by Aaron Barlow
Copyright © 2011 Jane Albritton. All rights reserved.
First e-book edition: April 2013
Travelers’ Tales and Solas House are trademarks of Solas House, Inc. 853 Alma Street, Palo Alto, California 94301. www.travelerstales.com
Cover Design: Chris Richardson
E-book Production: Howie Severson
Production Director: Susan Brady
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
One hand does not catch a buffalo : 50 years of amazing Peace Corps stories : volume one, Africa / edited by Aaron Barlow ; series editor, Jane Albritton. -- 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60952-000-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-60952-047-2 (ebook)
1. Peace Corps (U.S.)--Anecdotes. 2. Volunteers--Africa--Anecdotes. 3. Volunteers--Developing countries--Anecdotes. I. Barlow, Aaron, 1951- II. Albritton, Jane.
HC60.5.O54 2011
361.6--dc22
2010054339
First Edition
Printed in the United States
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To all who served in Africa
and to all of those in Africa who welcomed them,
worked with them, and taught them.
Table of Contents
Series Preface
Foreword: Thirty Days That Built the Peace Corps
Introduction
PART I: ON OUR WAY...AND BACK AGAIN
Why I Joined the Peace Corps
Robert Klein
Ghana
There at the Beginning
Tom Katus, George Johnson, Alex Veech, and L. Gilbert Griffis
Tanzania
Learning to Speak
Tom Weller
Chad
First and Last Days
Bob Powers
Malawi
Hena Kisoa Kely and Blue Nail Polish
Amanda Wonson
Madagascar
Coming to Sierra Leone
Sarah Moffett-Guice
Sierra Leone
Shattering and Using Book Learning
Susan L. Schwartz
Sierra Leone
The Adventures Overseas
Larry W. Harms
Guinea/Niger
A Toubac in the Gloaming
E.T. Stafne
Senegal
Family Affair
Arne Vanderburg
The World
Your Parents Visited You in Africa?
Solveig Nilsen
Ethiopia
What I Tell My Students
William G. Moseley
Mali
Slash and Burn
Kelly McCorkendale
Madagascar
Two Years Lasts a Lifetime
Sally Cytron Gati
Nigeria
Sister Stella Seams Serene
Starley Talbott Anderson
South Africa
Late Evening
Lenore Waters
Ivory Coast/Côte d'Ivoire
The Forty-Eight Hour Rule
Martin R. Ganzglass
Somalia
Full Circle
Delfi Messinger
Zaire/Democratic Republic of Congo
A Promise Kept
Beth Duff-Brown
Zaire/Democratic Republic of Congo
The Utopia of the Village
Heather Corinne Cumming
Africa
PART II: WHY ARE WE HERE?
The Engine Catches
Susanna Lewis
Mozambique
Yaka
Kelly J. Morris
Togo
Nous Sommes Ensemble
Anna Russo
Cameroon
The Sweetest Gift
Jayne Bielecki
Cape Verde
The Conference
Marcy L. Spaulding
Mali
Girls’ School
Marsa Laird
Somalia
Testimony
Stephanie Bane
Chad
African Woman
Dorothea Hertzberg
Burkina Faso
My Rice Crop
Edmund Blair Bolles
Tanzania
Gentle Winds of Change
Donald Holm
Ethiopia
La Supermarché
Jennifer L. Giacomini
Togo
Mokhotlong
Allison Scott Matlack
Lesotho
Changing School
Sandra Echols Sharpe
Tanzania
The Season of Omagongo
Alan Barstow
Namibia
Tapping
Eric Stone
Kenya
The Drums of Democracy
Paul P. Pometto II
Dahomey/Benin
PART III: GETTING THROUGH THE DAYS
Boys & Girls
Ryan N. Smith
The Gambia
I’d Wanted to Go to Africa, But the Peace Corps Sent Me to Sierra Leone
Bob Hixson Julyan
Sierra Leone
Breakfast
Jed Brody
Benin
Daily Life
Kathleen Moore
Ethiopia
Watoto of Tanzania
Linda Chen See
Tanzania
Begging Turned on Its Head
Karen Hlynsky
Sierra Leone
Time
Patricia Owen
Senegal
Learning to Play the Game of Life
Lawrence Grobel
Ghana
A First Real Job
Joy Marburger
Sierra Leone
It’s Condom Day!
Sera Arcaro
Namibia
The Civilized Way
Bryant Wieneke
Niger
Who Controls the Doo-Doo?
