The past week or so was spent in Gabon, visiting Garett’s sister (and my sister-in-law, of course), Heather, and her husband, Cyrille. It has been such a rewarding trip and Heather and Cyrille took such good care of us! Garett and I aren’t particularly outdoorsy or culturally adept, so it was a big job for them.

As some background, Heather and Cyrille are environmentalists who run an NGO in Gabon called OELO – Organisation Ecotouristique du Lac Oguemoué. They focus on sustainable fishing and use of resources, education about animals and biodiversity, and they provide jobs to local people. Their first project was the creation of Tsam Tsam, an ecotourist site, in Lake Oguemoué. If you want to learn more, just look at their website! They are doing amazing work.

We arrived to Libreville on Saturday evening, I think. To be honest, time has become something entirely different this year, built around flights, check-ins, and opening times so I often have no idea what’s going on. So I think it was Saturday. Heather and Cyrille met us at the airport–they live about a 4 hour drive away in Lambaréné over some pretty rough roads, so we spent the night in Libreville.

Here’s a map to help you place everything. Libreville is the capital in the upper left. Lambaréné is southeast and Tsam Tsam is southwest-ish of Lambaréné on Lac Oguemoué, near Dakar-St Louis. As an aside, you can also see Wakanda’s sister city, Akanda, north of Libreville.

Here’s a picture of the four of us on our first day.

In Libreville, they were running a marathon the morning we left, so the city was oddly devoid of traffic. Here’s the main road by the beach. It looks like the Rapture just happened.

The journey to Lambaréné was a little rough for me–the road is super bumpy and there’s a lot of speedy passing, diesel smoke, and things to crane your head at. Anyway, I threw up twice on the way there and I had to sit in the front even though I’m the person with the shortest legs.

Once we got to Lambaréné, I felt much better. Lambaréné is on an island surrounded by a beautiful river. It’s actually the home of the Albert Schweitzer Hospital, for those of you well-educated enough to know of him. I hadn’t heard of him until Barbara mentioned him a few years ago. Garett, Heather, and I went and took a tour; he was truly an amazing man. Basically, he lived through World War I as a German national on house arrest, then World War II as a French national. With all the wars going on, he still managed to be a world-class musician, influential philosopher, Nobel Prize Laureate, and famous doctor. He came to French Equatorial Africa (i.e. Gabon) and built a hospital. He actually died in Lambaréné. They have built a new hospital, but preserved the old one as a museum to him.

Cyrille was actually born in the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in the room below, now a part of the museum!

Sometimes people would pay for their care in valuable objects instead of money. The payment below is the saw from a now-extinct sawfish. It’s huge!

Here are a few other pictures of things in the town before we get to Heather and Cyrille.

Further proof that you can’t escape Latin. This is from a local bar.

The church here was built in the 1800s. Most of Gabon practices Christianity, but there are other religions, most famously Bwiti. I’m not at all qualified to comment on Bwiti, but I think it’s a sort of animism that incorporates some aspects of Christianity. I asked Cyrille about it and I think that’s sort of what he told me. There’s some psychedelic drug use in some of the Bwiti rituals as well, so it has garnered some interest from tourists.

Now Heather and Cyrille’s house! Let’s start with the animals. Heather and Cyrille have two cute rescued animals–Lolo and Roxy. Lolo’s a little special in the way cats sometimes are, but if you can catch her, she’ll patiently let you cuddle her. I think she might be embarrassed about the bell she wears to prevent bird-murder.

Roxy is a real charmer and such a sweet girl. When we took the boat to Tsam Tsam, she perched herself near the front with the wind in her hair, just like our very own doggy bowsprit.

It takes some time to get to Tsam Tsam, but Roxy never lost her enthusiasm. Actually, both Garett and I (and I imagine everyone else who’s made the trip) strongly agreed with Roxy–the river is enchanting and riding along with the wind in your hair…it’s just heavenly. Plus, Cyrille is such a badass, you feel kind of cool just because he’s driving the boat you’re in.

Here’s the verandah of the OELO offices. They were just behind Heather’s and Cyrille’s home.

