Gbarnga Liberia

Chapter 1: An Ugly War Encourages Me to Join the Peace Corps

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Welcome to “The Dead Chicken Dance and Other Peace Corps Tales.” I am presently on a two month tour of the Mediterranean and other areas so I thought I would fill my blog space with one of the greatest adventures I have ever undertaken: a two-year tour as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Liberia, West Africa. Every two days I will post a new story in book format.

When I have finished, I will publish the book digitally and in print.

The main street of Gbarnga Liberia in 1965 where I was serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

Tears tracked across Jo Ann’s cheeks and I struggled to be sympathetic. It wasn’t easy.

We had just left her parents in San Francisco and boarded a United Airlines jet bound for New York City. Except for the time I surrendered five hard-earned dollars for a helicopter ride at the El Dorado County Fair, it was my first flight ever.

The jet taxied out on to the runway, climbed above the bay, and banked toward the east. We were leaving family, friends and life in the US behind. While Jo wrestled with the past, my thoughts were on the future.

Africa, teaching and adventure beckoned.

For seven hours we would be winging across America and gazing down on cotton clouds, mountain ranges, deserts, plains, cities, towns, farms and forests.

We waved goodbye to California as the plane flew over the Sierra-Nevada Mountains. The towering granite of the Crystal Range gave way to the deep blue of Lake Tahoe. My mind turned to our new status as Peace Corps Volunteers. Six months earlier we had serious doubts this day would arrive.

It was the spring of 1965 and Uncle Sam was looking for recruits. He’d bought a used colonial war from the French and needed soldiers to fight. Being a 22-year-old male about to graduate from college, I was a prime but reluctant candidate.

The conflict in Vietnam dated back to 1946. It was born ugly. France had lost her colonial empire in Indochina to the Japanese during World War II and Charles de Gaulle wanted it back. The Vietnamese Marxist Ho Chi Minh wanted independence. War was the result. Russia sided with the North Vietnamese in hopes of expanding her influence. NATO and the US jumped in to thwart Russia and support France in her colonial ambitions.

By 1955 France had abandoned the fight as a costly, no-win disaster that had sucked up more and more of the nation’s human and financial resources. Now, it was our turn. We would provide ‘military advisors’ and financial aid to the politically corrupt but anti-communist regime of Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam. Over the next ten years our support continued to grow.

By the time I was ready to graduate, the US was ready to send in the troops.

The Cold War was raging. America’s leaders saw Vietnam as a critical step in stopping the spread of communism and communism was seen as an anti-capitalist, anti-Christian, and anti-democratic evil extending its cancerous tentacles throughout the world. Lose Vietnam, the Domino Theory argued, and all of Southeast Asia would follow.

My political science professors in International Relations at UC Berkeley had a different perspective. Communism was changing. It was no longer monolithic in nature but had taken on a nationalist flavor. Communism in Russia was different from communism in China. The Russians were as fearful of Chinese massing on their border as they were of the US’s nuclear weapons.

One day I arrived at my class on Comparative Communism and learned my professor had been invited to Washington to provide advice on Vietnam. The message he carried was that Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist first and a Marxist second. He was seeking independence for his nation. He was no more interested in being dominated by Russia than he had been in being dominated by France.

Becoming involved in a full-scale war was not in the best interest of the United States and might prove to be a costly mistake.

Washington refused to listen. America’s leaders had grown up on a steady diet of Cold War rhetoric. Not even the insanity of McCarthyism had shaken their faith. Being ‘soft on communism’ was political suicide. When Khrushchev banged his shoe on his desk at the United Nations and said he would bury us, we banged back.

But I was convinced there was more to the fight in Vietnam than a communist grab for power. My International Relations major was focused on Africa and the news out of Africa in 1965 was on the struggle for independence from colonial powers.  I felt Ho Chi Minh was involved in a similar fight.

I decided Vietnam was not for me. Fighting in a war I didn’t believe in and killing people I didn’t want to kill was at the very bottom of my bucket list. And there was more. I am allergic to taking orders and can’t stand being yelled at. I’d make a lousy soldier.

I saw a court-martial in my future.

If drafted, I would go, however. I couldn’t imagine burning my draft card, running off to Canada or hiding out in the National Guard. I actually believe we owe our country service. Luckily, a temporary solution popped up. Peace Corps Recruiters were coming to Berkeley.

John Kennedy proposed this idealistic organization to a crowd of 5,000 students during a campaign speech at he University of Michigan on October 14, 1960. He was running four hours late and it was two in the morning. The response was overwhelming. One of his first acts as President was to create the agency.

Peace Corps service would not eliminate my military obligation but it might buy time for the Vietnam War to end. Of more importance, I felt the Peace Corps provided a unique opportunity to travel, represent the US in a positive way, and hopefully, do some good.

I talked the idea over with my fiancé. “Let’s do it!” Jo Ann responded. She and I would go together as a husband and wife team. When the Peace Corps recruiters opened their booth in front of the Berkeley Student Union, we were there to greet them.

“Sign us up,” we urged.

“Fill these out,” the recruiter responded, handing us two umpteen page blue applications. “You will also have to pass a language aptitude test in Kurdish and provide letters of recommendation.” I had my doubts about the Kurdish.

Apparently we looked good on paper. In a few weeks the Peace Corps informed us that we had been tentatively selected to serve as teachers in Liberia, West Africa. My brain did a jig. The age-old question of what you do when you graduate from school and enter the real world had been answered, or at least postponed.

Uncle Sam with his growing hunger for bodies to fight the Vietnam War would have to wait.

Next blog: My roommate at Cal tells the FBI and Peace Corps I am running Communist Cell Block meetings in our apartment.

At Home in the Woods of Southern Oregon

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This view from our patio features the first snow of the year. You are looking south at the Red Buttes, which are part of the Siskiyou Mountains that form the border between California and Oregon.

Two years ago Peggy and I decided to ‘settle down’ in Southern Oregon after travelling around North America for three years in our small RV. It was a good decision. We ended up purchasing five acres of property. The beautiful Applegate River flows in front of our house. Our back property line is the gateway to over a million acres of National Forest land.

The Applegate River, in front of our property, displays fall colors.

Walking out the back door and up our road leads to over a million acres of National Forest Land.

