
- Sharks in the ocean: The ocean in front of Africa is full of sharks, the sharks are attracted by kitchen garbage from the steamers and they also come to the ports (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.334).

-- Mismanagement: Gabon of 1924 is in a complete mismanagement (a lot of timber trade and hardly any agriculture) so that is a "misery and horror" (Letters, p.502), and additionally the government does not support the handicraft, so that the population lacks of the basic handicraft (Letters from Lambarene, p.557?)

Wildlife in the jungle: insects

-- Insects in the jungles of Africa
-- Tsetse flies: The tsetse flies "Glossina palpalis" spreads sleeping sickness. Tsetse flies are as big as the European hummingbird flies, but they fly silently and sting and suck blood through the thickest fabric - since tsetse flies never want to be discovered, they never land on white color, so the best protection against tsetse flies is to put on white clothes. The blacks suffer brutally from the tsetse flies (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.357).

Animals in the jungle

Birds, monkeys and palm trees in the jungle
-- Birds and monkeys spread the oil nuts of the oil palms, and now Albert Schweitzer inherits whole groves with oil palms for palm oil products
-- Palm kernels are sent to Europe to squeeze palm oil [why is there no oil press in the mission?]
-- Patients with foot ulcers are allowed to open palm nuts (letters from Lambarene, p.630).

from August 1914
Lambarene: Monkey meat becomes normal to eat
(Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.453)
-- monkey meat is donated by a Jesus fantasy missionary (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.453)
-- monkeys are the easiest game to kill
-- monkey meat tastes like sweet goat meat
-- in the eyes of some whites, eating monkey meat is the beginning of cannibalism (anthropophagy) (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.454).


The hippos in Gabon

Lambarene June 1925
Case: hippopotamus overturns a motorboat in the river
(Letters from Lambarene, p. 606)

Hippos often feel annoyed by canoes and are threatening the canoes with trumpet roars (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.370).

Hippos also attack fishing boats, overturning them and then chasing people, which can result in broken bones, e.g. a broken thigh (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.369).

Lambarene: termites in first-aid boxes
April 1915
[Termites eat away at the wood so that whole houses can collapse].
In the case of the wooden box of the hospital which is attacked by termites, the following must now be done:
-- the termites are detected by their "sticky" smell (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.446)
-- the attractant for the termites was a medical syrup that was dripping from a leaky cork bottle (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.446).

Lambarene: soldered cans against the small weevil
-- Flour + corn for the chickens in the hospital are soldered in cans, so Helene Schweitzer is now learning to solder
but: The small weevil (Calandra granaria) is also penetrating the soldered cans, and in a short time the maize is turning to dust (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.446)

Albert Schweitzer fights against vermin
-- small weevil (Calandra granaria)
-- termites
-- little scorpions
-- stinging insects.
--> Every step in the housework becomes a risk and one has to be careful with every movement, not like in Europe, where it's possible to reach safely and blindly into the drawers (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.446)

Albert Schweitzer fights against black wandering ants (Dorylus)
-- Albert Schweitzer's house is [what bad luck!] at an ant road of the black wandering ants (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.447)
-- the wandering ants wander through territories in parallel columns (p.446), they run very fast, much faster than European ants (p.448) at a distance of 5 to 50 m (p.447), the big ant hikes take place especially at the beginning and at the end of the rainy season [in September and May] (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.448)
-- the wandering ants bite and one can hardly remove them, or the pincers get stuck in the skin (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.447-448)
-- during the hikes all small animals are eaten away, also big spiders that are saving themselves on trees (Zwischen Wasser + Urwald, p.447)

-- the black wandering ants usually swarm out at night, so there are always night attacks
-- chickens warn with scratching and a "strange chuckle"
--> chickens have to be let out of the hen house, so they don't become victims, otherwise the ants attack the chickens, crawl in their noses and mouths and the chickens suffocate and are eaten by the wandering ants, chicks are all eaten, they can't chuckle
-- Albert Schweitzer then fetches water from the river, which is mixed with Lysol [disinfectant - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysol], and the area around the house is watered with it (p.447) Lysol smell drives the ants away and many ants are drowning in the water (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.448)
-- the worst was so far a week with 3 ant hikes with the wandering ants (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.448)


Ports in Africa without piers

Loading operations off the African coast
Most of the ports in Africa do not have a pier, i.e. no protective dam against high waves, so that the cargo is loaded onto the dinghies using the ship's crane. In Grand Bassam (Tabou, Cotonou) it is very extreme, the cargo and the people are heaved in wooden boxes onto the dancing boats, sometimes it doesn't work and the cargo gets wet. Africa lacks safe harbors (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.336).

Cyclones and rains are constantly coming (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.336-337).


The dangerous sun in Africa

The tropical sun in Africa - the dangerous sunshine behind the clouds (!)

When the sky is cloudy, the sun is said to be much more dangerous than the direct sun, this is reported by white people who have already been to Africa (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.337).

Sunshine in Africa without hats provokes fever and delirium, or even sunstroke. A "colonial doctor" recommends treating sunstroke like malaria with quinine injected intramuscularly, because whoever is infected with malaria and then gets a sunstroke gets a severe course or the sunstroke then triggers malaria attacks (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.371 ).

If vomiting occurs with the sunstroke, the water supply is set up with saline solution in the arm vein (1/2 liter of distilled and sterilized water with 4.5 grams of saline) (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.372).


The black principle: black people don't want to work

-- the black Africans do not want to work and let themselves be paid dearly by whites, so that the Afros are more expensive than the Europeans in the end (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.418)
-- Employment contracts are only verbal and can be terminated at any time (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.420)
-- Black people are only used to casual work, but not regular work (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.420)
-- Black people can work well for themselves if, for example, is about slash and burn for new banana fields, but they are not working with prevention in advance (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.419)
-- a black African needs money
   -- to buy a woman
   -- to buy his wives great things like sugar, tobacco, fabrics
   -- to buy himself an ax, or alcohol, or he is a fashion freak and is buying new, fashionable clothes from Europe (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.419)

-- when black people have got the money they need for their project, they leave the workplace, regardless of whether they are needed or not, regardless of whether there is a crisis or whether there is a new demand for wood etc. (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.420)


