Peace Corps Liberia

Chapter 6: Dr. Livingston, I Presume… Peace Corps Tales

/ Curt Mekemson / 2 Comments

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.

My friend Morris Carpenter at home in Mississippi… some 45 years after he welcomed us to Liberia.

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

Finally, we found ourselves flying over 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 each other, we toasted the fact we had made it, and we toasted Liberia.

“Good morning.” The pilot’s speaker driven voice woke me from my booze-induced sleep. 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; French-speaking Senegalese served warm coke and stale ginger snaps for breakfast. It’s the type of meal you really should forget but never do. Two hours later we dropped into Robert’s Field, Liberia’s International Airport. The stewardesses wrenched open the door admitting a sudden blast of heat and humidity. Roaming the streets of New York City in August had prepared us for the weather but not the view.

Striding across the tarmac to greet us was my old friend Morris Carpenter. He and I had been in student government together at Sierra College near Sacramento.

Morris was a year ahead of me and transferred to Chico State College at the end of my freshman year. We remained close friends via long, handwritten letters. During his senior year he joined the Peace Corps and was assigned to Liberia. His letters from Africa were part of my inspiration for joining. Little did I dream that Jo Ann and I would end up in the same country.

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 an 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.

His first assignment had been as an elementary school teacher on Bushrod Island located next to Monrovia. That career came to a crashing halt. He caught the Principal squeezing hot pepper juice into a young girl’s eyes. Whippings were common in Liberian schools but the fiery liquid was over the edge. He grabbed the Principal’s arm.

“You are a ‘small’ woman,” he angrily accused her, which is a major insult in Liberia. As it turned out, the Principal was a cousin to one of Liberia’s ruling elite, which made her a ‘big’ woman. Morris was booted out of the school within 24 hours.

Peace Corps staff was sympathetic but powerless. They found Morris employment as a Public Administration Volunteer in the Liberia Department of Education where he spent a frustrating six months attempting to establish a modern filing system. It didn’t happen. The Department served mainly as an income producing opportunity for the relatives of prominent politicians. Finding files was not a required skill set.

“I couldn’t get past ABC.” Morris grumbled. He was much more successful at his night job: locating Monrovia’s best bars and bar maids. It was time to move on.

Morris requested a rural Up-country assignment. And he got it. Peace Corps found him a job teaching at an elementary school in the small village of Yopea. It was about as rural as Peace Corps assignments went in Liberia. Getting there involved driving 130 miles Upcountry on Liberia’s main dirt road and then following a small dirt track for 20 miles to the tiny village of twelve huts, a two-room school, and a Care kitchen.

He shared teaching responsibilities with the Principal. His job was to teach the fourth, fifth and six grades. Students came from surrounding farms as well as the village. Life was much quieter and more productive than it had been in Monrovia.

If it became too quiet, he escaped to Monrovia and its bright lights on his Honda Motorcycle. Morris told us he would have been happy to finish off his Peace Corps experience in Yopea. “I liked the Principal, enjoyed the kids and built a basketball court.”

He didn’t, however, like the Volunteer that Peace Corps assigned to work with him a few months later.  JCC was a fundamentalist from Tennessee who considered it his responsibility to convert the ‘heathen’ Liberians. This may have been appropriate behavior for a missionary but it was inappropriate for a Peace Corps Volunteer.

The dislike was mutual. JCC did not approve of Morris’s lifestyle. Adding fuel to the fire, Peace Corps required that the two share a house. The close proximity didn’t work. Morris wanted a divorce. “He was just too goofy.”

Morris hopped on his Honda and zipped in to Gbarnga to meet with Peace Corps’ Upcountry rep, Bob Cohen. “I want JCC out of my village,” Morris demanded. Bob told him that it was only a personality clash. “Go back to work.” Morris went back to Yopea all right, but he packed his bags and headed for Monrovia.

“Either find me a new assignment of send me home,” he told the Liberia Peace Corps Director.

And that’s where we came into the picture.

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

Chapter 5: Left Behind and Very Alone in NYC… Peace Corps Tales

/ Curt Mekemson / 4 Comments

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.

Jo Ann poses at the 1964/65 New York World’s Fair. Like the ancient dinosaurs, our Peace Corps group had disappeared.

Now we were disembarking at JFK in New York City, two country kids who had traveled a long way from Diamond Springs and Auburn California. All we had to do was check in at the Pan Am desk, grab a bite to eat, and catch our trans-Atlantic flight to Africa.

Ah that life should be so simple. Oh we managed to find the Pan Am desk all right, but no one was there.

“Excuse me, could you tell me where the Liberia Peace Corps group is?” I asked a harried attendant.