This graceful Madrone with its strange, pealing bark, provides shade for our home. It is one of numerous trees on our property. Other trees include Douglas Fir, Ponderosa Pine, White Oak and Red Cedar.

Morning mist outlines one of the Douglas Firs.

The same Douglas Fir, this time set off by the evening sky.

Peggy loves rivers and I love wilderness. It is a perfect match. Every morning we wake up with smiles on our faces.

Deer, bear, squirrels, foxes and numerous species of birds consider our property as part of their territory or at least a convenient stop off place. Last year a bear tipped over our bar-b-que. A couple of weeks ago a skunk let go under our house. This summer Peggy waged an unceasing war against ground squirrels that discovered her garden.

It all comes with country living. Mainly, we are amused by the antics of our furred and feathered friends.

Which way is the garden?

Is it here on your back porch? ( Junior has a better idea about where to find food.)

Surely you can’t resist feeding me? “Our” deer herd has trails running all over the property. Every day we get to see bucks, does, fawns and teenagers go about their lives.

At 2000 feet, we don’t get much snow… just enough to create a beautiful white wonderland. The deer, BTW, are Black Tail Deer. (Note the far deer.)

I used a Have-a-Heart trap to catch the ground squirrels and founded a new colony down the road and across the river on BLM land. The little buggers always went for the zucchini bait. I told them Peggy would be much less merciful. She was starting to practice with her pellet pistol.

We have been enjoying a beautiful fall and feel a slight tinge of regret that we are leaving to travel. I suspect the cruise of the Mediterranean with its extensive stop offs will make up for any regrets. Peggy and I do love to wander.

Gorgeous fall colors keep me running outside with my camera. I am admiring this beautiful Oregon Maple out the window as I type this post.

Another view from my writing chair. With fall arriving and temperatures dropping to freezing, this Geranium is one of Peggy’s last flowers of the season.

I thought about blogging while in Europe but I want to spend my time exploring.

So I’ve decided to focus my blog, Wandering in Time and Place, on my experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Liberia, West Africa. The stories are already written. Every other day I will post a new one chronologically in chapter format. When I get back in two months, I intend to publish the tales both digitally and in print as a book.

In the stories you will meet Boy the Bad Dog who ends up as guest of honor at a village feast, learn how to wage war against Army Ants, attend the hot machete trial of the Woman Who Wore No Underpants, and discover why the Liberian government felt the second grade reader I wrote was a dangerous revolutionary document. And that’s only the beginning…

I hope you will join me on the adventure.

The main street of Gbarnga, Liberia in West Africa where I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

My Name Is Captain Die and This Is My Dog Rover… The Peace Corps Series

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This week marks the beginning of a new blog about my experiences as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Liberia West Africa from 1965-67. I am using a WordPress theme designed to look and read like a book. Each week I will post a new chapter. When I have completed the book, I will publish it both digitally and in print. Visit me at http://liberiapeacecorps.com/ to read the first and subsequent chapters.

This week I will post three different short stories about Liberia on this blog, “Wandering in Time and Place,” to give my readers a sample of what to expect on the new blog and in the book. Today’s story: My Name Is Captain Die and This is My Dog Rover.

In our two years of living in Liberia as Peace Corps Volunteers, Peace Corps we would have many unusual experiences. One of our more unusual took place within our first week of living in Gbarnga, the town where we were assigned. It involved meeting Captain Die and his dog Rover.

Captain Die was a well digger who was reported to have spent too much time in dark holes. Our well was one of his jobs. He had dug it for our predecessors, two female Volunteers. Afterwards, he began stopping by to visit the women and bum cigarettes.

Therefore, it wasn’t surprising when he appeared on our doorstep shortly after we moved in. His introduction was unique.

“Hello, my name is Captain Die. My name is Captain Die because I am going to die someday. This is my dog, Rover. Roll over Rover. Give me a cigarette.” Rover, who was a big ugly dog of indeterminate parenthood, dutifully rolled over.

It made quite an impression.

We explained to Captain Die that neither of us smoked but invited him in to share some ice tea we had just brewed. We gave the Captain a glass and he took a huge swallow. I have no idea what he thought he was getting but it wasn’t Lipton’s. He thought we were trying to poison him.

A look of terror crossed his face and he spit the ice tea out in a forceful spray that covered half the kitchen and us. Dripping wet, we found ourselves caught between concern, laughter and dismay. The Captain marched out of our house in disgust with Rover close behind.

In addition to having found our predecessors an excellent supply of tobacco, Captain Die had been quite taken with one of them.  The story was told to us how he appeared at the door when Maryanne’s parents were visiting from the States. Captain Die was a man on a mission.  He was going to request Maryanne’s hand in marriage.

I’ve always imagined the scene as follows.

Maryanne’s parents are sitting in the living room on folding chairs making a game attempt at hiding their culture shock when this big black man and his ugly dog appear at the screen door.

Maryanne jumps up and says, “Oh Mom and Dad, I would like you to meet my friend, Captain Die.” Mom and Dad, brainwashed by Emily Post and wishing to appear nonchalant, quickly stand up with strained smiles on their faces.

Captain Die grabs Dad’s hand and tries to snap his finger at the same time proclaiming, “Hello, my name is Captain Die. My name is Captain Die because I am going to die some day. This is my dog Rover. Roll over Rover. Give me your daughter.”

No one told me how Maryanne’s parents responded to the good Captain’s offer so I will leave the ending up to the reader’s imagination. I can report that Maryanne was not whisked out of the country by her mom and dad.

While Captain Die’s visit had a purpose, there were a lot of folks who were just plain curious about how we lived. One little girl would have put a cat to shame. I never could figure out where she came from.

She would stand on our porch with her nose pressed against the screen door and stare at us for what seemed like hours. After a while it would become disconcerting and I’d suggest she go home. She would disappear but then I’d look up and there she’d be again, little nose pressed flat.

Finally, deciding more drastic measures were called for, I picked up my favorite folding chair and plopped it down a foot from the door. Then I sat down and initiated a stare back campaign. I lowered my head and moved forward until I was even with her head and about five inches away. The little nose slowly moved backward, suddenly turned around and took off at a fast gallop.

After that she watched the weird people from across the street.

