Across Africa Alone

At first sight, crossing Central Africa alone in 1960 in a VW Beetle, 40-year-old American-born Louise D'Oliveira might have seemed to be a tourist thrill seeker. Instead, her mission was that of a literacy teacher with the goal of bringing Africans out of the darkness of illiteracy into a brighter future. She was inspired and trained by Dr. Frank C. Laubach, known as the apostle to the silent billion.

In those days, indigenous people usually did not bother a single white woman traveling al...