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The Creation And The Fall of Man
Diary of a Peace Corps Volunteer: A Walk Down Memory Lane...from letters sent home...July 17, 1966. Part 2
VSO Sponsorship - Progress Report: A Letter From Irma Fortuin in Pankshin
Man Who Helped Eradicate Smallpox Returns To Africa
His Peace Corps Experience Started His Life Long Involvement In Community Issues

The Creation And The Fall of Man

Before before if God make earth finish, He take sand make Adam. First tine God no make Adam finish. Na he body He first make. If God make Adam body finish, Adam be like dead man jus like dat. Adam, he no fit shee, he no fit hear, he no fit chop, he no fit sit for shade, he no fit waka-waka. God sorry for Adam as he be like dat, so God, He blow for Adam face an, wan time, Adam he fit shee, he fit hear, he fit shop, he fit sleep, he fit sit for shade, he fit waka-waka. No ting whe Adam no fit do again. Adam be like ordinary man jus like dat.

If God make Adam finish, He put am down for wan betta farm. Dis farm, he sweet Adam too much. Everyting he de for inside. Rice, he de plenty. Nyam, he de plenty. Palm oil he de plenty. Palm wine, he de plenty. No man shee di shop whe he no de. Adam he de shop, he de sleep. He de sit for shade, he de waka-waka. Come and see Adam as he happy for this farm.
After small time God come salute Adam for house:

“Adam.”
“Sah.”
“Adam, I heah say as you no get wife.”
“Yes, sah.”
“Adam.”
“Sah.”
“Adam, I go get you wife.”
“Yes, sah.. Tank sah.”
“Adam.”
“Sah,”
“Make you na go sleep”
“Yes, sah.”

“Adam, you de?”
“Yes, sah, I de, Sah.”
“Adam.”
“Sah.”
“Adam, you no shee as I bring you wife. Eve be he name.”
“Yes, Sah. Tank, sah,”
Adam he plenty happy forsake of wife whe he get am.
After small time again God call Adam come, He call Eve come.
“Adam.”
“Sah.”
“Eve.”
“Sah.”
“Make you na hear the word whe I go talk am.”
“Yes, Sah.”
“Adam, na di whole farm when I give you, you shee am?”
“Yes, sah.”
“Adam, na di whole shop whe he de inside, you shee am?”
“Yes, Sah”
“Adams na di shop whe he de for centre, you shee am?”
“Yes, Sah.”

“You heah?”
“Yes, sah.”

“Afternoon, Madam.”
“Afternoon.”
“How di body, Madam?”
“He sound.”
“How Masta, Madam?”
“He de.”
“How pikin, Madam?”
“He de.”
“What of shop dis time, Madam?”
“He sweet.”

“Adam.” Adam, he no hansa.
“Adam.” Adam, he no hansa.
God He make big hollers
“Adam.” Adam he run come hansa.
“Sah.”
“Adam, why you no hansa first time?”
“Skuse sah, I de for bus.”
“Adam, why you de for bus?”
“ Skuse, sah, I no get cloth. I too shame. I run for bus. I beg, Sah.”

“’The Creation and Fall of Man’ was given to me by Father Drew, a Catholic priest stationed in a village near my assignment in Uromi (Mid - West Nigeria). Like many of the priests, he had a great sense of humor and he appreciated the Nigerians. For years, more like decades, I thought I had
lost my copy. Much to my delight it turned up at the bottom of the wrong file when I was looking for something totally unrelated. ” •
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Diary of a Peace Corps Volunteer
A Walk Down Memory Lane...from letters sent home...July 17, 1966. Part 2

By Judith Bloch (20) 66–67

The next bush path was more fiercely overgrown than the first part of the journey. We followed this path for about 2 miles until we came to swampy areas where we had to walk them again. There were three actual creeks we crossed that had very primitive but effective bridges built across the water. They were about 20 to 30 feet long and were made of branches 5 feet wide. They were bound together to make the bridge fairly steady, although sometimes there were 6 inch gaps where crosswise branches had slipped and moved. After getting across the bridge, we rode through the bush for another mile until we came to Enhwe, the village of our destination. You should have seen the commotion our arrival made. We rode between houses, and I was amazed at the neatness and obvious pride the villagers took in keeping their little town so clean. There were trimmed shrubs around some of the little mud houses.