The Tragedy of Liberia

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Bob and Gerry Branch invited us to stay at their apartment in Monrovia while JoAnn and I were ‘trained.’ In this photo, Bob watches a funeral parade outside his window while Jo looks at the camera.

(At the end of the last blog, my ex-wife and I found ourselves stranded in New York City because we had mistakenly flown to JFK one day late and missed our flight to Africa. In this blog, we reach our destination.)

We made it to the right terminal on the right day and at the right time. In fact, absolute paranoia insisted we be three hours early. We watched lots of planes take off and land.

Finally, we found ourselves flying across a rough Atlantic. To quote Snoopy, “it was a dark and stormy night.” Lighting danced between the clouds as we struggled to deplete the airplane’s complimentary booze supply. We toasted the fact we had made it, we toasted Liberia, we toasted Jo’s mom for her hundred dollars and we toasted toasting.

I finally managed to fall asleep and only awakened when the pilot announced good morning. Jo and I scrambled to look down and were met by a vast sea of green broken occasionally by small clearings filled with round huts. Tropical Africa!

There was brief stopover in Dakar where French-speaking Senegalese served warm coke and ginger snaps for breakfast. It’s the type of meal you really should forget but never do.

An hour later we were dropping in to Robert’s Field, Liberia’s International Airport. A stewardess wrenched open the door admitting a sudden blast of heat and humidity. Luckily, roaming the streets of New York City in August had prepared us. What we weren’t prepared for was the view.

Striding across the tarmac to greet us was my old friend Morris Carpenter from community college days in California. He had joined the Peace Corps the year before and been assigned to Liberia. By some quirk of fate we had been assigned to the same country and would end up living closer together than we had in California.

All grins, we tumbled into each other. I couldn’t resist saying, “Dr. Livingston, I presume.”

Morris, as he put it, had been camped out on the Peace Corp’s Director’s desk in Monrovia for a month seeking a change in assignment when our arrival was announced. He quickly volunteered to pick us up. The Director, recognizing the opportunity for Morris-free time, had agreed even faster.

On our way into Monrovia, Morris filled us in on life in the Peace Corps as ‘it really was.’ One year of living in Liberia had coated his youthful idealism with a thin veneer of cynicism. There were good reasons.

Liberia was a country that had been born and nurtured in paranoia. Its origins dated back to the early 1800’s when slaves were being freed in the New England and there was a growing concern about the expanding population of free black people. While most Northerners accepted that slavery was wrong, few were willing to accept their freed slaves as equals.

In the South, where slaves outnumbered their owners, fear replaced concern. Insurrection was a real possibility. Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, Daniel Webster and a number of other prominent Americans proposed a solution: ship freed African-Americans back to Africa. The American Colonization Society was founded and a portion of the west coast of Africa purchased. Approximately 11,000 freed slaves eventually shipped out.

Life was bleak and dangerous at first. The natives weren’t overly happy at seeing their long-lost cousins appropriate tribal lands and the Americo-Liberians (ALs) constituted a very small percentage of the total population.

The ALs had learned their US lessons well though and soon established themselves as the ruling elite. They took control of the government, education, and military. The natives were regarded as second-class citizens.

Power and privilege were the results but it was power and privilege accompanied by an underlying fear that the majority native population would rise up in revolt. This in turn led to a siege mentality and paranoia somewhat similar in nature to that felt by the white minorities in the Southern United States prior to the Civil War. I would see and experience several examples of this paranoia during my stay.

Close economic and political ties were maintained with the US over the years. Starting in 1926 Firestone entered the country and eventually cut down vast swathes of rainforest to plant rubber trees. As we drove by a rubber tree plantation on our way to Monrovia, Morris explained that the industry was now suffering from labor problems that the military had been called in to quash. Apparently workers were striking to earn twenty-five cents an hour.

On an outward level, there were a number of similarities between the United States and Liberia. English was the national language, the currency of the country was well-used American Dollars, and the flag was red white and blue complete with eleven stripes and one star. Upon arrival we even learned that the commanding general of the Liberian army was named George Washington. Not surprisingly, the government and the judiciary system were patterned after the American system.

In reality the government was a one party state controlled by the Americo-Liberians and whatever justice existed was heavily weighted toward keeping them in power. While change was underway when we arrived, it was too little and too late.

The failure to educate and bring large numbers of tribal Liberians into the economic and political system from the beginning was one of the major factors leading to the tragedy that Liberia would suffer over the next three decades. Americo-Liberians, tribal Liberians and the country would suffer terribly due to this negligence.

Morris dutifully dropped us of at Peace Corps headquarters to begin our orientation and take care of miscellaneous bureaucratic chores. While we had been playing at the World’s Fair, our fellow volunteers had been sweltering through hours of meetings. Now it was our turn.

Another married couple from Group VI, Bob and Gerry Branch, generously agreed to host our stay. They lived in a second floor apartment that overlooked one of Monrovia’s main streets. It provided a birds-eye view of life in the city.

Monrovia was overflowing with impoverished young people living in crowded tin shacks.

Monrovia was bursting at the seams with impoverished young people escaping from rural areas. Tin shacks fought for space as extended families struggled to find shelter from tropical downpours. Taxi and money-bus drivers, using their horns for brakes, filled the air with unceasing noise while the barking and growling of mangy dogs filled in around the edges. Evening air was tainted with the unique smell of cooked palm oil, smoke and moldering garbage.

Of course it wasn’t all bleak, assuming one had money. Monrovia had several good restaurants, a modern movie theater, an air-conditioned supermarket and a large paperback bookstore, all of which we came to appreciate over the next two years. Most Americo-Liberians did quite well. President Tubman lived in an impressive mansion on the outskirts of the city.

President Tubmans Mansion in 1966.

For our part, we were quite relieved to learn that our assignment wasn’t in Monrovia. Originally, we had been assigned to an elementary school down the coast in Buchanan. It was supposed to be a plum assignment so naturally another couple grabbed it when we failed to turn up.

We were left with their jobs; Jo would teach first grade and I would teach second in the upcountry town of Gbarnga. (Upcountry was anywhere inland.) Apparently this was our punishment for partying too long in Auburn. So be it…

(Note… in my March 3 blog I reported on how Phil Weisberg was arrested for holding up a sign criticizing Mrs. Tubman. Phil has since responded that he wasn’t arrested but was seized by security agents and later released.)

