Gabon, the back story

A few of you may be wondering, as I did when researching the Lambarene fellowship, where is Gabon? And what is the story there? I'll give you a few lines of background so that the rest of my time here will make more sense to you. Thus, as a point of departure, my current location: Gabon is an equitorial country on the West coast of Africa, bordering the Atlantic, often referred to as the Last Eden as over 85% of the countryside is still covered with rainforest. The town of Lambarene is located 200km inland on the Ogooue River, Gabon's largest and longest river. Schweitzer chose this location because the river afforded him the ability to float all of the construction and building supplies to the site. Amusingly enough, Lambarene is south of the equator while Libreville, the capital city, is north of the equator so when we drove in from the capital, I passed from "summer" to "winter" in a few short hours. The notion of seasons doesn't quite work out near the equator, apparently here there is a hot wet season and a hot dry season. We are in the hot dry combination right now, which the locals call the "bon temps". It is surprisingly nice. Cloudy, but high 70s to mid 80s both days that I have been here.

Ok, we've gone through geography and climate, now a tiny bit on history and culture. The area that comprises Gabon has been inhabited for thousands of years, unsurprisingly, since it is Africa. The pygmy tribes were the most numerous for much of that time, only to be pushed out by the Bantu, who remained the dominant tribe until the French arrived. The French officially entered Gabon in 1885, though Europeans such as the Portuguese and Dutch had been there in various capacities since the 1500s. In 1910 Gabon became one of four "French Equitorial Colonies" and remained a territory until 1960. On August 17, 1960 (50 year anniversary this year- it's going to be a big celebration!) Gabon gained independence from France. The first president of Gabon, elected in 1961, was Léon M’ba, with Omar Bongo Ondimba as his vice president. Omar Bongo became president in 1967 and remained so until his death in 2009. His son, Ali, succeeded him with a landslide victory in the polls. Gabon is often touted as one of the richest Africa nations, with a per capita income of $5000 annually, but I think the figure is skewed by the petrol companies operating off shore here. Fundamentally, the country remains an impoverished tropical nation, straddling modernity (cell phones and satellite TV) and poverty (living in huts without electricity or running water and turning to a traditional voodoo sorcery belief system in times of need). It will be interesting to start my time here on Monday and start interacting with locals on more than a bonjour basis. A toute a l'heure mes amis.

PS I wanted to post pictures today of the landscape, but that would have required a functional converter to charge my rechargable batteries. I know where to buy a good converter and I will do so soon so that I can start showing, as well as telling you about the land.

J'arrive, j'arrive!

Just a quick note to report that I have safely arrived at the Albert Schweitzer hospital in Lambarene as of two hours ago! I should win a medal for best arrival at a third world airport ever as well. If you have ever flown into an airport in a third world country, you know it can be a little bit of a circus with crazy crowds, people grabbing at your luggage, long and inexplicable lines at passport control and customs, and missed connections with people who are meeting you. With all of this in mind, I flew into Libreville, the capitol city of Gabon, fully cognizant that I needed a back-up plan and a back-up back-up plan. There were a few things going in my favor for this to be a successful trip. I had flown Lufthansa all the way from Chicago to Libreville and it was comforting to arrive at the unfamiliar in a familiar way (hyper-efficient German sandwich and coca-cola dealing stewardesses with a mixed bag of international travelers). Also I had made good contact with the directrice of the hospital two weeks ago to confirm my arrival and send my picture. And my flight was only delayed by 30 minutes. Still I had some butterflies in my stomach. Imagine my grand surprise when passport control passed mostly uneventfully, my bags were waiting for me circling the carousel, no one looked at me twice through customs, and two people from Albert Schweitzer were waiting for me literally outside the door of customs. Parfait! We went to a nearby hotel to spend the night, took much of the next day (today) buying provisions in town for the hospital, and took to the road at 3pm arriving at the hospital by 7pm. I'll have much to say by way of background on Gabon, Schweitzer, medical practice here, but for now the most important thing is: I'm here. I'm safe. I have the whole weekend to figure out how things work around here, the lay of the land, and where I have to go to work on Monday. A toute a l'heure mes amis.

Background

Hello friends and family and potential internet travelers,

My name is Sophie and I recently finished my third year of medical school at the University if Illinois in Chicago. In a few days, I will be on a plane to Gabon for 3 months of internship in pediatrics at Hopital Albert Schweitzer in Lambarene, Gabon. I plan to write about my time as a way to keep in touch with all the good people in my life, to reflect publicly about medicine as service, and to give people a sense of what practicing medicine in the developing world is like on a day to day basis. I leave on July 28th for Africa, part of a multi-day journey that will land me in Lambarene about 56 hours after I take off from Chicago. Right now, I am excited and apprehensive. Excited because I see this as the capstone of my medical education and because I have never been to Africa before. Apprehensive because I have spent the last months studying for Step 2 and finishing third year of medical school so I do not feel prepared for this. I understand that there is no way to fully prepare, but I have not even cracked my guidebooks. Oh well, that's one of the good things about having flights scheduled, you can't push something back, you just have to get in there and start going. If you are interested in following my time in Africa, please bookmark this page and I will reciprocate by blogging frequently. The next time I write will be next week in transit or when I am actually on the ground! Unbelievable. Until then.