As Peace Corps Volunteer Wind from a passing vehicle flicked my skirt, disturbing a colony of flies on my legs, as I watched, in shock, the last bus of the day disappear in a cloud of dust. The driver of the seriously overloaded Dar-es-Salaam-to-Nairobi bus only slowed down enough to yell out the open door […]
Saturday, May 7, 1966. Dear Allen and all, View from the Porch with Cattle I have launched my career as a senior science mistress. Four classes with 140 students totalhave now been exposed to “discovery science” from my class in Dar. One class is doing photosynthesis and the other transpiration, closely related subjects. Each student […]
Harriet, Still Travelling Those years in Tanzania were historic not only for me but for the country. Two years before my arrival, Tanganyika joined Zanzabar to form the new country. Mwalimu (teacher) Julius Nyerere became the first president, a brilliant and peace-loving man doing his best to guide his country through the pitfalls of independence. […]
Mwanza 16 January, 1966 Air Letter Here at last! Steve Sterk, Winnie Golliday and I climbed onto the train in Dar-es-Salaam with several others in our group. Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) usually take second class, but those seats were sold out, so Winnie I and travelled first class. The car was a bit younger and […]
Wednesday, April 13, 1966. Dar-es-Salaam Dear Family, School closed a week earlier than we’d planned. Three religious holidays were coming up in a row, so Mrs. King’ori, our new headmistress, decided to send the girls home on Saturday, April 2nd. The girls on the athletics (track & field) team stayed that day for the meet. […]
Butterfly (ip) Wednesday, May 3 Dear Family, Back at school after four days at Ukiruguru, an agricultural training center on the other side of town. About twenty teachers gathered to learn techniques for teaching field biology. For our first exercise we caught giant grasshoppers, abundant on the grounds, then killed them with chloroform and mounted […]
Valhalla On a bright November day Robert, my husband, gripped the tiller of our 25 foot sloop, Valhalla, struggling to squeeze every mile out of each northerly tack. I hunched over the navigational chart in the tiny cabin, my finger on a point of land south of San Diego. “Punta Banda. We’re almost there!” I […]
I’m the go-fer. I fetch the tools when my husband, Robert, does the motor maintenance and refitting of our 65′ schooner. I do the painting and varnishing. I get a thrill out of painting the top of the mast. At 60′ above the deck, hanging in my boswain’s chair, I twirl out and away from […]
Valhalla After terminating our bicycle trip in Mexico for safety reasons, we retrieved our VW bug from Portland for another try. In San Diego, the sailboat filled bay called to us. After a few sailing lessons, to call of the sea was irresistable. Our first boat, the Valhalla, was a twenty-five foot fiberglass boat built […]
By October, the cyclone season on the west coast of Mexico is almost over and it is safe to sail again. Robert and I didn’t know the storm that would hit Mazatlan in October would be an exception. After spending the summer on our sailboat, Valhalla, anchored in Mazatlan harbor, we were looking forward to […]
After entering Mexico at the Tecate crossing, my husband, Robert, and I pedaled along Highway 2. We carried gear for an indeterminate length of time toward a vague destination. In preparation for the trip, Robert had mounted our metal-framed hiking packs over the rear wheels making the loads high and unbalanced, but panniers were not […]
I usually keep my hair short because I’d rather not have to think about it, but I did have long hair years ago. I was having an identity crisis. Not that I didn’t know who I was, but other people seemed unable to discern my gender. For most of my life, I have endured the […]
Chapters: Meeting Damiana | Going Fishing … or Not | Exploring | Camp Life | Trips to Town | Looking Back Alejandro, Damiana and Jorge My favorite picture of Damiana was taken after we had been camped next to the family’s palm-roofed palapa for a few days. She and Alejandro were grandparents to the many […]
Dr. Hastings Banda July, 1964 Kamuzu! Kamuzu! Elated cries filled the hot, humid air. The dark convertible occupied by Dr. Hastings Banda, called Kamuzu, Savior, edged its way through the mass of black bodies held back by green-shirted Young Pioneers. Dressed in his dapper western-style suit, Dr. Banda stood in the open car and flicked […]