The helpless government of Gabon wants to force blacks to work
-- the government of Gabon wants to introduce a poll tax of 5 francs annually in order to get all black people to work (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.420-421)
-- In addition, the merchants in the factories offer European consumer goods, schnapps and tobacco, and the Afros buy what they like, e.g. European music boxes (p.421), because African women like them so much (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.421)
[The alcohol sale destroys the Afros' brains].
-- with the measures of the Gabon government, the blacks become greedy for money, addicted and even more unreliable towards the whites
-- blacks don't work without supervision and Albert Schweitzer has to e.g. play the overseer 3 hours a day so that the blacks work 3 hours a day
-- the white employers then are deporting black people from far away so that there is no connection to their home village (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.422).
-- the consequences are a lot of homesickness, moral decline, a lot of food problems because only white rice is available at the Ogowe River, a lot of frustration + schnapps enjoyment, alcohol abuse - and the people live close together and have many diseases and ulcers (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p. 423)

-- the government of Gabon is planning compulsory work with compulsory obligation for a few days to work with a merchant or planter (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.424)
-- compulsory work elsewhere brings again many problems because of the family that is far away, because of the food for the slave laborer, because of the distance, and that can all degenerate into slavery (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.425)
-- and the result is that the blacks are fleeing to remote villages so that the white stations cannot oblige them (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.427). Albert Schweitzer quote (translation):
"For the frond and requisitions, the villages that are closest to the settlements of the whites naturally come into consideration. No matter how gentle and fair the government may be, these natives find it a burden and are more and more emigrating to more distant areas in which one has peace and quiet life. Thus, in areas with indigenous peoples and low population density, a void gradually forms around the settlement of the whites. " (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.427)
-- as a result, the Gabonese government forbids blacks to move their villages
-- and the government orders the relocation of distant villages near white settlements or to certain points of caravan routes (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.428).

"Save up"
-- The workers receive half their wages, the white employer saves the other half for the blacks, which is paid out at the end of work
-- mostly the black workers need the money to buy a woman (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.423)
-- after the payment everything is quickly given out and when they return home the blacks stand in front of their families without anything (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.423)

The government grants "concessions" to large companies over large areas
-- such "concessions" to big companies can degenerate into slavery like in the Belgian Congo, or it can have an educational effect like at the upper reaches of the Ogowe in Gabon in the area of ​​the "society of the upper Ogowe" (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.426)

The colonialist has too much profit
Generally it is the case that the colonial profits are increasing and the black population is decreasing at the same time (Edge of the Primeval Forest p.428)
[by spreading diseases across Africa, and by deaths during transports]

The timber trade is ruining African agriculture - and the blacks don't work at all without supervision

from the 1880s
Logging in Africa near the rivers
Africa has neither roads nor trucks, and the jungle floor in Africa consists only of roots and swamp. One would have to build roads at high costs. In addition, the heat in equatorial Africa makes it impossible to bring foreign workers from other climates to the region (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.404).

Gabon: The timber trade is withdrawing all craftsmen - but sometimes the timber traders also make losses

-- the logging and timber trade in Gabon is about okoume trees (letters from Lambarene, p.549).

-- there are no black workers for the construction of the hospital in Lambarene, they are all active in the timber trade and cut or transport jungle wood to the coast [to Cap Lopez, now Port Gentil] (Life+Thought, p.215)

So: In Gabon there is "timber trade fever" and the work at Albert Schweitzer is often not attractive for the Afros, BUT:
   -- the Afros often lose a lot of money in the timber trade (!)
   -- some wood merchants donate something to Albert Schweitzer for the hospital (letters from Lambarene, p.528). Quote (translation):
"Joseph [...] the timber trade fever has converted him too. He and some friends have leased a large area of ​​forest to exploit with day laborers who were recruited for a year. I have to promise him to get free time whenever for controling his affairs. As for now, his wife is replacing him as overseer of the workers at the lumber yard, which is three days' journey from here. But I fear that Joseph, like so many natives who are self-employed in the timber trade, will lose money instead of making profits.

I am very happy that some of the few indigenous timber merchants who have achieved something give me considerable gifts for running the hospital at the suggestion of Emil Ogouma. They want to contribute possibly the amount of money that Mrs. Kottmann's journey arriving here will cost. But I don't know if that much will come together. "(Letters from Lambarene, p.528)
-- so Albert Schweitzer obliges some relatives of patients to do construction work, but they are not enthusiastic about it or they even disappear. (Life+Thought, p.215)

from 1910 approx.
Logging in Gabon now in the interior of the jungle - the timber trade is becoming more complicated

All good wood from the river bank is cut away
The lumber yards on the river banks are all gone, and new lumber yards are only in the inside of the jungle (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.405).

The timber trade on the Ogowe River is now very unsafe:
-- the wood yards in the interior of the forest are dry at low tide, flooded at high tide and connected to the Ogowe River (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.404-405). Quote (translation):
"Usually they [the good lumber yards] (p.404) are located far in the forest, but at high water they are connected to the river through a narrow watercourse or through a pond, which then becomes a lake." (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.405)
-- tree felling on lumber yards inside the jungle is only possible in the dry season between June and October (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.408)

-- when white organizers ask black people about good wood places, black people lie to white people and only show them the bad wood places in order to get presents again and again (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.405). Albert Schweitzer quote (translation):
"The natives keep the knowledge of such places [good logging sites] to themselves and try to mislead the whites who look for them in their area. A European told me that the men of a village were showing him timber places during over two months receiving rich gifts without end like tobacco schnapps and clothe from him every day. But he did not find any good timber place that was promised for having a good yield. Most recently, listening to an overheard conversation, he learned that they were deliberately not showing him the good places, whereupon the friendship came to an end." (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.405)
Blacks never want to be on time
-- Blacks cut trees freely without white organizers and then sell the wood cheaper, but the blacks never deliver on time, that's not their mentality - under the guidance of a white they deliver on time, but the wood is then more expensive (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.405). Albert Schweitzer quote (translation):
"The big thing here is not to own forests, but to have felled wood. The wood that the negroes cut for their own account and offer for sale is actually cheaper than that which the Europeans cut with hired workers. But the negroes deliveries are so uncertain that the trade cannot rely on them. They might think of celebrations or fishing trips when there is great demand for wood. So every company buys wood from the natives and cuts at the same time trees with hired workers." (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.405)
Camping at the wood yard in the interior of the jungle - and constant famine
-- People camp at the wood yard, food is a big problem, and long transports with bananas and manioc are also impossible, because they rotten quickly: Bananas is rotting in 6 days, manioc is rotting in 10 days (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.406).

