travel blog

Rasputin the Cat and the Cockle Doodle Rooster

/ Curt Mekemson / 1 Comment

(This is the fourth in a series of travel blogs I am writing about my experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Liberia West Africa in honor of the Peace Corps’ 50th Anniversary. In this article Rasputin the Cat and the Cockle Doodle Rooster team up to drive me crazy. In my last blog I described how Rasputin ended up being our cat. I first introduced Rasputin in the story about how Boy the Bad Dog became the entrée at an African feast.)

Rasputin did not grieve over Boy’s untimely demise, quite the opposite. Now he could resume his rightful role as Dominant Animal. Dog stalker was his primary responsibility under this job title. We knew when he was at work because the neighborhood dogs carefully avoided the tall clumps of grass where he liked to hide. He was particularly obnoxious when it was windy; the dogs couldn’t sniff him out.

A streak of yellow and a yip of surprise proclaimed Rasputin’s attack. He came at the dogs on his two hind legs, walking upright. This allowed both front legs to be used as slashing weapons. It was the wise dog that steered clear.

This wasn’t Rasputin’s only trick. He could also do flips. I had taught him how and was quite proud of my accomplishment. Each night Rasputin and I would head for the bedroom where I would flip him several times in a row on the bed. He was usually good for about ten before he would attack me, thus signaling that the game was over.

My wife thought it was cruel but I told her it was bonding time. It also turned out to be a valuable skill. One evening when the rice birds were returning to their nests, we saw a yellow flash out the window. Rasputin leapt into the air, did a flip and came down with bird a la carte. After that I figured Rasputin had graduated from flip school so we didn’t practice anymore.

Leap snake was another game we played. It was quite similar to leap-frog except the objective was to see how high Rasputin could jump. On a good night he would clear five feet. The rules of the game were simple. I would detach the spring from our screen door and roll it across the floor. Rasputin, who had a Liberian’s instincts, assumed that anything long and twisty was a snake and that all snakes were deadly poisonous.

His response was to shoot straight into the air and land several feet away. It was a situation where you leap first and ask questions afterward. In this case, Rasputin was guilty of jumping to the wrong conclusions.

One way he returned the favor of my hassling him was to wake me up at 5:30 every morning, demanding to be let in. He did this by practicing his operatic meows under our bedroom window. Since no amount of suggesting that he should learn from Boy’s experience discouraged him, I jumped out of bed one morning and chased him across the yard.

This got Jo Ann excited. Our cat was going to run away and never come back. Jo may have also been concerned about the neighbor’s reaction to my charging out of the house naked. That type of thing bothered her. I promised to repent and assured her that the cat would be back in time for dinner. He was.

Rasputin subcontracted with the rooster next door when he was out tomcatting. I didn’t make this correlation until the rooster crowed directly under our window one morning at 5:30. Even then I thought it was just a coincidence until he repeated himself the next morning.

It wasn’t just the crowing that irritated me; it was the nature of the crow. American and European roosters go cock-a-doodle-do. Even kids from New York City and London know this because that’s how it is spelled out in books. Liberian roosters go cock-a-doodle… and stop. You are constantly waiting for the other ‘do’ to drop.

“This crowing under our window,” I thought to myself, “has to be nipped in the bud.” That evening I filled a bucket with water and put it next to my bed. Sure enough at 5:30 the next morning there he was: “COCK-A-DOODLE!”  I jumped up, grabbed my bucket, and threw the water out the window on the unsuspecting fowl. “Squawk!” I heard as one very wet and irritated rooster headed home as fast as his little rooster legs could carry him.

“Chicken,” I yelled out after his departing body. “And that,” I said to Jo Ann, “should be the end of that particular problem.” I was inspired though. Cats don’t think much of getting wet either. What if I kept a bucket of water next to the bed and dumped it on Rasputin the next time he woke us up. Jo couldn’t even blame me for running outside naked. With warm thoughts of having solved two problems with one bucket, I went to bed that night loaded for cat, so to speak.

