I was a member of Ivory Coast I, a group which trained at the U of Wisconsin summer of 1962. My assignment was at the then Cours Normal at Guiglo, where I taught English for two years and played a lot of basketball with the boys. The director was Jean ....? He had been or rather was a retired military officer...Jean Desproches, I believe. He was very good. Arriving there with somewhat minimalist French, I improved rapidly due to the isolation. A Lebanese merchant spoke a little English; otherwise, it was just m. Basquette. At the 401/2 reunion I met a woman who had worked at Guiglo in the 70s, although it was no longer a Cours Normal and I think she said the faculty was about half-Ivoirien. One of my faculty friends was Marc Morel, who had recently returned from military duty in Algeria. The other French told me I was learning far too much argot from Marc. And I appreciated that greatly!

Don Baskett
passepartout68@yahoo.com

By Donald Baskett (gateway.mcpl.lib.mo.us - 207.160.205.13) on Thursday, May 05, 2005 - 8:14 pm: Edit Post

This is Don Baskett, of Ivory Coast I again. I certainly would like to hear from or see posts from members of the I, II, III groups--or any others for that matter.

My e-mail: passepartout68@yahoo.com