Home Random Page


CATEGORIES:

BiologyChemistryConstructionCultureEcologyEconomyElectronicsFinanceGeographyHistoryInformaticsLawMathematicsMechanicsMedicineOtherPedagogyPhilosophyPhysicsPolicyPsychologySociologySportTourism






TO MARION GREENE

Yonda, | Feb. 4. [1959] | 7.30 a.m.

Dearest Mumma, Thank you so much for your letter. I had rather a chequered journey here. Held up for five hours by fog in London airport. Then taken across country by bus to Gatwick, & arrived in Brussels six hours late without my luggage. However it came the next day, but my plane from Brussels was 22 hours late in leaving! Then a good journey.

Leopoldville a dull modern city of apartment houses 14 storeys high – not like Africa at all. I was met by a Government Official & had a very crowded day. I tried to get a siesta during the afternoon, but I had no sooner lain down naked than there was a knock on the door. I put a towel round my waist & opened it to a young woman with so bad a stammer & so nervous that it took several minutes before I could find out what she wanted. Her husband wanted me to come to a meal but was afraid of asking me, so he’d sent his wife.10I lay down again: more knocks: a journalist this time: lay down – more knocks – two journalists & a camera.11I got to bed finally at 12 & was woken at 3.30 a.m. to catch my plane here.

Met by Dr. Lechat, a very nice & amusing young man with quite a pretty wife who paints. I have some meals with them & some with the Fathers in whose house I have a room. I get up at 6.45 for breakfast, then walk down a little way to the bank of the Congo – good for meditation: at 10 it begins to be too hot for much & stays so till about 5 p.m. when I get another stroll.

[…]

The Governor here very amiable, but his wife – a sweet old thing – has written a novel & published it at her own expense & wants me to read it. My siesta interrupted yesterday by a schoolmaster who had also written a novel. I think if I found myself washed up on a desert island with one inhabitant he would have a novel he wanted published.

Lovely young women passing my window in gay cottons carrying babies on their hips – all lepers of course, but the babies are born clean & when they develop leprosy they can be cured (& permanently) in a year. The Brazilians separate the children at birth & 70% die as a result, but the Brazilians consider that more hygienic!

Lots of love,

G.


Date: 2015-02-03; view: 621


<== previous page | next page ==>
TO MICHEL LECHAT | TO CATHERINE WALSTON
doclecture.net - lectures - 2014-2024 year. Copyright infringement or personal data (0.007 sec.)