Jay Davidson
Mauritania
The Ride Home
Bina Dugan
Zimbabwe
The Little Things
Stephanie Gottlieb
Burkina Faso
There Will Be Mud
Bruce Kahn
Malawi
The Hammam in Rabat
Shauna Steadman
Morocco
Straight Razors in Heaven
Paul Negley, Jr.
Morocco
Big Butts Are Beautiful!
Janet Grace Riehl
Botswana
Monsieur Robert Loves Rats
Bob Walker
Zaire/Democratic Republic of Congo
Imani
Daniel Franklin
Burkina Faso
PART IV: CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
Hail, Sinner! I Go to Church
Floyd Sandford
Nigeria
A Visit From H.I
.M.
Carol Beddo
Ethiopia
Moon Rocket
Robert E. Gribbin
Kenya
Bury My Shorts at Chamborro Gorge
Thor Hanson
Uganda
Near Death in Africa
Nancy Biller
Chad
Boeuf Madagaskara
Jacquelyn Z. Brooks
Madagascar
The Baobab Tree
Kara Garbe
Burkina Faso
The Sports Bar
Leita Kaldi Davis
Senegal
One Last Party
Paula Zoromski
Niger
The Peace Corps in a War Zone
Tom Gallagher
Ethiopia
Holding the Candle
Suzanne Meagher Owen
Tunisia
A Morning
Enid S. Abrahami
Senegal
A Brother in Need
Genevieve Murakami
Senegal
A Tree Grows in Niamey
Stephanie Oppenheimer-Streb
Niger
Jaarga
Betsy Polhemus
Senegal
For Lack of a Quarter...
Irene G. Brammertz
Zaire/Democratic Republic of Congo
Crazy Cat Lady
Michelle Stoner
Niger
Elephant Morning
Aaron Barlow
Togo
At Night the Bushes Whisper
Jack Meyers
Somalia
PART V: SUSTAINABLE PEACE
Children of the Rains
Michael Toso
Niger
Acknowledgements
About the Editor
Series Preface
There are some baby ideas that seem to fly in by stork, without incubation between conception and birth. These magical bundles smile and say: “Want me?” And well before the head can weigh the merits of taking in the unsummoned arrival, the heart leaps forward and answers, “Yes!”
The idea for Peace Corps @ 50—the anniversary media project for which this series of books are the centerpiece—arrived on my mental doorstep in just this way in 2007. Four books of stories, divided by regions of the world, written by the Peace Corps Volunteers who have lived and worked there. There was time to solicit the stories, launch the website, and locate editors for each book. By 2011, the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Peace Corps, the books would be released.
The website had no sooner gone live when the stories started rolling in. And now, after four years and with a publisher able to see the promise and value of this project, here we are, ready to share more than 200 stories of our encounters with people and places far from home.
In the beginning, I had no idea what to expect from a call for stories. Now, at the other end of this journey, I have read every story, and I know what makes our big collection such a fitting tribute to the Peace Corps experience.
Peace Corps Volunteers write. We write a lot. Most of us need to, because writing is the only chance we have to say things in our native language. Functioning every day in another language takes work, and it isn’t just about grammar. It’s everything that isn’t taught—like when to say what depending on the context, like the intricate system of body language, and like knowing how to shift your tone depending on the company you are in. These struggles and linguistic mishaps can be frustrating and often provoke laughter, even if people are forgiving and appreciate the effort. It takes a long time to earn a sense of belonging.
And so in our quiet moments—when we slip into a private space away from the worlds where we are guests—we write. And in these moments where we treat ourselves to our own language, thoughts flow freely. We once wrote only journals and letters; today we also text, email, and blog.
Writing helps us work through the frustrations of everyday living in cultures where—at first—we do not know the rules or understand the values. In our own language we write out our loneliness, our fury, our joy, and our revelations. Every volunteer who has ever served writes as a personal exercise in coming to terms with an awakening ignorance. And then we write our way through it, making our new worlds part of ourselves in our own language, in our own words.
The stories in these books are the best contribution we can make to the permanent record of Peace Corps on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. And because a Volunteer’s attempt to explain the experience has always contained the hope that folks at home will “get it,” these stories are also a gift to anyone eager and curious to learn what we learned about living in places that always exceeded what we imagined them to be.
It has been an honor to receive and read these stories. Taken together, they provide a kaleidoscopic view of world cultures—beautiful and strange—that shift and rattle when held up to the light.
I would like to acknowledge personally the more than 200 Return Volunteers who contributed to these four volumes. Without their voices, this project could not have been possible. Additionally, editors Pat and Bernie Alter, Aaron Barlow, and Jay Chen have been tireless in shepherding their stories through the publishing process and in helping me make my way through some vexing terrain along the way. Special thanks to John Coyne whose introduction sets the stage for each volume. Thanks also to Dennis Cordell for his early work on the project.