-- white timber merchants are organizing rice and European canned goods (p.406-407), especially canned sardines, but for having a change in their diet they also organize canned asparagus, Californian fruits for the black woodcutters - so the most expensive canned goods that you hardly eat in Europe, are consumed in the jungle of Africa to cut wood there - it's a complete nonsense (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.407)

-- Hunting is hardly possible in the African jungle, because the dense undergrowth protects the animals well, hunting is only possible on the grass steppe, where there is no wood (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.407)

-- Albert Schweitzer clearly means that it's easily possible to starve to death by hunger in the wood yards in the forest if you are not careful (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.407)

Camping at the lumber yard in the interior of the jungle: homesickness, decay, diseases
-- the white employers then get black people from far away so that there is no connection to their home village (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.422).
-- The consequences are a lot of homesickness, moral decline, a lot of food problems because only white rice is available at the Ogowe, a lot of frustration + schnapps enjoyment, alcohol abuse - and the people live close together and have many diseases and ulcers (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p. 423)

-- the white colonialist is destroying the African society by decoy policy into the "distance" (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.424)
-- the solution would be to educate craftsmen THERE in the villages (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.423-424)

Lumber yards in the interior of the jungle: cruel living conditions
-- the black loggers working on timber yards are constantly attacked by the tsetse fly during the day and by the mosquitoes at night
-- some of the black loggers stand with their whole legs in the swamp
-- the black woodcutters are full of malaria (fever + rheumatism) (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.407).

Felling trees in the lumberyard: bulky roots - lianas - diameter must be between 60 and 150cm
-- some of the gigantic trees have very bulky roots to withstand tornadoes
-- so the actual trunk sometimes only starts at a height of 2m (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.407)
-- the tree is connected to other trees with lianas and does not fall at all when it is felled below (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.408)
-- on the ground the trunk is cut into 4 to 5 m long pieces, everything that is less than 70 cm in diameter is not for sale, remains on the floor and will rotten, and pieces that are too thick also remain, the trade only wants between 60-150 cm in diameter (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p. 408)

-- the 4 to 5m long logs weigh almost 3 tons
-- the way to the watercourse is then cut, that is a fight against roots and tree tops and branches that are still on the ground, the branches are sometimes stuck in the ground
-- some routes also lead through swamps and have to be filled with wood
-- then 30 people roll a log over the path with rhythmic shouting, if there are irregularities on the way, winches are used, or the path goes uphill, or the path sinks, then a winch is always needed, sometimes people only manage 80m a day (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.408)

-- until the flood in November, all wood must be in the water channel or pond, which then has a direct connection with the river in the rainy season (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.409)

-- the second flood in spring is often not high enough
-- every 10 years approx. the first flood (in autumn) is not high enough and all logging is lost, that was e.g. the case in November 1913, many timber traders and teams remained in debt (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.409)
-- The wood that remains is being eaten away by tropical bark beetles (Bostrichidae) and is gone in 1 year (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.409)

Lianas and the binding of wood
-- Lianas are the best free ropes from finger thick to arm thick. The pieces of wood are tied together to rafts with lianas (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.410).

The dangerous trip of the rafts on the Ogowe River to Cap Lopez
-- the raft is bound and a floor is installed on it made of thin wood, with a fireplace and a house on it, in front and behind there are large oars, 15 to 20 black people live on the raft as a crew who know the sandbanks (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.411)

-- the distance from Lambarene to Cap Lopez is 250km, for a raft that's 14 days of travel, in the last part the last 80km are slow because the tide of the sea is pushing against it, and the water is salty, then a canoe is filled with water beforehand, and it only goes forward at low tide, at high tide people wait on the riverbanks (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.412)

-- if a raft gets stuck on a sandbank, this is a disaster because one has to take the raft apart and put it back together again, that can be special work for up to 8 days - and time is always of the essence due to a lack of food (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.411)

-- during the trip on the river, the black crew on the rafts is exchanging some tree trunks with cheap tree trunks and sells the expensive tree trunks to black villages (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.411-412)

-- the black crew on the rafts is often lured away from their trip when they are making too long rests in the villages, when there are festivities in villages, then it's just not important to meed deadlines, so the ship in Cape Lopez has to wait and the timber merchant has to pay fines every day loosing his profit (Edge of the Primeval Forest,, p.412)

The Ogowe Delta: 30 km narrow river arm - 15 km sea shore - with all dangers
-- Risk: Meet the right arm of the river: The raft has to go exactly into a 30 km long, narrow, curvy river arm that flows directly to Cape Lopez
-- If this arm of the river is missed, the raft lands in the middle of the bay and the ebb current carries the raft out into the open sea at 8km / h
-- Risk: 15km of the sea shore: when the raft arrives in the bay, the raft can then be pegged in shallow water along the shore with poles to Cape Lopez, that is 15km of bank stress, winds are a great danger: when winds drive the raft into the sea, people in Cap Lopez are observing this and maybe call a boat with an anchor that will save the raft
-- Risk: Big waves in the sea: If the waves are too high, the raft breaks and the crew rescues themselves in the canoe
-- Risk: Ocean current: If a canoe that is driven out to sea by the wind is not rescued, it will be pulled out into the sea by the ebb flow and will sink with the entire crew if no rescue takes place (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p .413)
-- Rescues only come by chance when a launch (big boat) is currently under steam (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.414)
[Africa has not invented yet systematic lifeboats, systematic towing with motor boats in the bay or the delimitation of the beaches for rafting].
The "wood park" of Cap Lopez
-- when the raft arrives in Cap Lopez after all risks, it is integrated into a double row of rafts, this double chain of rafts is fastened with iron rings and wire ropes, the installation is checked every few hours, and dolphins jump over the trunks (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.414)
-- when there is a longer time to wait for a steamer for the transport to Europe, the trunks are rolled ashore (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.417)
-- it happens that in the night a rope breaks and all rafts disappear with the ebb flow, so this is a complete loss for the white timber merchants (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.414)
-- or a tornado comes and blows all ropes, that is also a total loss for the white timber traders (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.414).
[The African governments systematically refuse to build piers to protect their ports].

The wood steamer to Europe
-- the steamer for the transport to Europe waits in the bay, the launches (big boat) bring the rafts with blacks on them, who knock out the fixing ring for each trunk before loading, then the chain is put around the trunk, accidents may happen when blacks slip between the tree trunks crushing their legs
-- if there comes a stiff wind or a tornado, these are other risks of loss (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.415)
[The African governments systematically refuse to create ports for the steamers to Europe].
-- after the loading of the wood into the wood steamer the raft crew of blacks returns to the Ogowe River because Cap Lopez is without food production, there is always a shortage of food there. The blacks then use the received salary to buy all sorts of things in the factories, tobacco, alcohol. The blacks don't know the word "to save", then after a few weeks they are bankrupt and the logging starts all over again (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.416).