Crazy Flumo and Captain Die: Two African Characters

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The Peace Corps provided us with a house but first we had to win it back from the occupying forces: cockroaches and bug-a-bugs (termites).

All Peace Corps Volunteers have stories to tell about their first days on assignment: some funny, some sad and some even scary.

In Armies of the Night under Bone Stories I described how my new wife of three months, Jo Ann, and I survived our first night in Gbarnga, Liberia without water, light or food while being besieged by cockroaches, termites, crab size spiders and pounding drums.

Bug-a-bug tunnels snaked their way up all of our walls when we opened the door to our new house. This photo of a nearby 12-foot high termite mound testifies to how serious these bugs were.

A new day did manage to happen, however. Jo and I promised we would make it a good one. Her job was to mount a ferocious counter offensive on the bug-a-bugs (termites) and cockroaches that had seized our house.  Sam, the young man who hoped to work for us, arrived early to help.

My job was to walk the quarter-mile to town, buy five gallons of kerosene, find the most toxic bug spray known to humankind, scavenge anything available that resembled food and stock up on booze in case my other efforts failed.

Since this was my first trip into Gbarnga, I was on display and more than a little nervous. It seemed like half of the town was out and their primary purpose was to stare at me. I smiled and waved a lot, like a princess on parade. They smiled and waved back.

Things were going well.

I quickly reached the main street. Open-air shops lined the dirt road on both sides. At first, they looked the same: white washed walls, red tin roofs, dark interiors, and faces staring out from inside.

A typical Liberian shop on Gbarnga's main street. The croc's tail was dragging in the dirt.

Then I begin noticing differences. Several were fronted with crumbling cement steps that had long since given up any hope of connecting to the eroded street. One featured a crocodile skin nailed to the front post, its tail dragging in the dirt. Another had brightly colored shirts and shorts strung up like Christmas ornaments.

Two or three were obviously makeshift bars, no more than holes in the wall. An ancient Liberian ‘Ma’ came staggering out of one with a half-pint gin bottle clutched in her hand. She noticed me, hoisted her bottle in a toast and took a swig.

A few shops were larger and resembled country stores filled with the minutia of daily life. Most were owned by Lebanese. At the time, they made up a substantial part of Liberia’s middle class. I was headed for one that Sam told me sold kerosene.

A group of men stood idly in front of the store. Had folks known I was coming, I would have sworn it was a reception committee. It’s show time went reverberating around my skull. I smiled my best Peace Corps smile. One of the men stepped forward to greet me. He was barefoot and wore a tattered shirt, tattered shorts and a big grin. His hand shot out

This is it I thought, my first official Liberian handshake. We had started practicing at SF State. The shake begins as a normal handshake but ends with you snapping each other’s fingers. An audible snap signifies success. It isn’t easy at first. If the person is really happy to see you he may go through the process two or three times.

(About the time the snap becomes second nature, it’s time to go home. Then you have to unlearn the process. Your American friends look at you strangely when you snap their fingers. At least my conservative Republican father-in-law did. But back to Africa.)

We shook. Our hands parted. Snap! It worked. All of the men beamed and I beamed back. Their official greeter grabbed my hand again. Snap! Another success and more beaming. And again. And again

Nobody had mentioned four snaps to me and this time the guy wouldn’t let go. The men were laughing out loud now. My hundred-watt smile became a forty-watt grimace as I politely tried to retrieve my hand. No luck. I steeled myself, gave up any pretense of being polite and yanked. My hand pulled free and I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

The sigh lasted as long as it took the guy to drop to the ground and wrap his arms around my knees. By now the audience were all but rolling the street. I had become prime time entertainment and was beginning to understand what George Custer must have felt like.

I might still be there if the cavalry hadn’t arrived. It came in the form of a handsome Liberian man in a well-tailored suit who appeared on the scene and gave Flumo a healthy kick in the butt. Flumo let go.

“Hi, I am Daniel Goe, Vice Principal at Gboveh High School. Welcome to Gbarnga.” he introduced himself.

We shook hands in the old-fashioned way as Daniel explained that the man who had his arms wrapped around me was known throughout the Country as Crazy Flumo. I wasn’t the only person to receive his attention.

Once, Daniel told me, Flumo had thrown himself down in front of Vice President Tolbert’s car and wouldn’t move until the VP climbed out and gave him five dollars. New PCVs were a special target. I later learned that a tall Texan Volunteer had actually walked several yards down the main street of Gbarnga with Flumo tenaciously attached to one leg. I’d gotten off easy.

Fortunately, my adventures for the day were over. I bought my kerosene, found a bug poison so potent it was outlawed it in the US and discovered such fine culinary treats as canned beef from Argentina.

Jo Ann and Sam beat back the bug-a-bug and managed to arrive at an uneasy truce with the cockroaches. The nasty beasts would limit their forays until after we had gone to bed and stay out of our bedroom. In return we would only kill those we could reasonably stomp without tearing our house down.

Anyway there we were, one happy little family, cockroaches and all. That’s when Captain Die arrived on our doorstep.

Captain Die was a well digger rumored to have spent far too much time in dark holes. He had dug the well at our house for the original occupants, two female Volunteers. Afterwards, he began stopping by to visit the women and bum cigarettes. He had a rather unique way of introducing himself.

“Hello, my name is Captain Die. My name is Captain Die because I am going to die someday. This is my dog, Rover. Roll over Rover. Give me a cigarette.” Rover, who was a big ugly dog of indeterminate parenthood, dutifully rolled over

It made quite an impression. We explained to Captain Die that neither of us smoked but invited him in to share some ice tea we had just brewed. We gave the Captain a glass and he took a huge swallow.

I have no idea what he thought he was getting but it wasn’t Lipton’s. He must have thought we were trying to poison him. A look of terror crossed his face and he spit the ice tea out in a forceful spray that covered half the kitchen and us. Dripping wet, we found ourselves caught between concern, laughter and dismay. The Captain, in disgust, marched out of our house in military fashion with Rover close behind.

In addition to having found our predecessors an excellent supply of tobacco, Captain Die was quite taken with one of them.  The story was told to us how he appeared at the door when Maryanne’s parents were visiting from the States. Captain Die was a man on a mission.  He was going to request Maryanne’s hand in marriage.

