I have always had a passion for traveling the globe. In my late teens, I had the opportunity to travel with an organization called The University of the Seven Seas. I spent four months aboard a ship touring the world in my junior year of college. During that semester at sea, I learned about and visited over twenty important ports of call.
The Semester at Sea ship departed from New York City in the Fall of 1964. We immediately met an Atlantic hurricane at sea. It lasted three terrifying days. We sailed past the Rock of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea for our first port of call, docking at the Rock of Gibralter, Portugal. Spain, Italy, and Greece were on the docket. In Istanbul, the early Byzantine Christian church Hagia Sophia dominated the city. We stopped in Port Said to visit the Cairo bazaars and see Giza's great pyramids. We swam in the Suez Canal, watching a US armada of ships on their way to Viet Nam. Malaysia, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Hawaii were other amazing destinations.
It was a truly eye-opening experience that led me to want more. From that exposure, I realized that I wanted to immerse myself in a culture for a more extended period of time. I was curious to discover the people's traditions and teach and serve the local communities. I spent the rest of my college career focused on finding a way to make my dream come true.
At that time, I also became interested in politics. I held great regard for the late President John F Kennedy. He created the Peace Corps Program, and I knew it was the perfect fit for me.
My parents, especially my dad, felt otherwise, but in the end, I took my own counsel and applied. The day I received the acceptance letter was the day my life was to change forever. I served with the Peace Corps from 1967 to 1970 as a teacher and health care provider in Liberia, West Africa.
The stories in this book shed some light on my daily activities working with children and adults in my village that took me far from my everyday life in the western world. Stories about meeting death in the eyes of a black mamba, witchcraft, and ants that could overrun an entire village in hours are depicted in these stories. The gentleness of spirit demonstrated by even the youngest of children, welcoming my dog Wa Wa and me into their lives, bubbled up in my memory and came alive on paper for you to experience.
All the stories in this book are personal events that occurred in my two years of service. They reflect the highs and lows of village life. These stories include the friendships I developed with the members of my village, the students in my school, other PCVs (Peace Corp Volunteers), and the catholic nuns who ran the high school. Many of these stories bring back some of my life's most harrowing and inspiring adventures.
I offer them to you so you may gain insight into the early years of the Peace Corps in a largely underdeveloped country from the eyes of a young explorer.