There are two people critical to the success of this project who were never Peace Corps volunteers, but who instantly grasped the significance of the project: Chris Richardson and Susan Brady.
Chris and his PushIQ team, created a visually lush, technically elegant website that was up and ready to invite contributors to join the project and to herald both the project and the anniversary itself. He took on the creative challenge of designing four distinct covers for the four volumes in this set. His work first invited our contributors and now invites our readers.
Susan Brady brought it all home. It is one thing to collect, edit, and admire four books’ worth of stories; it is another to get them organized, to the typesetter, the printer, and the team of marketers on time and looking good. Susan’s good sense, extensive publishing experience, and belief in the worthiness of this project sealed the publishing deal with Travelers’ Tales/Solas House.
Finally, there are the two others, one at each elbow, who kept me upright when the making of books made me weary. My mother—intrepid traveler and keeper of stories—died four months after the project launched, but she has been kind enough to hang around to see me through. My partner, cultural anthropologist Kate Browne, never let me forget that if Americans are ever going to have an honored place in this world, we need to have some clue about how the rest of it works. “So get with it,” they said. “The 50th anniversary happens only once.”
—Jane Albritton
Fort Collins, Colorado
Foreword: Thirty Days That Built the Peace Corps
by John Coyne
In 1961 John F. Kennedy took two risky and conflicting initiatives in the Third World. One was to send 500 additional military advisers into South Vietnam. The other was to send 500 young Americans to teach in the schools and work in the fields of eight developing countries. These were Peace Corps Volunteers. By 1963 there would be 7,000 of them in forty-four countries.
—Garard T. Rice, The Bold Experiment: JFK’s Peace Corps
Kennedy’s second initiative inspired, and continues to inspire, hope and understanding among Americans and the rest of the world. In a very real sense, the Peace Corps is Kennedy’s most affirmative and enduring legacy that belongs to a particularly American yearning: the search for a new frontier.
Two key people in
Congress, Henry Reuss (D-Wisconsin) and Hubert Humphrey (D-Minnesota), both proposed the idea of the Peace Corps in the late 1950s.
In January of 1960, Reuss introduced the first Peace Corps-type legislation. It sought a study of “the advisability and practicability to the establishment of a Point Four Youth Corps,” which would send young Americans willing to serve their country in public and private technical assistance missions in far-off countries, and at a soldier’s pay.
The government contract was won by Maurice (Maury) L. Albertson of Colorado State University who with one extraordinary assistant, Pauline Birky-Kreutzer, did the early groundwork for Congress on the whole idea of young Americans going overseas, not to win wars, but help build societies.
In June of 1960, Hubert Humphrey introduced in the Senate a bill to send “young men to assist the peoples of the underdeveloped areas of the world to combat poverty, disease, illiteracy, and hunger.”
Also in 1960, several other people were expressing support for such a concept: General James Gavin; Chester Bowles, former governor of Connecticut, and later ambassador to India; William Douglas, associate justice of the Supreme Count; James Reston of The New York Times; Milton Shapp, from Philadelphia; Walt Rostow of MIT; and Senator Jacob Javits of New York, who urged Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon to adopt the idea. Nixon refused. He saw the Peace Corps as just another form of “draft evasion.”
What Nixon could not have foreseen was that a “day of destiny” waited for the world on October 14, 1960. On the steps of the Student Union at the University of Michigan, in the darkness of the night, the Peace Corps became more than a dream. Ten thousand students waited for presidential candidate Kennedy until 2 a.m., and they chanted his name as he climbed those steps.
Kennedy launched into an extemporaneous address. He challenged them, asking how many would be prepared to give years of their lives working in Asia, Africa, and Latin America?
The audience went wild. (I know this, because at the time I was a new graduate student over in Kalamazoo. I was working part-time as a news reporter for WKLZ and had gone to cover the event.)
Six days before the 1960 election, on November 2nd, Kennedy gave a speech at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. He pointed out that 70 percent of all new Foreign Service officers had no foreign language skills whatsoever; only three of the forty-four Americans in the embassy in Belgrade spoke Yugoslavian; not a single American in New Delhi could speak Indian dialects, and only two of the nine ambassadors in the Middle East spoke Arabic. Kennedy also pointed out that there were only twenty-six black officers in the entire Foreign Service corps, less than 1 percent.
Kennedy’s confidence in proposing a “peace corps” at the end of his campaign was bolstered by news that students in the Big Ten universities and other colleges throughout Michigan had circulated a petition urging the founding of such an organization. The idea had caught fire in something like spontaneous combustion.