Finally, we arrived at the compound of Andrew’s father. The father was about 60 years old. He had 2 wives and 13 children. We were greeted by about 20 of his immediate family and were invited inside. The rooms were very small, about 10 feet by 15 feet. There were 6 wooden chairs and one cane chair made by his father, a wooden table, and a cuckoo clock. The clock must have been brought from Europe by the British. We arrived at noon. The two windows and the door were constantly filled with people looking at us — well-wishers, as Andrew put it. They kept bringing us bottles of soda pop called Fanta (orange soda). Then beer. Then Kai-Kai, a very strong alcoholic beverage made by the Nigerians. It tastes like fire, stronger than Tequila. We must have put away six bottles of Fanta as everywhere we went we were offered it, and it is a sign of great disrespect if you do not drink or eat what is offered to you.

It started raining so we kept sitting. We sat for a long, long time. I remember one thing Andrew said when we were back at the canoe. An old lady was staring at us. She mumbled something in Urhobo, and we asked Andrew want she had said. He chuckled something in his usual good-humored way and said, “She wants to know why God didn’t make her white like you. She also said, when black babies are born they are light-skinned and fair like you, but as they grow up they fade and turn black.” We were really treated tike some sort of gods in this village. The experience was overwhelming.

At 2 o’clock the rain let up to a fine drizzle, and we decided to go on and see some other aspects of village life. The people went all out for us. We were also given the traditional kola nut ceremony at Andrew’s father’s house. A kola nut is a sacred and holy nut. It was cut by the father, who took a piece first and then presented us each with a piece. The nut is very bitter and contains a lot of caffeine. People use it as a stimulant.

We were each given an umbrella to use and started walking through the wet and muddy streets, constantly being followed by 75 to 100 children and adults at all times. We came to an open house (one wall was open), which was the native medicine doctor’s office. We entered and met him on an elevated stand against the wall facing the door. He wore a wrapper - a long piece of cloth wrapped around in a skirt-like fashion. There were about 30 mirrors of about 1 foot by 2 foot size hanging on the 3 walls, interspersed with pictures of Saints, Apostles, Mother Mary, and Jesus Christ. We asked Andrew about the significance of the pictures and mirrors, and he said the pictures were so that the medicine man could practice medicine with the Christians and appeal to their spirits as well as the mirrors, which had powers only he could use on the native pagans.

The native medicine doctor had three wives - his first, senior wife, and two junior wives. They danced for us to the accompaniment of native musical instruments such as rattles, wooden bell shakers, and drums. Incense burned and the smell coupled with the whole atmosphere led one to believe that this could be a very powerful and convincing aspect of life indeed. I imagine at night you’d want all the spirits on your side out there!

As we continued walking in the village the crowd kept at close range behind - sometimes to the point of stepping on our feet literally. I turned around a couple of times to see that the crowd had tripled. I bet there were 500 people behind us.

It was about 4 o’clock and rather hazy outside. We came to the holy drum whose beat is that of the ancestor spirits. The drum was about 15 feet long and lying on its side, it is brought out only three times each year and is held under guard. There was a lot of carving on the sides. It had four legs for standing it up. No one is allowed to touch it except the juju priest and the men who guard it. If you touch it, a goat has to be killed and its blood dripped on the drum to appease the spirits. A man with an elaborate triangular shaped headdress came out of the hut behind the drum. He was quite old and wore a short wrapper skirt and two heavy chains of cowrie shell beads. They are white sea shells about a half inch long. He wore them crisscrossed over his chest. The headdress was very colorful and was made of rafia and colored yarns bunched together in solid areas next to one another. He beat a rhythm on the drum. The whole village must have been there. A woman stood near the drummer and chanted along with the beat. Pretty soon three dancers (priests) came in costume. Their headdresses were made of rooster feathers and bird feathers. They wore no shirts, but wore neck pieces and carried spears. One of the skirts was a beautifully colored yellow and blue striped material. It was very impressive set against his black skin. Even the rooster feathers took on a metallic red and green glow to set off the darkness of his face, the day, and the mud around. As the drum started beating, first one, then another, of the dancers jumped and zigzagged along the muddy path, a very fierce look on his face, until he finally reached the drum and stopped. It was quite a spectacle. Andrew kept us informed as to all the proper things to do and say. We gave each dancer a shilling and also the drummer and head priest.