I’ve always imagined the scene as follows.

Maryanne’s parents are sitting in the living room on the Salvation Army chairs and making a game attempt at hiding the culture shock they are undoubtedly feeling when this big black man and his ugly dog appear at the screen door.

Marianne jumps up and says, “Oh Mom and Dad, I would like you to meet my friend, Captain Die.” Mom and Dad, brainwashed by Emily Post and wishing to appear nonchalant, quickly stand up with strained smiles on their faces.

Captain Die grabs Dad’s hand and tries to snap his finger at the same time proclaiming, “Hello, my name is Captain Die. My name is Captain Die because I am going to die some day. This is my dog Rover. Roll over Rover. Give me your daughter.”

No one told me how Marianne’s parents responded to the good Captain’s offer so I will leave the ending up to the reader’s imagination. I can report that Maryanne was not whisked out of the country by her mom and dad.

(Today completes my daily tales of my life as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Gbarnga, Liberia. This week I have been utilizing my travel blog to honor the 50th Anniversary of the Peace Corps. There are more stories of Africa, however, and I will continue to work them in as the year goes by.)

 

 

 

 

Main street Gbarnga in 1965.

Treason

/ Curt Mekemson / 4 Comments

Gathering storm clouds over Liberia. I took this photo from my front porch in 1967. Looking back, it symbolizes for me the gathering political storm that would tear Liberia apart in the 70s, 80s and 90s.

Our job as teachers was to help bring Liberia’s tribal population into the twentieth century.

It was something of a first for the Country considering Americo-Liberians had worked hard for over a century to keep the tribal population in the darkest of the Dark Continent. Americo-Liberians were the descendents of freed slaves who had returned to Africa in the 1800s. They had promptly established themselves as the ruling elite.

It was a position they wished to maintain.

The times ‘they were a changing’ though. Independence was sweeping through Africa as one country after another threw off its colonial chains. Liberia’s tribal peoples were aware of what was happening in the world around them and the natives were getting restless.

The challenge to William Shadrach Tubman, who had been President since 1943, was to convince the tribal people they were getting a good deal, hold together a disparate people, make a show of it internationally, and still protect the privileges of the Americo-Liberians. Achieving the latter while moving forward on the first three was close to impossible.

It required an incredible balancing act at which Tubman was a master. The recipe for success involved one part substance, five parts fancy footwork and ten parts paranoia. The paranoia evolved from the fear that the tribal Liberians would take the process seriously and demand an equivalent portion or, God forbid, all of the goodies. Or possibly the nation would shatter apart.

As long as we behaved ourselves, we were part of the substance. The Liberian government made it quite clear that there would be grave consequences for anyone caught challenging the supremacy of the True Whig Party. For Liberians, the grave consequences could literally mean a hole in the ground. For us, it was a one-way ticket out of the country.

Don’t bother with stopping at Go or collecting $120 (our monthly salary).

Phil Weisberg in our back yard. Virgin tropical rainforest provides the backdrop.

One of our fellow Peace Corps Volunteers in Gbarnga, Phil Weisberg, actually tested the government’s resolve just prior to our arrival. Phil was a tall, gangly PCV who always looked like he had recently lost something of profound value.

He became upset whenever President Tubman or Vice President Tolbert came to Gbarnga and all of the school children in town were required to stand beside the road and cheer.

It didn’t matter if the luminary was one or two hours late, which he often was, or if it was pouring down rain, which it did half of the time, or if the sun was boiling hot, which it did the other half; the kids were expected to be there.

Teachers were required to go along. While most of the Volunteers managed to find something else to do, Phil’s personality was such that if his kids had to suffer he was going to be right out there suffering with them.

One day he found himself waiting an hour in the hot sun for the President’s wife and decided to protest. He did so by penning a sign that said in the best Liberian English, “MRS. TUBMAN, YOU ARE TOO LATE!”

Two hours later when her motorcade came tooling in to Gbarnga, Phil held up his sign and waved it about. Minutes later he found himself arrested and thrown into jail. This was not a piddling little kick your ass out of the country offense. One didn’t mess with the President’s wife.

Luckily Phil had the power of the American government behind him. Diplomatic maneuvering plus a personally written apology earned him a get out of jail free card. He was even allowed to stay in the country and finish up his term, provided of course he behaved.

I understood why Phil got in trouble. Waving a sign around criticizing the Presidents wife was not how to win friends and influence people among the Americo-Liberians. We all knew that the government was paranoid. Just how paranoid, I was to soon find out.

Peace Corps teachers were required to undertake a project during their first school vacation in Liberia. Given my experience at the elementary school, I decided do away with Dick, Jane and Spot and write a second grade reader. Why shouldn’t Liberian children have their own readers that reflected their own culture? Peace Corps agreed.

I jumped in. There were teaching guides to review, people to interview, folk tales to gather, and stories to write, rewrite and finish in one syllable English.

Eventually I finished the reader and shipped it off to Monrovia. Peace Corps was excited about the book and assigned an editor and illustrator to work with me. I would soon be a published author. Not. WAWA (a term coined by experienced African hands that stood for West Africa Wins Again) struck.

The book wouldn’t be published at all.

I had made the mistake of assuming the government would support a reader that featured Liberian children and African Folk Tales instead of Dick, Jane and Spot. What I had failed to understand was just how paranoid the Americo-Liberians were about maintaining power.

Apparently the book was a highly subversive tract and I was a dangerous radical. Liberian children would learn about their native heritage and rebel. Another misstep and I would be booted out of the country… or worse.

My next criminal activity was to organize a student government at Gboveh High School where I was taught African and World History. I decided the exercise would help our students prepare for the future and give them skills they would need in helping to govern their country.

Everyone, including students, teachers and Mr. Bonal, agreed. We pulled together interested students, worked through developing by-laws and set up elections.

Then the kids decided they would organize and run for office on party tickets. Why not? It sounded like fun. To provide identification for each ticket, they adopted names. It never entered my mind that this gesture would strike terror in the hearts of Americo-Liberians.

Within 24 hours we had been accused by the Superintendent (governor) of Bong County of setting up competing political parties to the Government’s True Whig Party. Student leaders were told to cease and desist or they would be arrested and thrown in jail.

I was told indirectly that I should start packing my bags.

