Wandering through Time and Place

Exploring the world with Curtis and Peggy Mekemson
  • About This Blog
  • Bios
  • Chapter from The Bush Devil Ate Sam
  • Five Reasons to Travel
  • Meet Bone: World Traveler, Fearless Adventurer, and Sex Symbol
  • Tag: Three Hundred Cups of Tea and the Toughes Job by Asifa Kanji and David Drury

    • Three Hundred Cups of Tea and The Toughest Job… More Tales from West Africa

      Posted at 5:00 am by Curt Mekemson
      Jan 19th

      Three Hundred Cups of Tea and the Toughest Job by Asifa Kanji and David Drury

       

      Peggy, who is President of Friends of the Ruch Library, came home from a Jackson County Library meeting this summer and told me that two Returned Peace Corps Volunteers had just given a program at the Ashland Library on a book they’d written about their experience in Mali, West Africa. She also had their names, David Drury and Asifa Kanji, and contact information.

      Given the book I’d written about my Peace Corps adventures in Liberia, it caught my attention.  I called immediately and reached David. Asifa was off in Hawaii attending to business. Within a few minutes we had a picnic set up for Lithia Park in Ashland. We’d bring the wine. (For those of you who aren’t familiar with Ashland, it’s the first town you come to when following I-5 north from California into Oregon. The community is renowned for its Shakespeare Festival.)

      By the end of lunch, we were on our way to becoming friends and had exchanged books. Asifa and David’s books, Three Hundred Cups of Tea and The Toughest Job, are combined under one cover. My book is The Bush Devil Ate Sam. 

      I immediately took their books home and begin reading them. I was fascinated. Both are good writers, have a great sense of humor, and have interesting stories to tell.

      I joined the Peace Corps when I was 22, right after I graduated from UC Berkeley in 1965. David and Asifa joined almost 50 years later in 2012 when David was 60 and Asifa 57. They had to have vastly different experiences from mine, I thought. And yes, there were differences. I certainly didn’t have a cell phone or access to the Internet. They still weren’t invented. And David worked in a cybercafe! In 1965, I would have been running to the dictionary for a definition— and not finding it.

      But in the end, I was more impressed by the similarities of our experiences than the differences. Working in an impoverished third world country while struggling to accomplish something in a totally different culture is slow arduous work, and often unsuccessful. Both of their book titles reflected this. Asifa’s 300 cups of tea was the number of cups you had to drink with someone to get their attention. Patience and, I might add, a strong bladder were called for. David’s book got right to the point; it was the toughest job he had ever had.

      If you want a good tale that will transport you into another world with both compassion and humor, I recommend David and Asifa’s book. It’s available here on Amazon.

      The Bush Devil Ate Sam, Tree Hundred Cups of Tea, and the Toughest Job: Books on Peace Corps Experiences in West Africa

      If you are among my blog followers in Southern Oregon, Asifa, David and I will be doing a program featuring tales from West Africa on this coming Saturday, January 20 at the Ruch Library from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. You are invited! The address for the library is 7919 Highway 238 (one block past the Upper Applegate River intersection if you are coming in from Jacksonville on 238).

      Posted in At Home in Oregon, Peace Corps, Wandering The World | Tagged books, The Bush Devil Ate Sam by Curtis Mekemson, Three Hundred Cups of Tea and the Toughes Job by Asifa Kanji and David Drury, writing
    • Bush Devil Ate Sam

      The Bush Devil Ate Sam is an important record and a serious story, yet told easily, and with delightful humor. This is one of the most satisfying books I have ever read, because it entertained me thoroughly AND made me feel better informed. —Hilary Custance Green: British Author... Click on the image to learn more about my book, the Bush Devil Ate Sam, and find out where it can be ordered.

    • Special Thanks to Word Press for featuring my blog and to my readers and followers. You are all appreciated.

    • Top Posts & Pages

      • The Starfish of Harris Beach State Park, Oregon
      • Truth Is Beauty: A 55-Foot Tall Woman... Burning Man 2013
      • Hawthorne, Nevada: A Small Town with Explosive Potential… Big Time
      • On Facing Nuclear War... The Cuban Missile Crisis
      • Harris Beach State Park... Another Gem on the Oregon Coast: Part 1
      • Sixty Thousand Bikes… Burning Man 2012
      • New Mexico’s Three Rivers Petroglyph Site… Where Art Rocks
      • Watson Lake: A Forest of 70,000 Signs… North to Alaska
      • The Rancho de Taos and Georgia O’Keeffe… Part 1 of O'Keeffe Country
      • Highway 191: National Parks and Navajos... The Backroad Series
    • RSS Feed

      • RSS - Posts
      • RSS - Comments
    • Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

      Join 8,556 other followers

    • Thanks for stopping by.

      • 613,028 Visitors
    • Categories

      • At Home in Oregon
      • Burning Man
      • Essays
      • Genealogy
      • Memoirs
      • MisAdventures
      • Miscellaneous
      • National Parks
      • On the Road US
      • Outdoor Adventures
      • Peace Corps
      • Uncategorized
      • Wandering The World

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel

 
Loading Comments...
Comment
    ×