The bay of Cap Lopez
-- is very rich in fish (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.469)

Wild wood in the bay of Cap Lopez
-- in the bay of Cap Lopez many wild tree trunks from the primeval forest are swimming around, so in the bay of the Ogowe River loose logs are constantly drifting (p.415-416), which could not be integrated into the rafts, the floods in the rain forest brought them down the Ogowe River and now they are in the lagoon without control, there they are then stuck in the mud of the estatuary (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.416)

-- Wood that is swimming in the sea for a long time is attacked by the shipworm (Teredo navalis), a small shell (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.416).

1914
The export of timber from Cap Lopez
-- from this spot there are 150,000 tons of wood per year
-- Mahogany (Ombega)
-- fake mahogany (Aucoumea klaineana), the wood is softer than mahogany, is mainly suitable for cigar boxes and also for furniture, sometimes more beautiful than real mahogany (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.416)
-- other types of wood on the Ogowe River are e.g.
   -- Rosewood (Ekewasengo), red
   -- Coral wood, red
   -- Ironwood, it's as hard as metal gears
   -- white wood, that is "like moirated satin"
   -- some woods are not even known in Europe (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.417).

The Jesus fantasy missionary Mr. Haug in N'Gômô is a wood expert with a wood collection (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.417).


Blacks against whites: Blacks cheat white timber merchants with tricks on timber

-- the black Africans do not want to work and when working for whites they want a high salary, therefore at the end the afros cost more than whites (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.418)

Fraud of blacks against whites: sale of a cheap wood with a similar grain + bark
-- Black people sell cheap wood with a similar grain and bark as expensive wood (e.g. mahogany fakes)

Fraud of blacks against whites: sawing off old pieces of wood and "integrating" them into the new wood collection
-- Black people mix old pieces into the wood collection, the ends of which have only been sawn off (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.409). Albert Schweitzer quote (translation):
"Finally the wood is placed in running water and is fixed at the river bank with lianas. Now the white timber merchant comes and is purchasing what the negro has to offer in the different villages. But now one has to be cautious. Is it really wood of the wanted species or the negroes have mixed other wood with similar bark and grain into the collection which is just near the water in a luring place? Is all wood fresh or are there old pieces from one year ago or from two years ago which are just cut at their ends so they look new? Fantasy of the negroes for cheating in the timber trade is incredible variable. The newcomer has to be careful!" (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.409)
Blacks are cheating the whites: Leave cheap redwood in the morass for months so that it simulates black ebony wood
-- criminal blacks soak hard wood in the morass for months and sell it as ebony (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.409-410). Quote from Albert Schweitzer (translation):
"The dearly acquired supply was worthless and he was liable for the damage himself. The negroes had sold him some hard wood that they had soaked for a few months in the black mud. The cut and the superficial layers simulated the most splendid ebony. Inside, however, it was reddish. The inexperienced white man had neglected to saw through a few logs as a test." (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.410)

Blacks are cheating the whites: collect half the payment several times and disappear, never to be seen again
-- The black logging groups receive half of the wages after the logging, and the second half of the payment comes after the transport to the bay of Cap Lopez. Now there are black groups who never transport the wood, but they collect the first half several times from several white timber dealers, selling the cut wood 4 to 5 times, and in the end the blacks disappear with the money, never to be seen again, and the white woodcutters are left alone (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.410). Albert Schweitzer quote (translation):
"The white timber merchant measured and bought the wood. The measurement is hard work because he always has to jump around on the logs turning in the water. Now he pays half the purchase price. The rest will be payed when the wood - which has got the symbol of his company now - has arrived the sea. Sometimes it happens that negroes are selling the same wood four or five times, every time cashing the first half of the money and at the end they disappear somewhere in the jungle until the trade was forgotten or the white are fed up with loosing time and money to search the defrauders. Of course the money is not there any more because it's converted into tobacco and other items, and there is nothing for getting the money back." (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.410)

Cheating blacks against whites: exchanging logs and falsifying markings during the trip on the Ogowe River
-- there are black crews who commit systematic fraud while driving on the Ogowe River and exchange whole trunks at landing sites, expensive trunks are replaced by cheap trunks and the expensive trunks are sold to black villages (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.411 -412). Albert Schweitzer quote (translation):
"On the trip it is not uncommon for the negroes to sell good tree trunks from the raft to natives exchanging them with cheap wood of the same dimension and with an imitation of the logo of the company. Such cheap wood pieces can always been found in the forest being deposited from the last flood, or they can be found on sandbanks or in bays of the river. There are rumors claiming that villages are collecting the old wood pieces in all dimentions as a stock. The good wood stolen from the raft is anonymized and sold to other whites." (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.411-412)

Gabon - since 1919: Much more hunger in Gabon than in 1913, because strong men from the interior of the country are now chopping wood instead of farming

-- the interior of Gabon is partially depopulated, further factors of the population reduction are the "Spanish flu" in 1919, hunger after the war 1919-1920 and sleeping sickness (letters from Lambarene, p.547)
-- when the strong men from the interior of Gabon have migrated to the Ogowe River, these strong workers are missing for agriculture (letters from Lambarene, p.547).
The homeless "savages" then chop wood on the Ogowe River and do not farm there either. So hunger is inevitable in Gabon.
--> The government has issued restrictions and stipulated settlement bans and return obligations (letters from Lambarene, p.548)
-- others think that the lumberjack savages should move to the Ogowe River with the whole family, then they would also plant fields for their families (letters from Lambarene, p.548-549)
-- But the theory of bringing the family to the Ogowe River and planting fields there does not work, according to Albert Schweitzer, because the wood yard will be empty in 1 to 2 years and the group will move on, exactly when the plantings start to generate income (letters from Lambarene, p.549).

White landowners organizing timbering well lay out fields in advance, which will then be used when the wood is cut (letters from Lambarene, p.549-550).


Gabon: The timber trade has no profit guarantee - a lot of fraud and loss are possible

Timber dealers don't all get rich, but
-- often a flood is a godsend to move away the swimming trunks
-- next year there may not be a flood and no big profit is possible
-- the woodcutters are often missing (letters from Lambarene, p.550)
-- those who work in the wood business on credit often end up with debts (Letters from Lambarene, p.550-551), so that's so bad that indebted lumberjacks have to be treated by Albert Schweitzer in his hospital and they cannot even pay for the food, so they ask for credit "until better times" (letters from Lambarene, p.551).

Africa since 1919: false pride with ex-soldiers from Europe
-- some Afro-soldiers who survived the First World War in Europe have gold crowns put into their mouth after the war, only to make a show with it and make an impression in Africa (letters from Lambarene, p.562)
-- some Afro-soldiers who survived the First World War in Europe have experienced such cruelty that they cannot tell about it for a lifetime (letters from Lambarene, p.562-563).