“COCK-A-DOODLE!” roared the rooster outside our window precisely at 5:30.

“Dang,” I thought, “that boy is one slow learner.”  I fell out of bed, grabbed the bucket and dashed for the window. There was no rooster there. I looked up and spotted him. He was running at full tilt across the yard away from our window. He had slipped up on us, crowed and taken off!

My opinion of the rooster took a paradigm leap. Here was one worthy opponent. The question was how to respond. It took me a couple of days of devious thinking to arrive at a solution. What would happen if I recorded the rooster on a tape recorder and then played it back?

I had a small hand tape recorder that I used for exchanging letters with my dad so I set myself the task of capturing the rooster’s fowl language. Since he had an extensive harem he liked to crow about, it wasn’t long before I had a dozen or so cock-a-doodles on tape. I rewound it, cranked up the volume and set the recorder up next to our front screen door.

The results were hilarious. Within seconds the rooster was on our porch, jumping up and down and screaming cock-a-doodle. There was a rooster inside of our house that had invaded his territory and he was going to tear him apart, feather-by-feather.

Laughing, I picked up the recorder, rewound it, carried to the back screen door, and hit the play button again.

“Cock-a-doodle, cock-a-doodle, cock-a-doodle,” I could hear the rooster as he roared around to the back of house to get at his implacable foe. Back and forth I went, front to back, back to front. And around and around the house the rooster went, flinging out his challenges.

Finally, having laughed myself to exhaustion, I took pity on my feathered friend and shut the recorder off.  This just about concludes the rooster story, but not quite. One Friday evening, Jo and I had been celebrating the end of another week into the wee hours when we decided to see how the rooster would respond to his nemesis at one o’clock in the morning.

Considering our 5:30 am wakeup calls, we felt there was a certain amount of justice in the experiment. I set it up the recorder and played a “Cock-a-doodle.”

“COCK-A-DOODLE!” was the immediate response. No challenge was to go unanswered. “Cock-a-doodle” we heard as roosters from the Superintendent’s compound checked in. “Cock-a-doodle, cock-a-doodle” we heard in the distance as town roosters rose to the challenge. Soon every rooster in Gbarnga was awake and crowing and probably every resident was awake and cursing.

Jo and I decided to keep our early morning rooster-rousing experiment to ourselves.

(In my next travel blog on Peace Corps I will discuss the special power of the Lightning Man who could make lighting strike anyone who wronged you.)

Special note from BONE:

I just learned about the Bunnock Competition in Macklin, Saskatchewan Canada from Bruce and Nancy Campbell, friends of Curt’s brother Marshall. The symbol for the competition is a 33 foot high bone sculpture that is an exact replica of me. What smart people the folks of Macklin must be! Check the sculpture out at the Macklin site http://www.macklin.ca/bunnoc.htm.

Bone

 

How Boy the Bad Dog Ended Up in African Soup

/ Curt Mekemson / Leave a comment

(Peace Corps is celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year. In honor of this significant achievement, I will devote several of my travel blogs over the next few months to my own experiences as a Peace Corps Volunteer in West Africa when Peace Corps was still in its infancy, 1965-1967.)

Boy was a very bad dog; he didn’t like black people.

In fact, he didn’t like anybody very much. Boy lived with a Peace Corps Volunteer named Holly in the upcountry town of Gbarnga, Liberia where my wife and I were also Volunteers.

Holly had another dog named Lolita. When Lolita had puppies, she decided that Boy wanted to eat her children and drove him off. He decided to take up residence at our house.

Normally I wouldn’t have cared. We already had three dogs that didn’t belong to us. One more wouldn’t hurt. It was Boy’s attitude that bothered me. Having a large dog with a nasty attitude attack African friends and students was socially inappropriate not to mention un-Peace Corps like.