We were on our way back to Andrew’s father’s compound. On the way we were stopped by the local photographer who had set up his equipment and was waiting to get our picture. The camera was the wooden box type with a cover like a blanket that he ducked under and made a setting, then capped the lens, came out from under the blanket, and with a twist of his hand, performed his magic. A small explosion of powder seemed to arise, just like in the comics. We walked on.

At the compound the whole yard was filled with people, We were given a 5 shilling note by one man and 3 live chickens by Andrew’s junior brother. Andrew tied their feet together and slung them over the bicycle handle. Needless to say, we had a delicious fried chicken dinner that night.

Judith Block in Peru, 2002.

We were escorted out to the main road. We waved good-bye and were on our way by 5:30 p.m. It was starting to get dark and we rode at a fairly rapid pace trying to get to the tarred road before the light was entirely gone, it was very eerie at points - crossing those wooden bridges, wading through the water, waiting for the canoe, and at places like the dark forest overhead on the water. It was dark when we arrived at the tarred road. We pedaled on and made it home by 8:30 p.m., tired and exhausted, and overwhelmed by the days’ experiences.”•

Judith Bloch, Nigeria 20, recently retired from a long public service career (38 years) as a Deputy Probation Officer working with adolescents in Los Angeles County. She was the lead investigator for Child Custody cases for many years. Judith has travelled to over 40 countries, and is particularly fond of Asia. Born with polycystic kidney disease, the same condition that killed her father before dialysis and transplantation were available, Judith received a new lease on life after a kidney transplant in 1992. Although her road to recovery was rough and included numerous surgeries, Judith maintained her job as a Deputy Probation Officer throughout her ordeal. Judith skied on the USA Team at the World Transplant Games in Snowbird, Utah, January, 1999. She is going skiing this season at Mammoth Mountain. Judith is also a Fine Artist who specializes in portraits and created a painting promoting donor awareness that is now featured on a greeting card. Judith continues to volunteer in the community, and most recently assisted at a fund raiser for Penny Lane, an adolescent placement facility.

Sets of 10 cards (four of which have been shown in Judith’s ‘Diary of a Peace Corps Volunteer’ are available from her at $20 per set. Write to Judith at 4501Cedros Ave #128 Sherman Oaks CA 91403. (Judith will donate $10 from each set to Friends of Nigeria)

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VSO Sponsorship - Progress Report
A Letter From Irma Fortuin in Pankshin

Working in Nigeria

Irma (l) with Mrs Yakse and succesive VSO working in Panjshin.

I can not believe how fast time goes here in Pankshin. I can remember very well how I left the Netherlands more then half a year ago already.

In the beginnning I did a lot of work in the “modelschool”. I observed teachers and tried to teach some lessons myself. I can not stess enough the word “tried”. I have a lot of experience in teaching but very clearly not in Nigeria. I used the wrong words or commands so the children were not listening very well. After another periode of observing and trying things are improved now. I work mostly together with the science teacher in primary 1 and 2. We prepare lessons every week and by working together I hope the lessons will be more child centered and participatory for the children.

Irma in the Gombe market.

As soon as there is a new English teacher for the junior classes I will start working with that teacher to.

In the College I was suppost to work with two lectures but one of them has gone back to university. With the remaining lecturer I try to improve microteaching. This is not easy because there are 2500 students in NCE 2. To make things a little bit easier I started with the PES (primary education studies) students ( 300 students). I have just finished for this year and I’m now talking with my collegue how we can make some changes for next year.

I’m also lecturing the first year students in general methodology. I found out that I really like to work with students. In Holland I worked mostly with children in the primary school age and this is a new experience. In the course I’m lecturing the previous VSO introduced teaching observation. The students are going to primary schools in the area for three times two hours to observe the teachers. Before the first time students saw children when they went on teaching practice in their third and last year.

Irma with young friends in the hot springs at Yankari.

The students have are writing their assignment now but I hear very possitive feedback from them already.

Soon the next semester will start and I’m not sure yet in what courses I’m going to lecture, so we’ll see what is going to happen. Shi ke nan ( so is it).•

Visit Irma at her Web site for lots more photos - www.irmafortuin.waarbenjij.nu

Man Who Helped Eradicate Smallpox Returns To Africa

By Tom Vogt, Columbian staff writer
November 14, 2004.

BATTLE GROUND - Garry Presthus (24) 66–68 started his public-health career in Africa 35 years ago as part of the global effort that wiped out smallpox.

“If you can start off your career eradicating a disease, it’s tough to do any better,” Presthus said.
There could be a way: ending that career by helping eliminate another disease. That’s what Presthus is trying to do now as a member of the World Health Organization’s campaign to wipe out polio.