Lambarene with a perforated roof
-- as long as the roofs still have holes, Albert Schweitzer sometimes gets a sunstroke from all the work in the sun and can then hardly walk (letters from Lambarene, p.528-529). Albert Schweitzer quote (translation):
"In the period after Pentecost [1924] I did not feel well for a number of weeks. I have to drag myself to work. As soon as I have come up from the hospital at noon and in the evening, I have to lie down. I am not even capable to prepare the orders of medicaments and bandages in order. The main culprit for this discomfort is probably the roof of the hospital. I hadn't noticed that there were some (p.528) small holes again and I will have gotten a few small sunstrokes therefore. A patched roof should actually be checked every day. The slightest gust of wind is enough to move the rotten leaf bricks against each other so that a new hole is created. " (Letters from Lambarene, p.529)

[So Albert Schweitzer looses every day time with roofs? And why Albert Schweitzer is not purchasing corrugated sheet? Because he is stupid...]

Lambarene without a large canoe: Long bamboo poles, the rapha palm leaves, the bast - harvest only during floods or dry seasons
-- Albert Schweitzer and the Jesus fantasy mission do not have a big canoe for long bamboo poles as rafters, and the long bamboo poles can only be harvested in certain places and only when the water level is certain (letters from Lambarene, p.507-508) . Quote from Albert Schweitzer (translation):
"The construction work is made even more difficult for me by the fact that I don't have a large canoe. The Mission doesn't have one either. They manage the search for bamboo with two repaired boats of middle size. Thus I have difficulties to get the bamboo poles for the roofs. And time is urging. It's not so simple that one is entering the rain forest for getting some bamboo. But the big bamboo poles can be found only in certain locations in swamps. In the region there is only one location for this to take them out. The locations far behind in the swamps (p.507) and are not reacheble neither on water neither on land have to stay outside of considering. With the raffia palms, which provide the material for the leaf bricks, it is the same. The same counts for the plant from which the bast cords are made to fix the rafters to the roof and for fixing the leaf tiles on the rafters. For the material for this bast, I need my canoo being sent 30 kilometers away!

For the possession of places of bamboo, raffia and bast easily exploitable, the tribes used to wage war with one another, like the whites over ore and coal mines.

But even the exploitable places cannot be reached at any time of the year. They are all in swamps. They can therefore be reached by boat when the high tide is high enough so one can enter the swamp from the river, or one can enter the territory when the swamp becomes so dry in the dry season that you can walk through it. But the swamp is seldom accessible in the dry season. Very often the autumn floods are not so high that the bamboo sites can be reached by boat. So the time to pick bamboo is the spring flood. Whoever does not get the necessary bamboo poles in these two or three weeks runs the risk of not getting any at all and not being able to build for one year. "(Letters from Lambarene, p.508)
-- so Albert Schweitzer has to borrow a big canoe and then still have people available - and then the water level has to be favorable for the bamboo harvest - this is how 400 to 500 bamboo sticks arrive (letters from Lambarene, p.508-509)


Lambarene: In 1924 there were "very different sick people" than in 1913: Now there are strong men from the interior of the country from logging (the Bendjabis)

It is no longer just the two tribes of the Goalas and the Pahuins - homeless wild blacks from the interior of Gabon are in the timber business - with brutal consequences
Albert Schweitzer states that "completely different sick people" came in 1924 than in 1913 because the economic conditions on the Ogowe River in Gabon changed radically in some cases with the First World War and the post-war period since 1919 (letters from Lambarene, p.547):
-- until 1914 there were mainly black patients of the two competing tribes the Goalas and the Pahuins, in those times only these two languages ​​were spoken by the blacks in the hospital (Life+Thought, p.156)
-- from 1924 on many "wild black" without contact to their home villages are coming, they have migrated from the inner of Gabon (the Bendjabis - letters, p.554) who work as woodcutters on the Ogowe River in white territories, they meanwhile make up about 20% of the population (Letters from Lambarene, p.547)

-- The hospital was immediately overrun with sick people, because now not only Goalas and Pahuins bring their patients, but also the "wild blacks" (Bendjabis) from the interior of Gabon who are now chopping wood near the Ogowe River, they suffer many injuries by timbering (Letters from Lambarene, pp. 593-594)
-- often hopelessly "wild blacks" have lost weight remaining like skelettons and are deposited at the hospital of Albert Schweitzer, without family members who are waiting in the highlands for the sick person and for some earned money (!) (Letters from Albarene, p.554)
-- the "wild blacks" (Bendjabis) from the interior of Gabon bring many new languages ​​to the Ogowe River, they speak at least 10 different languages ​​that no teacher in the hospital understands - helper Dominik can speak some of the languages, but not all (Letters, p.555), and therefore, one has to heal and operate without a conversation - really not a thankful task (Letters from Lambarene, p.555-556)

-- there is not enough time for common celebrations with the patients (p.560). So with these "wild blacks" (Bendjabis) the hospital staff is only under constant stress (letters from Lambarene, p.560-561).

June 21, 1924
1 motorboat and missionary Abrezol
The river steamer ["Alembe"] brings Albert Schweitzer's jungle hospital
-- a motorboat with driver, the Jesus fantasy missionary Abrezol, who can now drag the canoes, two boxes are lying around for weeks because of lack of time and space (letters from Lambarene, p.525). Albert Schweitzer quote:
"On June 21st [1924] the river steamer finally brought my 73 boxes. On the same day a powerful motorboat arrived for the mission station and at the same time a 23-year-old new missionary, a Mr. Abrezol from Switzerland. He learned in Europe, to handle the motorboat, and makes himself available to me in the afternoon to haul the canoes that are supposed to fetch my boxes at the landing place of the river steamer, where they lie on grass under the open sky, exposed to the rain and thieves, if they fail to get them all home before night.

The Catholic Mission lends me their large canoe that can hold my eight largest boxes at once. The motorboat allows the canoes to make two trips in the afternoon. Finally, at sunset, the little steamer from a Dutch timber merchant, which I have been looking after for weeks, happens to come along. Of course he is requisitioned to help with the transport.