And there was more. Boy had an issue with my cat, Rasputin; he regarded him as prey. I initiated several discussions with the dog about his bad habits but all he did was growl.

Consequently, I lacked sympathy when the soldiers came. They were standing outside my house waving their guns when I arrived home from teaching.

“What’s up?” I asked in my most official Peace Corps voice. Messing with Liberian soldiers was not smart. Even the government refused to issue them bullets.

“Your dog ate one of the Superintendent’s Guinea Fowls,” their sergeant mumbled ominously. The Superintendent of Bong County was the equivalent to a governor except he had more power. He lived about a quarter of a mile away and his Guinea Fowls roamed around the government compound. It appears he was quite attached to them.

“Which one?” I asked innocently.

“What does it matter which Guinea Fowl the dog ate?”  Sarge sneered.

“No, no,” I responded, “I meant which dog.”

He glared at me for a moment and then pointed at Boy. I relaxed. It didn’t seem like Do Your Part, Brownie Girl or Puppy Doodle would have done in one of the Supe’s Fowls. They preferred their food cooked.

“Why don’t you arrest him?” I offered helpfully.

“Not him,” he shouted. “You. You come with us!” Apparently the interview wasn’t going the way Sarge wanted. I decided it was time to end the conversation.

“Look,” I said, “that dog does not belong to me. I am not going anywhere with you.” With that I walked inside and closed the door. It was risky but not as risky as going off with the soldiers.

My wife and I didn’t rest easy until that evening. It was a six-beer night. Finally, around ten, we went to bed believing we had beaten the rap.

WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!

“What in the hell was that?” I yelled as I jumped out of bed. It was pitch black and five o’clock in the morning.

WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! It happened again.

“Someone is pounding on our back door,” Jo Ann said, sounding as frightened as I felt.

I grabbed our baseball bat, ran for the door and yanked it open. Soldiers were everywhere. The same friendly sergeant from the night before was standing there with the butt of his rifle poised to strike our door again.

“Your dog ate another one of the Superintendents Guinea Fowls,” he proclaimed to the world. I could tell he was ecstatic about the situation. He had probably tossed the bird over the fence.

“This time you are going with us!” he growled with emphasis on are.

In addition to being frightened, I was angry. “I am sorry you are having such a hard time guarding Guinea Fowls,” I said, trying to sound reasonable, “but I explained to you yesterday that the dog does not belong to me and I am not going anywhere with you. Ask Mr. Bonal and he will tell you the dog is not ours.” John lived next door and was the high school principal.

Sometimes the bold approach is the only way to go. Sometimes it isn’t.

I closed the door and held my breath. Sarge was not happy. We could hear him and his soldiers buzzing around outside. It sounded like a hornets’ nest. Still, yanking a Peace Corps Volunteer out of his house and dragging him off in to the middle of the night could have serious consequences. I imagined the headlines:

 

Soldiers Beats Peace Corps Volunteer Because of Dog’s Fowl Deed Liberian Ambassador Called to White House to Explain

I hoped the sergeant shared my perspective. At a minimum, I figured he would check with Bonal. John might not appreciate being awakened in the middle of the night but it served him right for laughing when I had told him the story the night before. I also suspected he was awake and watching the action.

We had a very nervous 30 minutes with soldiers rumbling around outside but they finally marched off. Round two for us! I could hardly wait for round three. This is the point in the US where you would be calling your attorney, mother and the local TV station. My only backups were the Upcountry Peace Corps Representative and Doctor; one to get me out of jail and the other to stitch me back together.

Happily, our part of the ordeal was over. It turns out that Peter, a young man who worked for Holly, owned Boy. The soldiers finally had someone they could bully. Peter was hauled in to court and fined for Boy’s heinous crimes. Boy, in turn, was sold to some villagers to cover the cost of the fine. As for Boy, he was guest of honor at a village feast. Being a Bad Dog in Liberia had serious consequences.