So we eliminated the tickets and names. We were then allowed to proceed but I have no doubt we were closely monitored. I couldn’t help but wonder which of my students or fellow faculty members reported regularly to the Superintendent on my treasonable behavior.

The senior class. Yes, there were only five students in the class! Mamadee Wattee, standing on my right with a brown shirt and tie, was the student body president. He is also featured in my blog about the Lightning Man. Later he would move to the US and become an elementary school principal.

Reading and Writing and Arithmetic Taught to the Tune of an Ebony Stick

/ Curt Mekemson / Leave a comment

The elementary school was made from cement blocks. Windows without glass or screens provided air conditioning. Jo Ann and her first grade class provide perspective on the size of the school.

(Peace Corps turned 50 on Tuesday and I am not discussing what I turn on Thursday. But each day this week I am honoring Peace Corp’s birthday by sharing tales on my travel blog of my own experience as a PC Volunteer in Gbarnga, Liberia, West Africa from 1965 to 1967. Yesterday I wrote about my introduction to teaching second grade and about contacting a mysterious illness. Today I return to my unruly class of second graders and try to bring them under control.)

When I returned to school from being sick, my second graders had become rambunctious from their time off. After five days I had worked my way through every classroom management skill I had picked up during Peace Corps’ training and several I made up. Nothing worked.

“They need to be whipped,” my fellow Liberian teachers suggested. “That’s what we do.”

I patiently explained that Peace Corps teachers weren’t supposed to whip their students. Somewhere it was chiseled in stone. Eternal damnation and banishment to North Dakota would result.

“Then pretend you are going to whip them. Just don’t do it,” was the next helpful suggestion.

Being desperate and up for a little corruption, I thought about it. Where did it say in the Peace Corps rules that positive threatening was out of line? After all, hadn’t Teddy Roosevelt said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick?” Wasn’t the American government accumulating enough nuclear weapons to kill everyone in the world several times over using the same philosophy?

So I went out in the jungle and cut myself a big stick. Next I introduced it to my students.

“Oh, Mr. Mekemson, what a big stick you have,” they said. I could see the respect shining in their eyes. I explained its purpose. They could behave and earn positive points or they could misbehave and earn negative points. If they earned enough negative points, THE BIG STICK WOULD BE WAITING.

I didn’t tell my students I put the point total for the stick so high it would take a combination of Al Capone and Count Dracula to reach it.

The system worked. Whenever the class bordered on chaos, I would head for the blackboard, chalk in hand. Instant silence resulted. It was ‘Reading and writing and arithmetic taught to the tune of an ebony stick.’ We started making up for lost time.

A part of John Bonal's extended family. Mary is on the left.

Of course there was an exception. Isn’t there always? It came in the form of Mary, an 11-year old going on 13. Her uncle was principal of the high school and a Big Man in town so this meant she was important. Mere mortals such as Peace Corps Volunteers didn’t count. No Liberian teacher would dare touch a stick to her ornery hide, so certainly a Peace Corps teacher wouldn’t.

She called my bluff and pushed her points right up to the rim. I urgently sought reasons to give her positive points but the opportunities were few and far between. She went over the top and smugly whispered to her girlfriends to watch what would happen.

Now I had a real problem. Obviously I couldn’t beat her. I am really not the beating kind. But neither could I ignore her. The end of the day came and I dismissed the class but asked her to stay. The students walked out the door and stopped just on the other side. They weren’t leaving. Nobody at the school was, including all of the teachers. They were all waiting to see what Mr. Mekemson would do.

Mr. Mekemson was worrying. That’s what he was doing. I got out my big stick. Little Miss Mary was no longer so nonchalant.

“Don’t beat me Teacha, I beg you, don’t beat me,” she screamed and screamed and screamed. I gently touched her with my stick. You would have thought I was pulling all of her fingernails and half of her toenails out, slowly. I knew everyone in the school was listening in on this little drama and I imagined that half of Gbarnga was as well.

 

Oh boy, I thought, you have royally screwed up this time, Curtis.

I mumbled something about the importance of changing her ways and sent her off. And then I waited. How long would it be before the Peace Corps jeep came by to carry Jo Ann and me away? The next day at school was quiet.  Mary stayed home and I had a class of angels. Even other classes were quiet.

At noon, one of the Liberian teachers stopped by. She had a student she wanted me to beat. I declined… less than graciously.

Two days later I received the message; John Bonal, Mary’s Uncle, wanted to see me. This was it. I prepared my case carefully. I didn’t want to leave. A lovely war was waiting for me at home and I had developed a considerable fondness for Liberia and its people.

I went to see Mr. Bonal with all of the enthusiasm of an African hippopotamus crossing the Sahara. John was smiling when I greeted him. I even managed to get a decent snap out of the handshake.

“I’ve heard about your reputation,” he started and paused. Many words went roaring through my mind; words like child beater, monster, and hater of kids to name a few. “And I would like you and your wife to come and teach at the high school. We think you would make a great addition to our faculty. We would like you to teach history and geography and Jo Ann to teach French and science.”

Talk about surprise. Here I was prepared to be booted out of the country, ready to beg as the Liberians liked to say, ready to humble myself and crawl across the floor if need be, and I was being offered the opportunity to teach two of my all time favorite subjects.

“Sir, your niece…” I managed to stumble out.

Mr. Bonal’s smile widened, “Ah yes,” he said, “that was a good job. Now she will be a much better student.” Suddenly I had the suspicion that Mr. Bonal wanted me for a reason other than my ‘great’ teaching ability. I pictured myself practicing with a bullwhip out behind the high school as students lined up for their daily punishment. “Mr. Mekemson will see you now. Do you have any final words?”

(Tomorrow I write a second grade reader but the government labels me as a radical and refuses to publish the book because I focus on tribal children and African Tales. At high school I encourage the creation of a student government. The Liberian Government accuses me of creating political parties to oppose the True Whig Party and threatens to kick me out of the country.)

Good Mornin Teacha

/ Curt Mekemson / Leave a comment

Main street Gbarnga circa 1965. Our main shopping district.

“Good Morning Teacha” thirty bright and shiny faces shouted in unison as I walked into the classroom on my first day of teaching in Gbarnga.