At 8 o'clock in the evening, all boxes, with the exception of the box with the stove, are housed in the open boat house. They have to stay there for two or three weeks, protected from the rain as much as the perforated roof of the boat shed can protect, and as safe from the thieves as the two sick people whom I put there as watchmen are on the watch. We don't have the time and space to unload." (Letters from Lambarene, p.525)
July + August 1924
No brick production this year because there is no dry season
In July and August 1924 (normally the dry season) the dry season does not occur and brick production is not possible. The Catholic Jesus fantasy mission is losing over 30,000 bricks (letters from Lambarene, p.531).
[Where's the brick oven?
Bricks need to dry in the sun or in a hot blower in a brick oven. Albert Schweitzer does not have a kiln for bricks, because that would also have to be made from bricks. The Jesus fantasy missions were not able to build that, because that is "construction worker" knowledge that seems to be too "low" for them ...]
Early August 1924
Mr. Morel from Samkita is guest of Albert Schweitzer and experiences a boa
The boa is then distributed to the sick. There is a struggle for distribution among the blacks (letters from Lambarene, p.532). Quote (translation):
"At the beginning of August, Mr. and Mrs. Morel are coming here for a fortnight to start their journey home to Alsace. They have to take the river steamer here, as it is not certain whether it will go up to Samkita when the water level is low.

Near the girls' school, Mr. Morel kills a giant snake (Boa constrictor). Since she shot was done with my rifle, I get half of the boa for the hospital, as is due. Unfortunately, the boa is only 5 1/2 meters long and not particularly fat. When distributing the delicacies there is almost a fight among the sick." (Letters from Lambarene, p.532)

July + August 1924: The dry season did not materialize - no bananas + no dried fish - hunger threatens - hunting hippos
-- Since the dry season was missing in 1924, various activities in agriculture could not be carried out, so that there is also a risk of hunger:
   --> no forest clearing --> no new banana plantations --> hunger comes
   --> no low water --> no big fish campaigns --> no stocks of smoked fish (letters from Lambarene, p.536)

Plan March 1925: New house on stilts and the chickens underneath
There is a lack of housing for employees who live far away, come late and leave early. Stilt houses are being built, and the chickens are living under them (letters from Lambarene, p.569). Quote from Albert Schweitzer:
"On the site of the mission station available to me, there is just a territory left that can accommodate a house 16 meters long and 12 meters wide. In this house will be housed the white sick people, the supplies, Joseph and the cook. The chickens are housed under them between the stakes. " (Letters from Lambarene, p.569)

[Chicken coop under the house in the tropics?
It seems strange that Albert Schweitzer allows chicken droppings to spread it's bacteria under the house of the white sick, the supplies and under the assistant Joseph and the cook of a hospital. This is MURDER].
January 28, 1925
Arrival of a motor boat from Sweden called "Tack so mycket" ("Thank you very much")
In Sweden since 1922 money has been collected for the motorboat, it is covered with a canvas roof (Letters, p.573), it is 8.5 by 1.5 m, has a 3.5 HP engine, drives up to 12km/h, in countercurrent less, can hold up to 1 ton of cargo. So now much more and heavier loads are possible, because fuel costs less than paying the many rowers who always have to be fed (letters from Lambarene, p.574).

Motor boats have been customary for woodcutters for a long time already (letters from Lambarene, p.574).

Then:

Two large canoes escape and are found again
The helper Dominik, an illiterate (letters, p.542), but who speaks some languages of the "wild blacks" (Bendjabis) (letters, p.555), did not fix the canoes properly in the evening and now they are somewhere "down there". Dominik can now go looking for the canoes, first in one forearm of the river, then in the other one, and he actually finds them again and his group is celebrated (letters from Lambarene, p.576-577).


from April 1925 approx.: animals on the hospital grounds of Lambarene

since April 1925: chimpanzee babies in Lambarene hospital
-- Chimpanzees: Miss Haussknecht takes care of a baby chimpanzee named "Fifi", which always hangs on her apron, the baby chimpanzee comes from a mother chimpanzee who was shot by a hunter. In January 1926 approx. a European leaves another chimpanzee child so that from then on two little chimpanzees are playing together on the hospital grounds (letters from Lambarene, p.667)
[To what extent the small chimpanzees can be controlled and "contribute" to hygiene is an open question. Later, the two chimpanzees are a trademark for Albert Schweitzer's hospital: a new, large hospital will be built 3km above, and the small hospital will become a leprosy station and animal hospital].

-- Dogs: Some black people are acting with cruelty against dogs. This means that whites who are traveling back to Europe would rather leave their dogs with Albert Schweitzer in the hospital than give them to other blacks (letters from Lambarene, p.667).
[Can it be that these animals transmit diseases?]

-- Goats: Albert Schweitzer's hospital also wants to install goat breeding so that goats can give more milk:

The goats are supposed to supply the hospital with fresh milk (Letters, p.666), so far a goat only gives 1/2 a glass of milk per day, there is hope for goat breeding and more milk production in the hospital (letters from Lambarene, p.667) .
[Why were no goats imported from Europe that give more milk?]
-- some successfully operated patients often give the hospital a goat (letters from Lambarene, p.607).


-- Chickens: Albert Schweitzer's hospital takes care of its chickens for fresh eggs

-- some successfully operated patients give a few chickens to the hospital (letters from Lambarene, p.636).


Lambarene concentration camp - June 1925: Famine upstream because there were no slash and burns in 1924 (?? !!)

Gabon with a criminal tradition in the jungle: The natives only want to plant where there was a slash and burn before - depending on the dry season (!)

The dysentery is provoking a bad mood in the hospital and at the same time the news about famine up the river is even provoking an even worse mood (letters from Lambarene, p.603).

-- the affected areas of famine are above all on the border with Cameroon with the caravan route N'Djôle-Boue-Makokou
-- the blacks have a tradition of planting after slash and burn, the soil is fertilized with the ashes of the fire and then freshly planted on the ashes as fertilizer
-- in 1924 there was no drought, it also rained heavily in July and August 1924, nothing could be burned, so nothing was planted in 1924 - so of course that is a mindless reaction not planting anything (!!!)
-- in this way it was in Gabon in the border region to Cameroon and also in Lambarene (letters from Lambarene, p.603).

Albert Schweitzer quote (translation):
"Our mood, which was very depressed by the increasing dysentery, is depressed even more by news of severe famine upstream. The areas bordering Cameroon and crossed by the N'Djôle-Boue-Makokou caravan route are particularly affected. The ultimate cause of this severe famine is the rain that came down in the dry season of 1924. The rainfall hindered drying the soil, slash and burn and planting. However, the custom requires that planting comes after slash and burn only. Wood and scrub are away and the ground is fertilized by ashes. If rain makes this process impossible, the people simply do not plant any plants, regardless of the consequences. That's the customhere, including us. In our area, when the rains continued, no territory was cut off the forest." (Letters from Lambarene, p. 603)
But planting would also be possible in the rain. In Lambarene, rice arrives by ship from Europe and from India. In the interior of Gabon, however, it is hardly possible to supply rice from outside by land because it has to be brought on footpaths and carriers.
[And permaculture with mulching the soil for fertilizing it is not known yet. And under the mulch snakes will be another danger].
So in June 1925 the situation is like this:
-- Lambarene is suffering from a slight famine
-- the interior of Gabon is suffering from a severe famine (letters from Lambarene, p.604).

