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| early 1900s postcard from Boense, Belgian Congo |
The amazing news that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has been traced back to 1920s Democratic Republic of Congo (then Belgian Congo) brings to mind Joseph Conrad's
Heart of Darkness (
http://somanyinterestingthings.blogspot.com/2012/12/heart-of-darkness.html,
http://somanyinterestingthings.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-whole-sorrowful-land.html). The tragic irony of the Congo, which Conrad captured so well, is that it was and continues to be a victim of the natural resources in which it is so rich, and the atmosphere that we now know gave birth to the AIDS pandemic was just another sad episode in its torturous history (
http://somanyinterestingthings.blogspot.com/2014/04/war-and-maybe-peace.html). In a way, this whole story can be seen as a lesson in the validity of the saying that the sins of the father are visited upon the son, played over time and space in the family of man:
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-2944264
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