“Good morning,” I responded in my best new Peace Corps Teacher voice. And then reality struck. I was expected to entertain and actually teach these kids something over the next several months.

Unless you are a teacher, you might be saying, “Hey, how hard can it be to teach a group of second graders?” My only response is “Try it some time.”

Plus there were handicaps.

My students ranged in age from seven to twenty-two and spoke several different tribal languages. While Kpelle was the predominant language used in our area, several others were represented. English was supposedly the common language but its reach into tribal areas was minimal.

Pidgin English Liberian style provided the bridge. For example, I might say to you, “I have to go down town for about twenty minutes. I promise I won’t be gone long. Please wait for me.” The Pidgin English equivalent would be, “Wait small, I go come.”

One idiom I learned quickly was, “Teacha, I have to serve nature.”  That meant, “May I have your permission to use the restroom?” Actually it was permission to use the outhouse or just as likely the ‘bush’ or even the side of the building. Some of my male students would listen to me through the open window as they did their thing on the wall. I admired their dedication but discouraged the practice.

Books created another problem; for the most part, there weren’t any. What we did have for reading were vintage 1950 California readers complete with Dick, Jane and Spot. I suspect we should have been grateful for anything but it was difficult for the Liberian kids to identify with big white houses, white picket fences and little white kids.

As for Spot, he bore a striking resemblance to food. Later, when I had a cat, my students would tease me by coming by, pinching him and saying, “Oh, Mr. Mekemson, what fine meat.”

Getting sick didn’t help the education process. I had been teaching for two months when I met an obnoxious tropical bug that knocked me out for several weeks. It announced its presence with a low temperature of 100 degrees that soon climbed to 103. Normally it hovered around 101.

As for its pedigree, who knows? Les Cohen, the Peace Corps doctor, would come by and shrug his shoulders a lot. He used the lottery approach to medicine. We must have explored his whole medicine chest.

The sad thing about being sick was that there were no substitute teachers. Whenever a teacher was absent, the class was left to fend for itself.  Often, my students would come by to check on how “Teacha” was doing.

“How are you feeling Mr. Mekemson? When are you coming back to teach? Can’t you teach us while you are sick?” There’s nothing like thirty kids standing around your house and looking mournful to create guilt.

At least I was able to plow through a number of the 100 books the Peace Corps generously provided for Volunteers. There was also entertainment of another sort. Each day around 10 AM a woman would stop in the dirt road opposite our house, squat down and pee.

I didn’t have a clue to her motivation but I found myself looking forward to her visits. Maybe she was practicing Ju Ju (African medicine). Or maybe she just had to go or was marking her territory. Who knows? I tried to pry out of Sam what she was up to but he would just shake his head and mutter in Kpelle.

Evening entertainment was supplied by Miranda Hall. This popular bar/dance hall added substantially to my already splitting headache. Loudspeakers perched on top of the establishment blasted African High Life music for miles around. Since it was located one hundred yards from our house, we received the full benefit of its marketing campaign.

One song I remember from hearing at least ten times a night had a country-western theme: “Woe is me, shame and scandal in the family.”

Later, I actually witnessed a little shame and scandal in the house next to the bar. I was walking by when the ‘man of the house’ came down the street, nodded to me and went inside. It seems he was early. I heard a loud shout at the same time a well-endowed naked man burst through the screen window and hit the ground running. Right behind was the jilted husband. The two streaked by me and disappeared downtown.

The naked guy was really fast.

Les was out of town when my illness finally decided to peak.  As my temperature passed the 103 mark and headed for 104 I began to worry about hallucinating and becoming irrational. I asked Jo to contact an Indian doctor who served the local community. Dr Swami (yes that was his name) came right over.

“Here, drink this,” he said.

Dr. Swami gave me a sweet, syrupy liquid that tasted great, knocked me out and cured me. The next morning I woke up feeling much better. I was even able to participate in helping consume a Thanksgiving turkey that Bob Cohen’s wife had prepared. The turkey tasted a little like sawdust due to the lingering remnants of my bug but hey, who was complaining. There was a bottle of scotch to wash it down.

(Tomorrow… Reading, writing and arithmetic taught to the tune of an ebony stick.)

How Do-Your-Part the Dog Evaded Half the Nation of Islam

/ Curt Mekemson / Leave a comment

(The Peace Corps turns 50 on Tuesday, March 1. In this series of travel blogs, I honor its Anniversary by relating my own experience a Peace Corps Volunteer in Gbarnga Liberia, West Africa starting in the summer of 1965.)

John Bonal, the High School Principal, lived in a cement-block house next to ours. He was a ‘Big Man’ in town by Gbarnga standards. Being successful in Liberia meant that your relatives came over and lived with you. It was the ultimate share-the-wealth-social-welfare program.

Part of John’s extended family included three dogs creatively named Puppy Doodle, Brownie Girl and Do Your Part. They came over to watch us white washing our new house and decided to stay. We fed them.

If I have my genealogy correct, Brownie Girl was Do your Part’s mom who in turn was Puppy Doodle’s mother. This three-generation family dug foxholes around the outside of our house and quickly established that they were our pets. Other dogs need not apply.

The Bonals were more than happy to have us take over feeding responsibilities and Rasputin was pleased to have someone new to terrorize. So everyone was happy.

Do Your Part took things a step further and adopted me. She was a charming little Basenji with impeccable manners. Everywhere I went, she went, including school.  Normally this amused my students. I would walk into the class with DYP a respectful three feet behind. She would immediately arrange herself under my desk and quietly remain there until I left the classroom.

This worked fine until she had puppies. They started following her as soon as they could walk the 100 yards to the school.

I would arrive in my classroom followed by DYP who in turn was followed by four puppies. It was quite the parade. Unfortunately, the puppies lacked Do Your Part’s decorum and considered the classroom a playpen. The students decided it was not an appropriate learning environment and I agreed.

DYP and company had to go. It was not a happy parting.

“Take your puppies and go,” I ordered firmly. Do Your Part looked at me in disbelief.

“Out!” I said.

Sad eyes stared back accusingly. But I held firm. She didn’t let it get her down, however. As soon as the puppies had departed she was back in class. One time her insistence on following me had more drastic consequences.

Gbarnga had a sizeable population of Mandingoes, most of whom were Muslims. They had been gradually sifting into Liberia from across the Guinea border. Originally the Americo-Liberians had blocked their entrance to the country, fearing they might pose a threat to their power.