And a picture of the Schweitzer Hospital from their porch. They live right across from it.

As I said before, the trip to Tsam Tsam on the boat is transcendent. Look at these pictures! When I showed them to Heather, she was a little dismissive, like: “Oh, those are just classic Lac Oguemoué photos.” That means the lake is this beautiful all the time!  This is what the world used to be like before plastic and imperialism.

I know this photo is a little over-doctored. But it looks so dramatic!

When we reached the largest lake in Gabon, we had to wash our faces with the water to appease the genie of the lake. Just to drop some knowledge: Genie comes from Genius in Latin, which means roughly the spirit that inhabits a place. The water does seem to have a life of its own.

Tsam Tsam is a series of platforms; one main one that everyone eats and gathers on, and then some smaller ones with tents for you to sleep and dress on. The platforms stick out into the water, so you have a lovely view. On the first night we think we saw The Fufula from this platform.

The water was really high, so many trees were partially covered in the water. Here’s a tricky photo where you can confuse the sky with the water.

Garett putting his feet in the water to cool off. There were some fish there that had been fed white bread so often that they liked to nibble on white toes. Cyrille thought that was hilarious.

The meals are all family style.

Garett and Heather were both wearing Fidel Castro hats by coincidence. Heather’s baby will be born in February, just like my brother’s baby!

Garett and Roxy.

There is also a village of just one family called Tsam Tsam nearby; Cyrille’s father, Papa, lives there along with some of Cyrille’s other relatives. Papa has an interesting skull museum in his house. I’m pretty sure that he doesn’t kill the animals himself. There’s no way Cyrille would let him.

The tooth below is that of an elephant. When we picked it up, it was super dense and heavy. The flat part is the bottom of the tooth. The skull next to it is a panther skull.

A couple views from the village.

On our first morning there, Cyrille took us into the jungle.

It’s really hard to get good pictures of animals, so I’m sorry if these don’t do the jungle justice. We saw (and heard–they make a racket!) monkeys and also a chimp nest. Here are some cool ants below that make their nest in the leaves.

A Hammer cop bird nest. The head (cop) of the bird looks like a hammer, if you want to check it out.

We also saw a huge group of bee-eaters that make their nests on the ground in these holes.

We saw a few elephant trails–they were surprisingly narrow–through the jungle and some elephant footprints, but no elephants, unfortunately.

Here’s Cyrille looking badass. This savanna here was a surprise to me because it’s right in the middle of the jungle. Heather said that people actually create the savannas by burning them each year. They have been doing this for so long that species, like the bee-eater birds, have evolved to depend on the man-made savanna.

Garett and I did other things at Tsam Tsam–sailed around in a pirogue (a canoe made from one tree) and drank red wine like aristocrats, took the boat to visit the areas that Heather and Cyrille have helped protect, saw more birds, animals, and plants, and just generally learned about so many things. Heather and Cyrille were very patient with my demanding questions and I am so grateful.

Upon our return to Lambaréné, Garett and I hung out with Heather because Cyrille had to almost immediately turn around and return to Tsam Tsam to host some tourists. I was able to go to a nearby school and see one of Heather’s employees teach the children about protected species in Gabon. It was what you imagine when you think of an African school: bare classrooms, low access to electricity, tons of kids in a small amount of space. Kids in Gabon have to pay for school, so if your family can’t pay, you don’t go.

It’s certainly a flawed system but the lesson was great and the children delightful. One thing I liked: when a student answered a difficult question correctly, the teacher would say un (1) and everyone would clap once for the child and then deux (2) and everyone would clap twice. Such a nice way of praising the student and letting everyone participate in the praise.

Here the kids are being shown a menu of food items from a Gabonese restaurant–they have to choose which foods are not from protected species and therefore okay to eat. Heather, Garett, and I ourselves ate at a restaurant that was offering monkey.

Overall our trip was incredible and eye-opening. We have to thank Cyrille and Heather for all that they did for us. Tsam Tsam is so special and sacred; it’s just incredible that they created it themselves.  Thank you!