“I don’t have any idea,” was the brusque reply.

Have you ever had the sinking feeling that you have blown something critically important? It starts with the hair on your head and works its way downward to your toes. Every part of your body jumps in to let you know you aren’t nearly as smart as you imagine you are. It’s the stomach that serves as the real messenger, however, and mine was rolling like the Atlantic in a hurricane.

“Check the instructions again, Curt,” the voice of reason standing beside me directed. Good idea.

“Well, it says right here we are supposed to be at the Pan Am desk no later than 5 PM.” It was only 4. My stomach calmed down to a respectable jet engine rumble. “Let’s have a bite and check back.” I suggested, working hard to be the man.

Five PM came and no one, nothing, nada; it was serious panic time. “Wait here Jo in case anyone comes. I’ll go check the instructions one more time.”

We had stuffed our bags in a drop-a-quarter-in-the-slot storage locker while we ate. I freed my shoulder bag from captivity and reread the instructions. Yes, we were in the right place at the right time. Then there it was, the answer, staring at me in black and white. “You will fly to New York on August 7th.”

It was the 8th.

Damn! I slowly climbed back up the stairs.

“I’ve found them Jo Ann.” A look of relief and the beginning of a smile crossed her face.

“Where are they?”

“In Liberia.”

Let me say this about the two of us; we were both stubborn as mules when we thought we were right. This could create problems when we disagreed but the potential for disaster was miniscule in comparison to when we both agreed we were right and we weren’t. Reality didn’t matter and certainly a little date on a piece of paper we had each read a dozen times wasn’t going to deter us.

The 7th was our going away party in Auburn, period. While we were kicking up our heels and smelling the honeysuckle, our compatriots were crossing the Atlantic to Africa. Now we were left behind, very alone and stuck in New York City.

“What are we going to do?” Jo asked in a shaky voice. The only thing that came to my mind was a double vodka anything.

It was probably a good thing United Airlines let us on the airplane in San Francisco without noticing our tickets were one day out of date. Had we called Washington from home, the Peace Corps may have been tempted to say, “Why don’t you just stay there.”

The representative sounded amused when we called the emergency number in Washington after our visit to the bar. “Did we have enough money to get through until tomorrow?” Yes. Jo Ann’s mom had insisted we take an extra hundred dollars in cash from her. “OK, call this number in the morning.”

We decided to sleep in the airport to save our scant resources. It was a resolution with a short lifespan. I had one extremely unhappy young wife on my hands and my sleeping habits were unwilling to accommodate a deserted airport lounge.

Somewhere around midnight I said, “Look, Jo, I am going to see if a cab driver will help us find a hotel we can afford.”

The first guy in line was a grizzled old character in a taxi of similar vintage. I told him our story. He studied me for a moment and then said, “Go get your wife and I’ll find somewhere for you.

A more cynical observer might note we were lambs waiting to be fleeced but what followed was one of those minor events that speak so loudly for the positive side of human nature. The taxi driver took care of us. He reached across the cab, turned off his meter and then drove to three different hotels. At each one he got out, went inside and talked to the manager. At the third one he came out and announced he had found our lodging.

“This place isn’t fancy,” he reported, “but it is clean, safe and affordable.” Affordable turned out to be dirt-cheap. To this day I am sure the cab driver finessed a deal for us. Two very exhausted puppies fell into bed and deep sleep.

The Peace Corps representative we talked to the next morning wasn’t nearly as friendly as the one the night before but at least he didn’t tell us we had to go home. A commercial flight to Liberia would be leaving in three days.

“Could we hang out in New York? Did he need to send us some money? Could we follow directions?”

Yes we could hang out; no, they didn’t need to send money, and yes we could find our way to the proper airline at the correct time on the right day. Jo and I visited the New York World’s Fair, checked out the City and considered the three days as an extension of our all too short honeymoon.

As the old saying goes, all is well that ends well.

Chapter 3: Sargent Shriver Comes to Berkeley Looking for Unreasonable People… Peace Corps Tales

/ Curt Mekemson / 4 Comments

 

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 day before Cliff sent me scurrying after the errant urinalysis, Sargent Shriver arrived on campus.  I, along with several thousand other students, flocked to hear him speak.

Three months before I was to enter Peace Corps training for Liberia, Sargent Shriver came to the Berkeley Campus and gave an insightful speech into what it meant to be a Peace Corps Volunteer. (Google photo)

John Kennedy recruited his brother-in-law in 1961 to set up and then head the Peace Corps. “If it flops,” Kennedy had said, “it will be easier to fire a relative than a political friend.” He gave Shriver one month to create the organization.