There Is No Turning Back… Running the Colorado River

/ Curt Mekemson / Leave a comment

And why would a guy allow his toenails to be painted? Read on…

I didn’t sleep well. I never do the night before a big event, even when I know what to expect. This time I am clueless.

I also have an early morning assignment: fill a humongous chest with ice. It’s a precious commodity, worth its weight in cold on an 18 day river trip through the desert. Since the ice store is located on the other side of Flagstaff, the chore will add an hour to our morning.  It’s time we don’t have; we’re already behind. (I never catch up.)

Peggy and I down a hurried bran muffin and gulp a cup of watery motel coffee. I am tempted to go out to the van and make the real stuff but we have chores to complete. It is time to make the leap from life on the road to life on the river. Lap tops, cell phones, good clothes and the other accoutrements of modern civilization are stuffed into bags and dumped into the van.

Plus I have to paint my toenails. It’s a virgin experience. Grand Canyon boatmen are a superstitious bunch. Many believe their boats will flip if a person is on board with naked toes. And it’s true; boats have flipped under such circumstances. It makes no difference if the opposite also happens.

Tom lectures me, “I will not let you on my boat unless your toenails are painted.” He’s serious. Peggy dutifully applies blue polish on four of my toes. Does this mean we will only half flip?

PRO, the company that is outfitting us with three of our five rafts and miscellaneous equipment, is supposed to arrive at 11 to load our gear and transport us to Lee’s Ferry. “They are coming an hour early,” Tom reports. It’s panic time. Their big truck arrives promptly at 10:55. Maybe the staff gave us the earlier time to assure we would be ready.

Whatever. We are ready to load and loading is what we do. It’s a group effort; everyone pitches in.

There is an unwritten Commandment on private river trips: Thou Shall Do Your Share. No one is paid to pamper us. Not helping will lead to bad things, like banishment from the tribe. Sweat is pouring off of me by the time the truck is loaded. It promises to be a long, hot day.

The transport van arrives and we pile on. The adventure has begun; there is no turning back.

We head out Highway 89 retracing our route down from visiting Utah’s incredible National Parks a week earlier. A quick stop at Safeway provides deli sandwiches for lunch. Mine is ham and cheddar. We will graze on the go. Our KOA, Fat Man’s trail, and the San Francisco Peaks pass by on the left. Soon we are in Navajo country. The road to the Grand Canyon, Cameron and the Little Colorado River join the list of things passed. At Bitter Springs we jog left on Alt 89 and start our descent to Lees Ferry, the beginning point of all Grand Canyon river trips.

Mad Bombers, Homeland Security and a Poopy Cat

/ Curt Mekemson / 5 Comments

Great adventures start with the mundane. For example, did you cancel the paper? Common sense (and probably your mother) admonish that devious burglars have nothing better to do than to cruise the streets looking for rolled newspapers in front of your home.

Effie the Cat wears reindeer horns and a red bow. She is not happy. Check out the claws digging into our Berber rug.

Of even more importance, what about the cat? Back when Peggy and I led a normal life we had a cat named Effie. Vacations meant I would carefully measure out twice as much food and water as she could possibly eat or drink and four times the kitty litter she might use. The likelihood of her pooping all over the house was much greater that the likelihood of her starving. As a reward for my thoughtfulness, she would shed enough fur in our absence to fill a dump truck.

Now we are travelling full time, these issues have faded away. Instead we have food to worry about. Lots of it. Tom Lovering, the trip leader, his wife Beth and their friend Jamie Wilson arrived in Flagstaff three days in advance of our Colorado River trip. Their car was packed to the brim with empty ammo cans and other water tight boxes waiting to be filled with food and the miscellaneous paraphernalia of river trips.

The Department of Homeland Security delayed their journey at Hoover Dam. The Agency is paranoid about mad bombers. Its normally low sense of humor dropped to zero when the agents saw all the ammo cans. The whole car had to be unpacked.