Albert Schweitzer quote:
"But planting is not blocked when it's raining, but it's only more work. Instead of burning wood and brushes, one needs only to put it on heaps, then planting can be proceeded on the free locations between the trunks and the heaps. But there was no resolution to act like this, and therefore no plantations were installed yielding fruits now. In our region this fact is not having a big effect, because on the broad Ogowe River the delivery of rice from Euorpe and India is possible. But in the inner of the country with transports of rice by carriers over 100s of kilometers, the food delivery for the population is only ristricted now. Therefore there is a heavy famine there, but in our region only a little one." (Letters from Lambarene, p. 604)
Gabon - June 1925: Possible corn cultivation was not done - the corn was eaten - looting - nobody is planting anymore
If corn had been planted at the beginning of the famine, there would have been no famine. Maize in tropical Gabon grows very quickly, is yielding and harvested already in the 4th month, but the black natives ate the maize instead of sowing it (!!!). And the hungry in the interior then also began to plunder where there were still crops to steal, thus provoking the famine where it didn't exist yet. The result is that there is no longer any agricultural cultivation for fear of looters. Everyone is waiting for a miracle. (Letters from Lambarene, p. 604).

Albert Schweitzer quote (translation):
"Had maize been planted in good time when the famine began, the worst could have been avoided. Maize thrives here excellently and is already yielding fruit in the fourth month. But when food became scarce, the natives ate the maize that should have been sown. The misfortune was compounded by the fact that the inhabitants of the hardest hit areas moved to areas where there was still some food and plundered the plantings, which also caused misery. Now nobody has the courage to plant anything. It would only be for the looters. The people is sitting in their villages without will and are awaiting their fate." (Letters from Lambarene, p.604)
Gabon - June 1925: The people do not want to go hunting, not even the hunters - because there is "famine" - they freeze as if in hypnosis
The peoples in Equatorial Africa are not gifted to cope with difficult situations. There remains hunting in the jungle or in the steppe (Briefe, p.604), e.g. 20 people against wild boars, which are not as dangerous in Africa as in Europe (Briefe, p. 604-605). But:
-- the blacks do not organize the hunting because there is famine
-- the blacks don't know the slogan "Emergency makes inventive", but blacks in the jungle are rather living with the slogan "Emergency makes stupid" (letters from Lambarene, p. 605).

There are trained hunters in Gabon, but they are hypnotized and simply don't hunt because there is "famine". (Letters from Lambarene, p. 605).

Quote from Albert Schweitzer (translation):
"This lack of resilience and this [mental] inability to adapt to difficult circumstances are typical for the natives of Equatorial Africa and make them pitiful creatures. There is no plant food available. But in the forest and in the steppes meat food could be obtained. Twenty men armed with bush knives and lances could surround a herd of wild boars and capture an animal (Letters, p. 604). The local wild boars are much less dangerous than the European ones. But the starving blacks do not get up to it, but they are staying in the huts and wait for their death, because there is famine. Here, the rule is not "Emergency makes inventive", but "Emergency makes stupid".

I am told that a gentleman from the hungry region has a black hunter who otherwise kills a lot with his rifle. Instead of going out to hunt with increased zeal when the famine breaks out, he crouches with the others in the hut to die of hunger, where he could save them with the ammunition that his master has made available to him. Bananas and cassava are part of the diet. So you can't live without it. Hypnotized by logic, hundreds and hundreds are now surrendering to death up there." (Letters from Lambarene, p. 605)

Old currencies in Gabon

Old "currencies" during the famine in Gabon - Albert Schweitzer's means of exchange for blacks
-- during the slave trade the highest goods were: gunpowder, lead, tobacco and alcohol, and in times of need these goods are still a medium of exchange (letters from Lambarene, p.625)

Tobacco as a currency in Gabon - imported from the "USA"
-- the tobacco is imported from the "USA" and is much stronger than the tobacco in Europe
-- 1 tobacco leaf = 5 pfennigs = 2 pineapples
-- smaller services are rewarded with tobacco leaves
-- 7 tobacco leaves are tied together to form a "head of tobacco", value approx. 1/2 franc (Edge of the Primeval Fores, p.367)

Tobacco as a drug among the blacks
-- a trip with rowers goes with a box of tobacco leaves ("barter tobacco"), with which one buys the food for the rowers, the leader of the trip sits on the canoe on the box so that the tobacco is not stolen (Edge of the Primeval Fores, p .367)
-- if the rowers expect tobacco as a reward, then they paddle faster (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.367-368).

Barter goods and gift certificates
-- useful barter goods: Albert Schweitzer gives black people only "useful things" as a reward, which can be exchanged in the village (letters from Lambarene, p.625), such as:
"Spoons - forks are not much required - cups, plates, knives, saucepans, raffia sleeping mats, blankets and fabrics for clothes and mosquito nets." (Letters from Lambarene, p.625)

The people who help with the clearing receive a voucher every 2 days and a gift is given every 10 days. Gifts require so and so many vouchers, e.g. 1 blanket for 15 vouchers, the most popular are knives (letters, p.625) with a cord hole to carry the knife around the neck and not to lose, because blacks had nothing more than loincloth at that time, they had no pockets . When the people come to their village they can exchange the knives for useful things (letters from Lambarene, p.626).