By 1965 when I joined the Peace Corps, Kennedy had been assassinated and the Peace Corps had become one of the more successful foreign relation programs in US history.

Shriver’s appearance on campus was an important event at Berkeley. In addition to heading up the Peace Corps, he still carried the aura of the Kennedy years. The University was also important to Shriver. We had provided more Volunteers than any other college in the nation

“First of all, I am in favor of free speech,” he began. “Even the initials FSM don’t scare me. Back in Washington my enemies say they stand for “Fire Shriver Monday.” But LBJ says they stand for “Find Shriver Money.”

He captured us. Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement (FSM) had dominated our lives. Times had been serious, even dangerous. We were ready to laugh.

“But here on campus,” he went on, “I want to talk about today’s challenge to the young, to the American university student of the 60s… of what I think might be called a “free service movement.”

Shriver then used a quote from Bob Rupley, a 1962 Berkeley graduate and Peace Corps Volunteer, to describe what he felt the essence of the Peace Corps was:

“Apathy, ignorance and disorganization are the things we want to eliminate… in all areas in which we work. Clearly no Volunteer can hope for absolute success, nor can he even expect limited success to come easily. Clearly, the Peace Corps is not the responsibility of every American. And it shouldn’t be! In many ways, the life of a Volunteer who sincerely seeks to effect progress is miserable.”

Three weeks after making this statement Rupley was shot to death in Caracas, Venezuela while he was working as Peace Corps staff.

Shriver told us the Peace Corps was looking for unreasonable men and women. Reasonable people accept the status quo. Unreasonable people seek to change it.

We were noted for being unreasonable at Berkeley.

Six months earlier the UC Berkeley Administration had declared that the Bancroft-Telegraph Free Speech area was closed and that there would be no more on-campus organization of Civil Rights demonstrations in the Bay Area.

The success of these demonstrations had upset powerful right-wing forces in California.  Telephone lines burned between the UC Administration, Sacramento and Washington DC. Free speech and the right to support off campus political efforts were sacrificed.

Student organizers reacted immediately. They said no.

Some, like Mario Savio, had walked the streets of the South registering black voters and risking their lives to do so. In the summer of 1964 three of their colleagues had been killed and buried under an earthen dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi.

Many had been introduced to political activism four years earlier in the anti-HUAC demonstrations in San Francisco where the police had used fire hoses to wash protestors down the steps of City Hall. Most had participated in numerous protests against racial discrimination in the Bay Area since. (HUAC was the House Un-American Activities Committee, a hold over from the McCarthy era.)

Free Speech Movement organizers understood the value of demonstrations and media coverage. They had become masters at community organization and were focused in their vision to the degree they were willing to face police and be arrested for their beliefs.

The result was a series of confrontations that ended with the massive sit-in at Sproul Hall and the arrest of 800 students in early December. While I hadn’t served as a leader of FSM or been arrested, I empathized strongly with its objectives and had participated in many of the demonstrations. I even spent several hours in the Sproul Hall sit-in.

Heart pounding, I had waited in line and then stood up on the Dean’s desk in my socks and talked of rights and responsibilities. It was our right to oppose racism; it was our responsibility to do so.

Out in the hall, a group of students sat on the floor… surrounding Joan Baez and singing protest songs. I sat down and joined in. “We shall overcome some day…” I was part of something, something much larger than myself.

In the end, we won. Our freedom of speech, our freedom to organize, and our freedom to participate in the critical issue of the day were returned. While we were still a part of the future so popular with commencement speakers, we were also a part of the now, helping to shape that future.

“You have demonstrated your leadership in the generation of the ‘6os,’ the generation that will not take ‘yes’ for an answer, which has shown an unwillingness to accept the pat answers of society… either in Berkeley, in Selma or in Caracas, Venezuela,” Shriver noted.

“Once in every generation fundamentals are challenged and the entire fabric of our life is taken apart seam by seam and reconstructed…. Such a time is now again at hand and it is clear that many of you are unreasonable men (and women), restless, questioning, challenging, taking nothing for granted.”

We had not forfeited our rights at Berkeley, nor had we, according to Shriver, forfeited our claim to a fellowship with the Peace Corps. And this, at least in part, was why I had been accepted as a Volunteer. Participation in the Free Speech Movement was regarded as a plus, not a minus.

But the time had come to move beyond protest. Shriver concluded his talk with a ringing call for service.

“We ask all of you who have taken what you have learned about our society and tried to make it live, to join us in the politics of service, to demonstrate by doing, to the poor and the forgotten of villages and slums in America and the world, what you have learned of Democracy and freedom and equality. The times demand no less.”

“It is time not just to speak, but to serve.”