Tom is even more paranoid about food than DHS is about terrorists. He’s an old restaurateur who had spent months planning the menu.  Each dish has been tested several times and quantities have been measured down to the teaspoon. Recipes are spelled out in minute detail. We will eat gourmet on the trip… or die. The options are clear.

Beth, Peggy and I are dispatched to Sam’s Club with marching orders. We fill seven large shopping carts with food. Think of it this way. There are 16 people going on an 18 day trip and eating three meals a day. This equals 864 individual meals.

When we arrive back at the motel, Tom and Jamie have set up a staging area. Food needs to be organized by meal and day and then stuffed in the appropriate containers. We have yet to shop for perishables and more food is coming from Sacramento. Our room, we discover, is to be the recipient of all food. There is barely room to sleep. I begin to think fondly of Effie the Cat.

The next day is more relaxed. Other trip members begin to arrive and Peggy and I assume air port shuttle duty. Tom takes time for a makeover into something resembling an English Punk Rocker from the 70s with green and purple hair. Homeland Security was right to be suspicious.

Tom prepares for makeover into English Punk Rocker by bleaching his hair. Any resemblance to an elderly lady on a cruise ship is purely coincidental.

The results. DHS was right to be suspicious about this man.

Rafting the Colorado is a Rapid Learning Experience

/ Curt Mekemson / Leave a comment

What we have to look forward to: the boat eating Lava Rapids on the Colorado River.

Our Grand Canyon adventure started over a year ago. Tom Lovering called with an urgent message. I had to immediately stop whatever I was doing and climb on-line to sign up for the Grand Canyon Colorado River permit lottery. Apparently the permits are hard to obtain, somewhat harder than walking out of a casino with a million dollars.

I am somewhat immune to Tom’s last minute schemes but the charming Peggy who loves water, loves rivers, and loves sunshine immediately jumped on-line and did the necessary clicking. Early the next morning we received an Email from the National Park Service saying we had won. It took me a lot longer to persuade Tom than it did for the NPS people to inform us.

I am not, by nature, a white water man. I put running rapids right up there with dangling on rock cliffs, playing Kamikaze on ski slopes, and riding the latest death-defying roller coaster at Four Flags.  My approach to outdoor adventure is more in the nature of risk taking than thrill seeking. Consequently, I have only had two real white water rafting experiences.

The first was with Tom on the Mokelumne River in California in the 70s. Within five minutes he had dumped us into something known as Dead Man’s Hole. “Paddle!” he screamed. River rats love to give their favorite rapids scary names such as Satan’s Pool and Suicide Bend. They can wax eloquently for hours over the qualities of these death dealing anomalies. Our detour “was a learning experience,” Tom explained as we emptied the water out of the raft and lungs.

My second white water trip was on the Middle Fork of the American River. This time I was travelling with Mark Dubois, his wife Sharon Negri and a friend. Mark, sometimes known as the Gentle Giant, once chained himself to a rock in the bottom of the Stanislaus River to stop the Army Corps of Engineers from flooding the canyon with water. He also co-founded Friends of the River, an organization dedicated to saving the wild rivers of the west.

Our trip was rather mellow up until we came to the large rapid. Mark was having us do such things as close our eyes and lean backwards out of the raft with our hair touching the water so we could ‘listen’ to the river. He’s a spiritual type guy, one with nature. Apparently Nature had rejected me. “Now, Curt,” he directed as we approached the rapid known as Guaranteed to Drown or some other similar name, “I want you to climb out of the raft and float down it.”

“I know, I know,” I groused as I rolled out of the raft into the icy waters. “It’s a learning experience.

And that’s how I classify our trip down the Colorado, a learning experience. But I know it will be more. I’ve visited the Grand Canyon many times over the years and have always come away with a feeling of awe and reverence each time. How could a trip through the Canyon’s inner core be any different?