Plantings and fields on the new site of the large hospital


-- possible plantings are: corn, bananas, plantains, yams, taro, manioc, peanuts, breadfruit, rice (letters from Lambarene, p.630)

Planting course
-- Banana trees are cut off, then new side shoots come (letters from Lambarene, p.630),
   -- Banana trees need a lot of nutrients and use up the soil relatively quickly, that's why every 3 years there is a new slash and burn action installing a new plantation with the idea that the ashes are a good fertilizer (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p.419)
[They don't know mulch as fertilizer]
   -- Elephants like to eat the bananas, in one night they can eat away a whole field (letters from Lambarene, p.634)

-- when plantain is cut then it has to change the location (be transplanted) because it uses up the soil so much that no new side shoots appear
-- the sweet potato carries for 3 years on the spot, but rats eat a lot of it (letters from Lambarene, p.631)
-- yam is rarely grown in Africa
-- taro is sometimes very common in Africa, but not in Gabon on the Ogowe River
-- cassava tubers from the cassava bush: The tubers are soaked in water so that the hydrogen cyanide is dissolved out and disappears. Unfortunately, wild boars like to eat cassava, so only fenced cassava fields are safe (letters from Lambarene, p.632)
The cassava root contains cyanic acid, which has to be washed out under running water for days because it is fatal if it is not washed out. After enough soaking, fermentation takes place, a tough, dark dough is created, sticks are rolled up in leaves and stored that way, for Europeans it is a strange taste, is like sago in European soups, sago is also made from cassava (Edge of the Primeval Forest, p. 406)
-- peanuts grow in the ground, but it has to be pure arable soil in order to achieve profitability, which can hardly be had with Albert Schweitzer if he leaves all the roots in the ground (letters from Lambarene, p.632-633)
[but roots in the ground are like a fertilizer by the slow discomposition - see permaculture].
-- sliced ​​breadfruit is a highlight for the blacks. Raising breadfruit trees is long and complicated. You have to plant and raise root shoots, many die in the process
-- rice: mountain rice does not need irrigation. But birds eat the rice away [seedlings have to be grown in a greenhouse, and how about scarecrows, Mr. Schweitzer?] (letters from Lambarene, p.633)

Compulsory plantings
Then there is a lease purchase agreement, the government of Gabon obliges to grow coffee and cocoa (Letters, p.633-634) for export, otherwise the land remains in the possession of the state and does not pass to the lessee.

Coffee: Coffee trees take a few years to grow before they become viable. Machines are necessary for unveiling.

Cocoa: Cocoa beans are fermented, the brown mass is separated from the oil, then the brown mass is dried as a tablet. From now on the patients will always get some chocolate as concentrate with their rice, but the locals don't like it that much (letters from Lambarene, p.634).

-- Rodents eat cocoa fruits and thus prevent the ripening (letters from Lambarene, p.634).

Goal: create an orchard

-- an orchard is installed, so: Around the Albert-Schweitzer-Spital a garden of Eden should be created, where everyone can take himself, so that there is no more theft (Life+Thought, p.218). Quote from Albert Schweitzer:
"Here so much fruit should grow so everybody can take as he/she needs to have so theft will be abolished." (Life + thinking, p.218)

The orchard is partly existing already: papaya trees, mango trees, oil palms

With papaya trees, mango trees and oil palms the situation is already so far, resp. mango trees and oil palms had already grown in the jungle, now they were liberated from the other trees and are bearing now in abundance (Life+Thought, p.218). Albert Schweitzer quote:
"The papaya bushes that we have planted in abundance are already producing a yield that exceeds the needs of the hospital. Mango trees and oil palms, however, were so many in the surrounding forest that after the rest of the trees were laid down they made up entire groves. They were hardly liberated from the creeping plant where they suffocated, and freed from the giant trees that overshadowed them, and then they immediately began to yield." (Life + thinking, p.218)
The fruit trees were imported from the Caribbean ("West India"): banana trees, manioc trees, oil palms, mango trees etc. (Life + Thought, p.218)

Growing the banana trees in the hospital area is not worthwhile, the families of the patients have to help because (Life+Thought, p.218-219):
"The bananas that I grow with paid workers are finally much more expensive to me than those that the natives supply me from their own plantations that are conveniently located on the water. The natives have almost no fruit trees because they don't live in the same place all the time, but relocate the villages steadily." (Life + thinking, p.219)
And rice must ALWAYS be available when there is a lack of bananas. Albert Schweitzer quote (translation):
"Since the bananas cannot be stored either [because they rotten in a short time in a tropical climate], I always have to have a large supply of rice in case there are not enough fruiting banana plants in the area." (Life + thinking, p.219)

27.12.1925: Albert Schweitzer on trips for searching wood - he lost many weeks with it
With his canoe and 5 paddlers, he has to travel 60km downwards the river for reaching a sawmill for beams and boards, it was agreed that 1 steamer would bring him back, but the agreement was not fulfilled because the steamer was there 1 day earlier already, so Albert Schweitzer had to pass 1 week there for waiting the next steamer for going home (letters from Lambarene, p.638)

With such trips for searching wood, Albert Schweitzer loses a few weeks in his life and cannot heal (letters from Lambarene, p.639).

The new hospital: The 10-room house with a double roof by carpenter Mr. Schatzmann
The 10-room house is getting a double roof: on the top is put corrugated iron and below are leaf bricks, so it never gets too hot in the house, the double roof is a masterpiece by the carpenter Mr. Schatzmann (letters from Lambarene, p.592).

The barrack with a double roof
The big barrack is 22.5 by 8 m, with mosquito windows and with a double roof: a wooden roof and 25 cm above the corrugated iron roof - air is the best insulator (letters from Lambarene, p.681)
-- with an operating room for normal operations
-- with a small operating room for infected cases
-- with a pharmacy
-- with a room as a medicine store
-- with a room for cloths and bandages
-- with a laboratory (letters from Lambarene, p.681).

January 1926 approx.
A European giving a chimpanzee child
so that now two little chimpanzees can play together on the hospital grounds of Lambarene (letters from Lambarene, p.667).

Animal protection when putting poles

-- the holes for the poles are prepared, and animals sometimes get in there overnight
-- Albert Schweitzer then takes the animals out of the holes before the poles are set, and he also educates the blacks to protect animals, not to just kill animals when they are found in bushes when the bushes are being cleared (letters from Lambarene, p.667)
-- the instructions work partly with the argument that the animals were also "created by God"
-- in the end, the blacks sometimes even educate each other to protect animals, something that Albert Schweitzer did not expect! (Letters from Lambarene, p.668).

The chimpanzee child Fifi
Fifi has teeth now and can eat alone with a spoon (letters from Lambarene, p.667).
[Why time is spent for animals and the monkey children are not given to a zoo remains another question. Albert Schweitzer will later say, ALL life counts].

Construction site - August 1926
Floods inundated a part of the garden
and beans and cabbage are partly lost (letters from Lambarene, p.651).
[Why wasn't a dam built?]

Diet with only white rice is the cause of susceptibility to the cholerine bacterium
The pathogen "Choleravibrio" is found in the river system of the Ogowe River, which is "native" there. However, with good nutrition, the cholerin bacterium is harmless. The eternal rice food at the Ogowe River is damaging the intestinal flora, so that the resistance in the intestines is decreasing with the black people and the river water with the cholerine bacteria becomes dangerous (letters from Lambarene, p.663).

The research of Dr. Trensz about the cholera disease with the cholerine bacterium is in progress and a scientific treatise is in progress (letters from Lambarene, p.663).


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