1962.03.01: March 1, 1962: Headlines: COS - Nigeria: 1960s: The Volunteer: Roger Landrum writes: The Peace Corps begins in Nigeria - From The Volunteer Newsletter March 1962
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1962.03.01: March 1, 1962: Headlines: COS - Nigeria: 1960s: The Volunteer: Roger Landrum writes: The Peace Corps begins in Nigeria - From The Volunteer Newsletter March 1962
Roger Landrum writes: The Peace Corps begins in Nigeria - From The Volunteer Newsletter March 1962
Our three months here have given us some background for assessing our commitment. We feel certain about the importance of our work; to offer aid in the development of a stable and healthy nation by working in this University, to establish bonds of friendship by working with the students, and to enrich our individual lives by cross-cultural experience. As I sit here writing this report, one of the last unburnt hills is afire in the distance. Students are studying in the dormitories and professors are working in their offices. I can hear the band from a student dance across campus. The Harmattan has begun to blow itself out, and each day our vision of the surrounding hills, is clearer. Most of us feel very much at home now and are busy with our work. We are wondering if the winter is hard or mild at home. And we are waiting to see what the rainy season will be like. When the new growth will come to the burnt hills, the grass will grow on campus, and we will be able to look back over a term of completed work.
Roger Landrum writes: The Peace Corps begins in Nigeria - From The Volunteer Newsletter March 1962
NIGERIA
(Michigan State)
by Roger Landrum
The thirty people in our group assembled at Michigan State in early September to begin the long trek through eight weeks of intellectual and physical training. We spent five weeks on the MSU campus in an extensive program administered by MSU's African Studies staff and by visiting experts. Then we moved to a biological research station at Hickory Corners, Michigan, for a more secluded but just as intensive three weeks of study.
After home leave, we reassembled on November 24 at Idlewild. Moving out over the Atlantic, a certain sense of common purpose and anticipation of Africa turned our thoughts ahead. We came in off the coast of West Africa in the half-light that precedes the dawn, and landed at Dakar, Senegal, in time to watch the hot sun rise out across the African hinterland. We continued a spectacular flight along the West African coast, where dense rainforests and rivers come out to the Atlantic shores and thatch and wattle roofs of traditional villages, metal roofs of growing industrial towns, and an occasional metropolitan town dot the land. We landed briefly in Liberia and Ghana, and then landed at noon in Lagos, Nigeria. In one short night all the pictures, thoughts, and plans since we had first filled out a Peace Corps application were becoming real.
We spent four days in Lagos, welcomed by Sir Abubakar Balewa, Prime Minister, and by other officials of both the Nigerian and American governments. We were given further orientation, and spent many hours wandering about the town, through the open markets of grains, fruits, vegetables, meats, lumber. We walked along the streets looking at the new skyscrapers; we visited the National Museum of Antiquities which is just beginning to collect the art of the ancient kingdoms and of the tribal craftsmen of Nigeria; we swam one moonlit night in the warm tropical surf; and everywhere we shook hands and exchanged greetings with the very hospitable people of Nigeria.
On November 29 we left on a two-day, 500-mile bus ride to the University at Nsukka. Our road cut through the dense rainforest belt, into the bush, and finally into the savannah land; it took us through the cities of Ibadan, Benin City, over the great Niger River, through Onitsh, and on to Nsukka. From the bus windows, we saw banana and pawpaw trees, looked for monkeys, wiped the dust from our faces, and waved back to villagers who greeted us wit h nun onya ocka: welcome, white man. During our overnight stay, the town called Akure showed us a fine evening at the Princess Hotel, where we made our first bouncing, bungling attempt to learn the supple African Highlife dance and laughed with the Nigerians at our clumsiness.
We arrived at the University the next day, just when the dry season began, and when the Harmattan, the famous "doctor" wind, blows down from the Sahara, bringing fine particles of dust that create a haze which obscures vision, cools the evening, dries the countryside, and dries the colds of animals and people.
The University rests in a small valley surrounded by miles of undulating ridges and dome hills. They remind one of the hills in Alan Paton's Cry the Beloved Country that are "lovely beyond all singing of them." The hills rise above scattered areas of bush and plain. During the rainy season a covering of long, wavy grass grows on them. But by the time we had come, the villagers had begun their annual task of setting fire to the grass to clear the land for a good fresh growth and to flush out animals for hunters. This blackened and charred the hills surrounding the University.
The University itself now consists of some twenty buildings, with others under construction and with areas being cleared for more. Faculty and staff quarters skirt the campus on two sides. Now, during the dry season, the campus is barren, stripped of grass and vegetation by the processes of construction. But over one thousand students and a hundred and fifty faculty members and staff are working hard, organizing the University, molding its spirit, and conducting full-time classes at the same time. For many of the hope of building this nation rests with its universities, and with the highly selected students who are studying here and elsewhere to become the teachers, scientists, businessmen, and artists of a new generation.
Now, after three months on campus, we are all busy with teaching or research assignments. Some are lecturing in history, sociology, political science, English, economics, and music; some are assisting in sociological studies of the surrounding villages; our agronomist is helping to plan an experimental farm; our veterinarian is giving extension lectures in animal husbandry and conducting research on animal death at the Eastern Region cattle ranch; some are teaching secretarial courses and office management to federal employees; two are helping the local district officer take a census; and over twenty are conducting night classes in English language and literature, economics, geography, and mathematics for the University junior staff. We are all becoming involved in the informal work and enjoyment which helps discipline and organize a functioning university.
Since our arrival, we have participated in a number of special events, Some sang at the installation of the first Chancellor of the University, Dr. Nnamdi Aeihwe one of the great leaders of Nigerian independence and the present Governor-General of Nigeria. The Indian community on campus invited us all to a reception and cultural program in celebration of Indian Independence Day.
Occasionally we make trips away from the University. One group of five went on an insect-collecting trip to the rainforest area for the biology department. There they visited several forest and river villages where they were given cocoanuts and a live rooster as symbols of friendship. The district officer invited them to a Christmas dance as guests of honor.
Another group was invited by the social welfare officer to make a tour of Port Harcourt, a large waterfront town. They visited local industrial and shipping facilities, visited a rubber plantation, a palm-oil estate, and homes of University students from the area. Several groups have been invited to attend mask-and-drum dances in celebration of the harvest season. Two Volunteers spent a weekend in a student's home as guests of honor for a family wedding.
But now our work has mostly settled into the rhythms of class schedules, with the patient work of assembling lectures, correcting papers, holding conferences with students, talking late into the nights in bull sessions.
Our three months here have given us some background for assessing our commitment. We feel certain about the importance of our work; to offer aid in the development of a stable and healthy nation by working in this University, to establish bonds of friendship by working with the students, and to enrich our individual lives by cross-cultural experience.
As I sit here writing this report, one of the last unburnt hills is afire in the distance. Students are studying in the dormitories and professors are working in their offices. I can hear the band from a student dance across campus. The Harmattan has begun to blow itself out, and each day our vision of the surrounding hills, is clearer. Most of us feel very much at home now and are busy with our work. We are wondering if the winter is hard or mild at home. And we are waiting to see what the rainy season will be like. When the new growth will come to the burnt hills, the grass will grow on campus, and we will be able to look back over a term of completed work.
Links to Related Topics (Tags):
Peace Corps Annual Report: 1962; Peace Corps Nigeria; Directory of Nigeria RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Nigeria RPCVs; The 1960's
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