Presthus retired from the WHO three years ago, after a 32-year career that took him to a swath of countries from the west coast of Africa to Yemen and to India, then on to the Philippines, where he and a friend spent an interesting day as hostages.

The 61-year-old Presthus has gone back to work temporarily as a consultant, extending that disease-fighting career.

“It would be nice to cap it by being a small part of another eradication effort,” he said.
The Polio Eradication Initiative was started in 1988 by the WHO, Rotary International, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and UNICEF. So far this year, almost 900 people, most in Nigeria, have been infected with polio, a disease which can cause paralysis or death. There is no cure; polio can only be prevented through immunization.

Presthus (pronounced pressed-us) spent September in Zimbabwe and the Ivory Coast. After a month at his Battle Ground home, Presthus is returning for a five-week assignment in the sub-Saharan region of the continent, where health officials hope to vaccinate 80 million children in 23 West African countries. He left Nov. 5 for Harare, Zimbabwe.

It’s a heck of a job commute, but nothing new for Presthus. He was a world traveler before he finished college. After graduating from Battle Ground High School, Presthus enrolled at Clark College. He wasn’t ready academically, he said, so Presthus took a year off to visit family in Norway where his father was born.

That’s where Presthus learned something they don’t teach at Clark: “Studying is better than working as a fisherman on the Norwegian coast in the winter.” When Presthus came home, he took the long way around: Italy, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India and Japan, where he got an engine-room job on a ship bound for San Diego. “I left Norway with $200, and I had $5 left” when he arrived, Presthus said.

After his second year at Clark, he transferred to the University of Washington for a year before taking another break to join the Peace Corps. His two-year stint in West Africa sparked an interest in public health. Presthus joined the WHO in 1969 after graduating from Washington with a degree in political science.

He started out working in Zaire as a member of a smallpox vaccination team. The overall project “vaccinated 24 million people in Congo/Zaire when the official population was 17 million,” he said. “The population figures were later changed to reflect the number we vaccinated.”

It was part of a global health breakthrough. A disease is considered eradicated three years after the last case has been found, and it has only happened once on a global basis: The last case of smallpox was in 1977 in Somalia.

Presthus worked his way up the ladder to national-level leadership positions and then to administrative spots in multination regions. He retired in 2001 after seven years at WHO’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. He managed a unit with a staff of 200 and an annual budget of $200 million. Along the way, he met his wife, Marie-Jeanne, who was born in the Sahara and raised in Morocco. They have two children: Gregory, 22, and 18-year-old Stephanie, who was born in the Philippines on the day former President Ferdinand Marcos was booted from the country.

Half-Day Hostages
They have been in some nasty places, Presthus said, “but not at the worst times.” That hostage thing, for example, could have been a whole lot worse. Presthus said he and a friend, a Dutch doctor, were sightseeing on a small bus on the Philippine island of Mindanao when it was stopped by a group of men. “They saw foreign faces and told us to get off,” he said. “They were Muslim separatists, supported by Libya. “They started to question us. My friend talked us out of it. He convinced them that we were working for the good of the people, and that we were more trouble than we were worth. They held us for half a day, then let us go. We walked back to the road, and caught a bus going back home.” At which point they had some explaining to do. “Our wives were mad,” Presthus recalled. “I can’t remember what they said, but it wasn’t very nice.”

This month’s assignment shouldn’t get that exciting. Presthus will prepare a two-year budget for the anti-polio effort in sub-Sahara Africa. About three-quarters of the world’s polio cases this year have been in Nigeria, where Muslim opposition to polio vaccine has enabled the disease to resurge.
However, polio has been popping up in several other African countries, illustrating the risk which occurs when the polio virus has a safe haven in even one country. “We can’t afford to stop routine vaccination if it is anywhere in the world,” Presthus said.

Did you know?
* Rotary International has been a leading partner in the global fight against polio. Rotary members have raised more than $630 million since 1985, three years before the global Polio Eradication Initiative even began, providing polio-fighting grants in 122 countries. More than a million Rotarians around the world have participated in the campaign that has vaccinated 2 billion children. Rotarians in Angola have borrowed corporate airplanes and helicopters to transport vaccine through a countryside infested with land mines.