President Tubman’s open door policy changed that and by the time we had arrived their numbers had reached the point where they decided to build a mosque in town. I’d wander over on occasion to check their progress. The mosque was an impressive edifice by Gbarnga standards, easily five times larger than any other structure on the main road.

At last the day came for the mosque’s grand opening. Having watched it being built, I decided to attend the festivities. I put on a tie, grabbed our two cameras and headed out the door.

Do Your Part was waiting, as she always was, ready to go along. This was not a Do Your Part type of celebration, however. Muslims aren’t particularly fond of dogs and consider them unclean.

I figured this meant they didn’t want any dogs, even polite dogs, attending their holy ceremony. I suggested to Do Your Part she stay home. Fat chance. I walked 100 yards and glanced back over my shoulder. There was DYP, slinking along behind. I knew there was no way I would make it to the ceremony without a little brown dog lurking in the background.

Do Your Part would have to be left in our house. The action was drastic; the only time we let her in was to eat dead insects in the evening. She would come in just before we went to bed and wander around crunching down sausage bugs. It eliminated sweeping. She had never been locked inside.

Since my ex-wife Jo Ann was reading to a blind friend and Sam was off for the day, I couldn’t even leave DYP with company. I reluctantly shoved her inside and marched off to the sounds of doggy protest

It seemed to work. I reached the mosque just as the outside ceremonies were concluding and people were preparing to move inside. Dignitaries were everywhere. It was my intention to hang out on the periphery and remain inconspicuous.

This is hard when you are the only white person in the crowd and you have two cameras hanging around your neck. It took about thirty seconds for a tall, official looking man in a white robe to arrive and express in broken English how pleased he was that the international press from Monrovia had decided to cover the event.

While I struggled to inform him that I was only a local Peace Corps Volunteer, he ushered me into the mosque to a seat of honor. I looked around nervously. The podium was about 10 feet away and I was in the front row.

A hush descended on the crowd as an obviously important dignitary approached the podium. Liberia’s top Muslim Cleric had come to town to officiate at the opening ceremony. He gave me his best media smile and I dutifully took his picture.

Unexpectedly, there was a disturbance at the back of the mosque. Several men were trying to capture a little brown dog that was deftly eluding them and was making a beeline for me.

Do Your Part had managed to escape from the house. Now she was escaping from half the Nation of Islam. In seconds that seemed like hours she was in front of me, wagging and prancing around like she hadn’t seen me in six months. Hot on her tail were three huge Mandingo men.

“Is this your dog?” their leader managed to stammer out in barely repressed fury as he gave DYP a tentative boot in the butt. Fortunately she figured out that the situation was a little tense and decided there were other parts of town she wanted to see.

I was amazed at her ability to avoid lunging people. I dearly wished I could have escaped with her. It wasn’t to be. It was my job to stay behind and be glared at. I was so embarrassed I don’t remember a single part of the ceremony.

Later when I arrived home, Do Your Part was outside the house, all wiggles and waggles, obviously no worse for her adventure. Jo Ann greeted me.

“It was the strangest thing when I got home,” she said. “Do Your Part was inside and frantic to get out. When I let her loose she took off like our house was on fire. I wonder if Sam let her in by mistake.” So much for my planning…

If Someone Steals your Dog, Spouse or Car, Who Do You Call: The Lightning Man

/ Curt Mekemson / Leave a comment

(This is one of a series of travel blogs I am doing on my experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Gbarnga, Liberia, West Africa to honor the 50th Anniversary of the Peace Corps.)

The dark side of tribal beliefs arrived at our house late one evening in the middle of a tropical downpour.

A very wet and frightened candidate for student body president, Mamadee Wattee, knocked on our door. The opposition had purchased ‘medicine’ from a Ju Ju Man (witch doctor in Tarzanese) to make him sick.

It was serious business; people were known to die in similar circumstances.

Had the opposition slandered Mamadee or stuffed the ballot box, I could have helped but countering black magic was way out of my league. I took the issue to the High School Principal and he dealt with it. Mamadee stayed well and won the election.

Later, he unintentionally introduced us to another tribal phenomenon, the Lightning Man.

I had left Mamadee with $50 to buy us a drum of kerosene while my wife and I were on vacation. When we returned home, Mamadee was sitting on our doorstep. Someone had stolen the money and he was obviously upset. Fifty dollars represented a small fortune to most tribal Liberians. (Given that we were paid $120 dollars a month for teaching, it was hardly spare change to us.)

Mamadee’s father, a chief of the Kpelle tribe, was even more upset and wanted to assure us that his son had nothing to do with the missing money. It was a matter of honor. He offered to hire a Lightning Man to prove Mamadee’s innocence.

The Lightning Man had a unique power; he could make lighting strike whoever was guilty of a crime. If someone stole your cow or your spouse, ZAP! Since we were in the tropics, there was lots of lightning. Whenever anyone was struck, people would shake their heads knowingly. One more bad guy had been cooked; justice had been served.

We didn’t believe Mamadee had taken the money and even if he had we certainly didn’t want him fried, or even singed. We passed on the offer.

Another Liberia Peace Corps Volunteer chose a different path. Here’s how the story was told to us. Tom had just purchased a $70 radio so he could listen to the BBC and keep up with the news. He enjoyed his new toy for a few days and it disappeared.

“I am going to get my radio back,” he announced and then hiked into the village where he quickly lined up some students to take him to the Lightning Man. Off they went, winding through the rainforest to the Lighting Man’s hut.

“I want you to make lighting strike whoever stole my radio,” Tom said, and then paid five dollars for the service. (Lightning Men have to eat too.)

Tom and his entourage then returned home. By this time, everyone in the village knew about the trip, including undoubtedly, the person who had stolen the radio.

That night, there was a tremendous thunder and lightning storm. Ignoring for the moment that it was in the middle of the rainy season and there were always tremendous thunder and lightning storms, put your self in the shoes of the thief who believed in the Lightning Man’s power. Each clap of thunder would have been shouting his name.

The next morning Tom got up, had breakfast and went out on his porch. There was the radio.

(In my next blog I will relate the story about how Do Your Part, my dog, invaded a mosque and barely escaped.)