Training at UCLA - slices of memory
From Rpcvdraft
Bill Schroeder, Nigeria XIII: LAX to Enugu - Slices of Memory with Spaces Between
On the day we were supposed to arrive at our training site somehow a number of us found each other at the Los Angeles airport. One of us suggested all the suitcases to go in one taxi and the people in another. The excited conversation is a vivid memory. The adventure was about to begin.
The Dracker Motel near the UCLA campus was filled by our group and a group training for Ethopia. 120 young people living in one complex were preparing to take the world by storm.
Women and men were assigned separate rooms. Bureaucracy being what it is this seemed a significant achievement. Once divided by sexes we were assigned rooms in alphabetical order. At the reception desk I asked for mail for, "Scanella, Schnapper, Schmidt and Schroeder." I loved it.
I have a memory of a number of us hanging around the Dracker swimming pool.
We walked from the Dracker to the Myra Hershey Hall for meals. I observed people hosing leaves off their sidewalk. I remember being somewhat surprised that people in a desert would be so extravagent with water.
Classes at UCLA: I remember some of the Igbo language classes; I can't remember one of the others.
We drank coffee. We talked. Sometimes we went to Will Wright's for ice cream. Another ice cream store nearby had more flavours but wasn't as pretty.
We fell in love.
One man described being on a civil rights march in Alabama. I came from a somewhat right wing family in what we would now be described Lake Wobegon country. Someone telling me they had been on a civil rights march in the Deep South may as well have said they had gone for a walk on the moon.
I remember walking across the UCLA campus on the day after Halloween. Overnight someone had entered a building with an observatory, got on the roof and painted a brilliant orange and black pumpkin on the metal hemisphere covering the telescope. I appreciated both the humour and the excellence of the painting.
When we gathered at J.F.K. airport for the flight to Lagos it was snowing. Our departure was delayed. When we did take off we were told the snow caused the plane to leave with a light fuel load so we would be landing at Bermuda to take on additional fuel. Bermuda -- night, warm, humid, pleasant. I had never been south of New York before. I wondered if this is what the Bahamas felt like.
Landing in Dakar: An airport guard spoke French - naturally. Everyone seemed to be tearing around looking for Marie-France who could tell us what he was asking or we wanting. Was there a stop between Dakar and Lagos? - I have a feeling there was but I can't recall.
We had been told some of our luggage would arrive after we arrived. When we got off the plane and were met by the Director of the Peace Corps in Nigeria that luggage was on the runway next to the plane.
From the airport to our Lagos motel we rode in the back of a large van. Night. No street lights. Everywhere there were little stands with small lamps. We went around the roundabouts "the wrong way". We just laughed. This was crazy. And fun. The energy level is one of my sharpest memories.
After some training in Lagos We took a bus from Lagos to Enugu. Somewhere in the Midwest there was a "rest stop". "Girls use the bushes on the left, boys the bushes on the right."
I remember the huge queue to get on the ferry across the Niger. Some lorries had been waiting for days. Our bus got on immediately. Think.
Enugu: We must have been in the government rest house. At dinner the male waiters with complexions as black as midnight wore immaculate white coats. The meal was delicious. Then or later I have a memory of meeting Warren Zeigler, Director of the PC in the East.
I remember waiting in the PCV rest house in Enugu waiting for the Headmaster who would drive me to the school near Owerri. Indeed, the adventure was about to begin. Why did the Peace Corps stop their rest houses?