* A “polio heroes” fund has been established for people killed or injured in the vaccination effort. A volunteer in the Ivory Coast was honored in October, said Carol Pandak, manager of Rotary International’s PolioPlus program. A brick building used as a vaccination center started to collapse; he was injured trying to protect the children from falling bricks, and was paralyzed from the waist down.

* Health officials estimate 5 million people, mainly in developing countries, would be paralyzed if they hadn’t been vaccinated against polio. The number of cases worldwide has decreased from 350,000 in 1988 to fewer than 700 cases in 2003.

* Nigeria, India and Pakistan accounted for 95 percent of the world’s cases in 2003. But even in those countries, it’s been contained. About 75 percent of all global cases in 2003 were linked to only five of the 76 states or provinces in those three countries. Health officials hope to have everyone in those areas vaccinated by the end of 2005.

SOURCES: Rotary International’s PolioPlus program, World Health Organization‘
Reprinted here with kind permission by The Columbian Newspaper.•

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His Peace Corps Experience Started His Life Long Involvement In Community Issues

By Julian Martin (03) 61–63

The day after Kennedy announced the creation of the Peace Corps, I called Washington and volunteered. I did not want to go to Africa. News from the Congo told of Simbas killing and raping nuns. Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was beaten to death. By the time I heard from the Peace Corps I was about to start night classes in law at Georgetown University. By day I was training to supervise the production of sidewinder missiles at the Naval Propellants Plant in Indian Head, Maryland. My boss, trying to dissuade me from the Peace Corps, told me that we were waging peace by making missiles. I figured if they ever used our Polaris missile we would all be dead from the Soviet counter stroke on D.C. Five engineers near my age were killed in the one month I was at the propellants plant. Africa seemed safer.

Julian Martin (R)and his athletic team at Abbott Boys Secondary School, Ihiala, Nigeria.

After UCLA and in country training, I was picked up in Enugu by the priest and headmaster of my school. As he drove south he pointed with pride to the churches along the way that were built by his tribe of white priests and brothers. “Built by a black man”, he said as he pointed to poorly built churches. We took an unpaved short cut that was busy with pedestrians and bicyclists. The priest drove recklessly. He came close to hitting people, pressed his horn in anger and muttered hateful things as they scurried out of the way. I was feeling dizzy, my face was hot, there was a lump in my stomach.

After about a month teaching chemistry I casually mentioned to the headmaster that only one student passed the first test. The next day he came into my room, lectured the students on study habits and ordered them all, except the one who had passed the test, to line up at the door. As the students passed in front of him he bent each outstretched hand and struck it three times with a cane. He then marched them back in and repeated the process on the other hand. The boys were crying as they returned to their seats. I was horrified. When the priest left I told the students that I was very sorry and that it would never happen again. If necessary I resolved to physically prevent him from beating my students.

The school carpenter told me that his brother was going to Fourah Bay College to study French. He confided, “I am beginning to worry now that all of the money is paid out and he has signed for the courses. Father said no Ibo man could learn French.” I assured him that the priest was wrong about Ibos and that his brother would be able to learn French. He looked puzzled and said, “I have been wondering about this Ireland. Are there any people there but priests? Do they have a government there?” I told him that most of the people in Ireland were not priests and that they did have a government.

Well, I thought that they were all equal and most of them priests and for this reason they don’t know people. These reverend fathers treat everyone like they don’t know any law. They treat workmen like they are very common and only local and cannot do a good job which is worth a fair price.”

About a year after I got back in West Virginia I got a letter from the Irish lay teacher saying that the students at my school had rioted.

I didn’t let the headmaster ruin my experience. Those two years in the Peace Corps were happy, exciting and wonderful. I learned more than any other time in my life, met amazing people and learned to like warm beer, palm wine and palm gin delivered in an old plasma bottle. The boys on my track team were amazing physical specimens, I don’t know how they did it on their protein deficient diet. One athlete only five foot eight could, without any coaching, clear six feet in the high jump.
1962 and 63 were peaceful times in Nigeria. How could I have missed seeing the coming Biafra apocalypse? On a third class train trip from Enugu to Kaduna it was obvious that, while the people of different ethnic groups were kind and helpful to me, they ignored each other. And we had a Yoruba Peace Corps driver who told us that the Ibos ate people!

At the end of two years the admiration and respect for America that I felt in Nigeria extended all the way home through Egypt, Greece, Russia and France. In Moscow the hotel maids were crying as they watched President Kennedy’s funeral on TV.

To be continued next issue…

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